I remember this time in St. Louis, at 3am in a bathroom in an all night restroom...this guy stopped me and my buddy and talked to us for 10 minutes about a charity boxing match he'd been roped into. Another time, I found myself at Northwestern University on a Friday night in a huge crowd waving at the only other black person I'd seen in 20 minutes. There are odd moments in life. Strange.
Whoa!
Here at the "chicken plucking" & ping pong factory and our working spaces aren't too far from one another. So occasionally I'll overhear a conversation taking place, oh, five feet away, that I not only probably should not have overheard moreover I really had no desire to. One such conversation occurred today. Again.
A quick bit of background:
Two guys I work in fairly close proximity to hang out together. One of them is a recovering neurotic [as in was institutionalized neurotic] and the other is a role playing card game aficionado. Let's call them the Blu and Poppi, because the first draft called them Bluto and Popeye, and that got boring and visually jarring after a quick minute. And I'm feeling frisky. Blu is the one still under doctor's care, and Poppi - whom I worked in proximity to for some time - used to give me ideas from his life for that long forgotten script gathering virtual dust on a USB drive somewhere.
Blu scares me. He's a fairly nice guy most of the time, but he really kind of reminds me of Alan in the Hangover, he's there and its cool and then....zing... just a bit too far. You want to say something, but your not sure what. Poppi on the other hand is harmless...in a well, you want to help kind of way. Which kinda makes them halfway perfect to pal around with. They go to the Comic Book shows, and comic book oriented movies, parties and play the online games, etc . Your basic geek buddy-palship. Which is cool, right.
Well anyway for the past few weeks, Poppi has been relating how as of late, Blu has been making him uncomfortable with some his innuendo and jokes. After he described them to me I joked that maybe he wasn't aware of it, but from his telling of the tale, it would be fairly obvious to anyone listening that he and Blu were dating...and as it turned out he was the woman. Which I and a few co-workers thought was funny. Theoretically, Poppi is supposed to be heterosexual. At least I assume so. He does show an interest in women, and there are times I when I over hear him talking to a woman and I have to look over to make sure he really still is at work. He sounds great, but then nothing happens.
So today, I'm neck deep in feathers plucking chickens when I hear this line....
"I don't know what to say to you, that you can fix, so that it will be all better and we will be alright again." It's Poppi and he sounds a little sad.
I wasn't paying attention before then, I was actually "working" and so I'm thinking Poppi is talking to one of the many women he flirts with, but doesn't follow through on. I mean, reasonable to assume, we all have moments at work where personal situations just can't be avoided, which is why everyone in your office might now know your private nickname for partner's woohoo. It's cool. He's having a moment. That is until...
"I'm not sure what you mean." That would be Blu responding.
I peer up over the edge of my workspace and it looks like THEY are having a real moment. A weird moment, but a moment nonetheless.
Awkward.
Poppi mentions some comments Blu made about "putting him to bed", the treatment Poppi got from Blu for being busy one weekend and a few other lines that made me uncomfortable just listening. Right about then I remember that Poppi is a brave man, considering Blu once came to my desk frantically before he realized the music was coming from my speakers and not his own head. Which apparently was possibility. Really.
Normally I'd put on my headphones, duck my head and let it all go. Instead, I'm up and out of my seat in a flash, to the other end of the floor where I take a quick breath and wait until they have to get back to work - approximately twelve feet away from another. With me in-between.
Tomorrow promises to be exciting.
Barkeep, a B-12 shot and Red Bull. I might need wings tomorrow.
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