Yabba Dabba Doofus

She has a laugh on her like a 45 rpm recording of Betty Rubble giggling, played back at 33⅓. It drives me nuts. It wouldn’t matter where I was or what I was doing in the building, it would cut right through everything else and get to me like a guided missile. A guided missile of shitty laughter that detonates in my skull. I want to detonate in her skull, if only to keep her from giggling for a few minutes.

The mailroom guy comes down the corridor. He’s been the one she’s been talking to, snorting her brain-sanding giggle at. I wonder if it bothers him at all. I want to ask him. But you can just imagine the impression that makes. Launch a conversation about how much you hate someone for the most trivial of reasons, and by the way, Chatty Chuckles, don’t you hate her too? Might as well just resign and get it over with. That’s not badly playing your hand, that’s wiping your ass with it and flicking the cards at the other players, then pissing the poker chips onto the floor for good measure.

He hands me my copy of The Economist. Yeah, I get it delivered at work to shine the rest of them on. I bet they think I’m a pompous jerk for that. But I see what they get delivered… The Walrus, Wall Street Journal, London Times, New Republic. We all have appearances to keep up. I’ve been thinking about getting Giggles over there a subscription to The Flintstones comic book. Do they still have those? I wonder if she’d get it. Probably not. Deciding to read my magazine later, I strategically leave it at the edge of my desk where it will be noticed. To return to my poker analogy: sometimes, you do let ‘em peek at a card or two.

Mr. O-Face comes around and spots it. About the last person I wanted to. He picks it up, assuming if it’s visible it’s on display. I want to jerk it out of his hands, but if he hasn’t learned to respect other people’s property and privacy by now, what’s the point? He thumbs through it as if looking for the centrefold. “Wuzzis?”

“Just a British magazine. Politics. Economics. World trends.”

“Huh.” He plops it down. For a second, the word ‘British’ seems to spark something, like the hope if he turns back he’ll find the Page 6 girl, but the rest pisses all his poker chips off the table. Okay, I’m repeating myself here.

“So… what’s up?” I prod.

Shrug. He’s bored. I’m one stop on the line. I already know this; why do I even ask? In the hopes something will be different this time. You never know.

I jerk my head at the screen. “If nothing’s up, I’m gonna get back to it, okay?”

“Yeah, I need to get back anyway,” he says.

“To what, grade nine?” I want to say, but of course I don’t. He sticks his hands in his pockets and off he goes like some flesh-and-blood model of the Queen Mary.

I check Page 6 of The Economist. Nope. Ah, well.