Everyday Psychopaths, Page 4

This is the story about the worst/best day in my life. Well, it’s actually a story about two days where my life quickly shifted between heaven and hell. Those 48 hours changed my life in ways I could never imagine and that’s why I feel the need to tell you about it.

  The reason my life was hell at the time was mostly Mary Pedersen’s fault. You see, she stole my promotion right in front of my eyes and jumped several steps ahead of me on the corporate ladder, even though I had been sitting at that same desk, working overtime almost every day and stroking my boss, Jeff “Cauliflower-ears” Nicholson’s ego like it was the office pet. But of course, I hadn’t been stroking the part of him that Mary had.

  Things like people jumping head in line doesn’t happen without a reason. Or a treason.

  When I got the news that Mary and her blonde swell of hair had been promoted Executive Sales Manager and was now supposed to manage me, I almost hit my desk with my head, but in the last second I held back, not wanting to grant my so called co-workers the enjoyment of watching my career hopes crumble right before their eyes.

  Sometimes I had thought of quitting, but at age 44 my self-esteem wasn’t good enough to throw myself out into the cruel world of young competition, applications, resumés and interviews. I simply didn’t have the guts to. Besides, I had a family to support and had never been much of a risk-taker.

  Another reason my confidence was at an all-time low was my failure to get it up in bed. And with it, I mean my limp loaf of a penis.

  Any man having experienced this problem knows what I’m talking about. It’s like your best friend in the world letting you down in the moment when you need him the most. You try to pep-talk it, you try to pat it on the head and cheer it up, but it just lies there, depressed and unwilling to rise to the occasion, if you excuse the pun.

  This obviously affected my wife Holly who thought I wasn’t attracted to her anymore, that maybe I was cheating on her or suffered some severe closet porn addiction. But none of these were true. I was as attracted to her as I’d ever been, despite that we both had gathered some extra kilos from when we first met. My problem was not Holly, it was my head. Both of my heads.

  I simply couldn’t relax. No matter how many tapes of whale sounds I listened to, I made Hitler look like a hippie. I was wound tighter than a piano string and if you plucked me, I’d snap.

  My inability to take it easy had also created another problem, which was that my hair, much like my life, was running away from me. The doctor’s term was receding hairline, which made me want to ask the doc where the hell my hair was receding to. Why was it abandoning me? I wasn’t a pensioner. I was a man in the prime of my life (okay, maybe not my prime).

  To add to all of the above, I was also starting to develop a middle-age man-gut. You know one of those hard bellies you can't exercise away no matter how hard you try? Although I didn’t really try to be honest with you, I had bought a treadmill that I walked on every now and then, but it didn’t get me anywhere (haha!). I guess all my afternoon beers and burgers were catching up with me, which made me want to scream THEN WHY NOT MY HAIR!?

  The worst part of it was that I felt my kids were destined to take the same uninspired route. At that point they hadn’t shown any interest whatsoever in excelling in anything and in truth they didn't seem to have much potential either and I was starting to worry that my little swimmers might not have made for a powerful cocktail. I remember trying to get Patrick, then 15 and with a ridiculous little stubble on his chin, to get into sports or music, but the only thing that seemed to bring joy into his existence was to sit on his chubby ass and play video games. “You’ll never get anywhere playing video games,” I kept telling him. Not unless you’re desired destination is the unemployment office.

  But it’s not like my daughter Jane was much better. At 17 she showed every sign of being a hopeless, troubled teenage girl. She had more spots in her face than a pepperoni pizza and she was obsessed with rappers. Rappers! Guys with a myriad of tattoos, gold chains, and vocabularies the size of pamphlets. Who wear tent-size clothes and only mention women in derogatory terms. One dude I saw on a poster in my daughter's room had a sweatband on his bald head and an adhesive on his face! What’s up with that? What kind of message is this for my kids? To tape over your acne?

  The message I wanted to give my kids is that the only thing that pays off in life is hard work, but that was going to be rather difficult as I had just proven myself wrong. The only thing which really seemed to pay off in life, if you looked at the false and seductive Mary Pedersen, was sleeping with your superiors.

  Mary was a go-getter, or let’s call it a go-gettim, and always dressed in tight business suits that made her ass-cheeks bounce like basketballs in a sack. She had a full figure, slightly overweight, but with the fat in all the right places and which was what got all the men in the whole office look away from their screens when she passed by in the corridor.

  The only person who wasn’t looking was my desk neighbor Janice, her opposite, who always wore clothes from another era where the general style seemed to have been brown. Her lips had the fullness of a ruler and she seemed to hate me with gusto.

  And I was fine with that, I didn’t care much for her either.

  Well, I was fine with that until I got the e-mail announcing that Mary was going to be my manager. It shook my world. I got so disturbed by the news that I started panic-clicking around at random with my computer mouse (not that I have another mouse), which in turn led me to click on a spam e-mail. It was for Viagra, so maybe it was my subconscious controlling my actions.

  A few seconds and clicks later, it seemed like I had a virus in my computer. Pop-up windows of teenage girls in almost no clothing and text boxes announcing that I had won millions of dollars kept jumping at me wherever I turned and slowed my already snail-paced computer down to a standstill.

  I learned in an stress management course I once took that when you’re near bursting, you should get up from wherever you are, take a walk, drink some water, try to breathe slowly, count to ten, etc, and that’s why I rose from my chair and with a few brisk strides walked towards the coffee machine.

  Sadly, I wasn’t alone at the coffee machine, there was also Tom, the office parrot. A man with the superhuman ability to always repeat what you said in a slightly different tone of voice. For example:

  Tom: So how’s everything at home?”

  Me: “Same old, same old.”

  Tom (in his squeaky voice): “So same old, same old, huh?”

  He didn’t have much in that skull of his, poor Tom.

  “Hi man,” he said this time, giving me that trademark crooked grin of his. “Did you hear about Mary? Head of Sales. I mean wow!”

  “Yeah. I heard. She’s climbing the ranks.” (I fought the urge to say: “climbing the cocks”).

  “Yeah, climbing the ranks is the word for it. Good for her!” This was accompanied by his signature smile that would make any sane person want to hit him in the face. I could also see that he had something stuck between his teeth. Something small and disgusting-looking. It could have been his brain.

  “Tom, you got something between your teeth.”

  “I got something stuck between my teeth?”

  “Yes.”

  Tom rummaged around his mouth with his finger trying to dislocate that piece of bread, fruit or whatever it was he had stuck in there. I wished for a second that I hadn't said anything.

  “Is that better?”

  He pushed his coffee-stained teeth right in my face and raised his head up enough to give me a good look inside his nose. Besides being the worst day of my life, it was also Nausea Day, where we celebrated boogers and decomposing food remnants.

  It wasn’t better. The piece was still there. But I couldn't watch him do another round of fingering so I said:

  “Yes, that’s fine. See you around, Tom.”

  “See you around!” Tom repeated, pleased as punch for some mysterious reason.

  Stupid people had it ea
sy.

  I took my piping cup of sewage-tasting coffee and walked away from Tom, leaving him to find another man to torture.

  It said “Obama” on my mug. It wasn’t much of a political statement, it was just a gift from my annoyingly handsome and successful friend James who worked as a wire reporter in the White House and who I was insanely jealous of.

  Despite not being a political ploy, my Obama mug did raise some conversational drama between me and my co-workers. Brian Depiro, for example, a big-chested and red-faced republican, always gave me a look or a wise-ass comment when I passed him in the corridor holding the mug. After which I usually told him to go fuck himself.

  Talking about fucking yourself, after I had gotten my coffee I decided to pay a visit to the IT department with the faint hope of them being able to rid my computer of annoying pop-ups. The “guys” in our IT-department had very few human traits. Yes, some would say that the only thing separating them from animals was that they drank coke and typed on keyboards, although I’m sure you can find some half-trained monkeys that can do that too.

  It’s a strange breed, computer nerds. They’re often above average intelligent, but their close-to-zero social capabilities together with a strong fear of work and responsibility put them at one of the lowest steps on my totem-pole of people, with Mary Pedersen being at the bottom of course.

  I knocked on the IT office door (frosted glass so as not to see them not working) and after a second knock I heard a chair rolling and feet moving.

  “Hi, what's up?”

  Rick was not much older than 20, had more metal (piercings and braces!) in his face than Iron Man and always smelled like he had scrubbed his body with blue cheese. He was a “computer wizard” and I was told we should be happy to have him in the company, but he really was an eye-sore for the office. Make that eye and nose-sore.

  I gave him a suspicious look and said, “Hi Rick. I have a problem with my computer. I clicked some spam by mistake. It led to a link which led to a link and at the end of the chain was porn and some annoying windows about online lotteries. Now I can't get rid of the darn pop-ups and my computer is dying on me. Can you help?”

  “What kind of spam did you click?”

  “I don't remember. Does it matter?”

  “Very much so.”

  “Okay, it was about Viagra.”

  Rick posted an ugly grin, “I thought so. That’s the one all middle-age men click on.”

  “Ha-ha, very funny. It was by mistake.” I should have punched him for calling me middle-aged. And I probably would have if it wasn’t true.

  “Yeah, and the 100 gigs of porn on my computer also landed there by accident. Anyway, bring your laptop and I'll have a look.”

  “Okay.”

  “Nice mug by the way.”

  Rick gave me a sly smile. I wasn’t the first Viagra man in the office, which in a weird way was kind of comforting.

  While Rick pretended to work on my computer, I decided to go for an early lunch. It was a nice June day in Washington D.C. which meant the strong summer heat was holding off a bit and we enjoyed a light breeze. I would probably have enjoyed it if I’d felt better about myself.

  Once a week I had lunch with James, who was the only close friend that I spent time with, despite that it always made me feel jealous of him and his life. We had been friends since childhood and had always gotten along fine, it was just annoying to always be the shorter end of the stick.

  James was a nice guy. He dressed nicely. He was nice looking. He talked in a nice way. His wife Rebecca was nice and their son Todd was nice as well. This was also the main problem with James and his family - they were simply too nice. They made you and your loved ones look like a less well-dressed version of the Adams Family, and that’s why I was growing tired of hanging out with James, he simply reminded me that my hair was actually going further than it’s owner (me).

  But no matter how tired I was of seeing his polished facade, we still had lunch once a week and there was no changing that. James loved his traditions and I had nothing better to do. My social interaction with my co-workers was pretty much dead. I had killed it.

  On the worst day of my life we were sitting side by side on a wooden bench digging out of plastic boxes of food court-Asian: mixed rice, vegetables, and chicken, while letting the sun bask in our faces. James looked content as always and I felt jealous of him. As always.

  “So how's the family, George? Everything peaches?”

  I have never liked expressions that involve fruit except for the word “melons”, but that was a typical thing you couldn't say to James. He wouldn't understand. He loved fruit and hated sarcasm.

  “I don't know about peaches. More lemony at the moment.”

  “Why? Something's wrong?”

  “Nah, same old, same old, except I didn't get that promotion I was hoping for. I’ve become the company hamster. Although the wheel is invisible and not moving.”

  “Aww, that’s a shame. I’m sure something will come up, right? They can't keep overlooking you much longer. Maybe if you talk to them, tell them how you feel.”

  This comment almost made me choke on a piece of chicken. Tell them how I feel? This is not Oprah. This is business. If they want to ignore you they can, I thought, but trying to explain this to James was an obvious dead end. He was an eternal optimist.

  “I guess I can try,” I said to please James, but soon got back to my negative self, “but I bet it won't work.”

  “Well, who knows? I have known you a long time now, Joe, and I know you would be a great addition to any work place.”

  Then why can't you get me a job! You have connections! You have influence! Was what was pounding in my head, but what I said was:

  “Thanks James, I appreciate it. How's your life? Everything good with the missus?” My voice sounded robotic and fake and I hated myself for it.

  “Everything's great. Todd is having his violin recital at the convention centre this Saturday and he’s practicing really hard to get those staccato notes working for him. Rebecca is doing very well too with her MBA. Now she really has what she needs to get to the next level.”

  James smiled. He seemed sincerely happy his wife was about to make more money than him. I admired his lack of scrotum, in some strange way. Not to say I had much use for mine at that time, I should have given it to him.

  I pinched a piece of shrimp, stuffed it in my mouth and chewed it violently. Wasn't there anyone I could talk to? I mean really talk to. Someone who didn't think everything was “peaches” or generally fruity.

  “So what are you doing tomorrow evening? Want to come over for dinner? Rebecca is doing her famous meatloaf,” said James showcasing his bleached smile.

  Every dinner with the “catalogue family” left me feeling more hollow and useless than the holes in swiss cheese (I’m sure they do something), but my wife Holly liked to get out of the house now and then, so of course I pretended to be a good husband and said yes.

  “Sure. I'll talk to Holly. But I’m pretty sure we don't have anything planned.” I forced a smile.

  “Great! I’ll buy some nice wine and prepare the Scrabble bricks. You have revenge to claim.” James smirked.

  Table games. The road to hell is paved with scrabble bricks and monopoly money, but James always insisted we play. Why we were friends was starting to confuse me.

  The chess game ended with a bang on the chess clock, some pieces fell over and the two people, one tall black guy and one short, stocky Greek guy, proceeded to argue about what happened and how the pieces stood before the “accident” happened. Likely there was money involved, but the police car parked across the street would probably prevent the players from kicking up any bigger fuss.

  I looked at my watch and pretend to be late. I knew IT might take the whole day on my computer, but I simply couldn't take any more of James right now. Besides, I had dinner to “look forward to”.

  “See you at eight tomorrow then!” James called out to me as I
was walking from the park. I waved and smiled at him. Then I wanted to bite my tongue off for saying yes to dinner and more agony.

  The computer was of course not ready when I got back to the office, instead Rick was out on a late lunch and I was left stranded and computer-less. I looked at my paper notebook where I kept all my handwritten to-dos, but I got so tired doing that I couldn’t help but close my eyes for a while. I dreamt about being the CEO of the godforsaken company I worked for, of firing Mary Pedersen, of owning a large house with straight shingles and a large swimming pool, and coming to work every day in my Ferrari. I even dreamt of my penis standing up for me again.

  Suddenly someone touched me on my shoulder. I didn't know who, because my eyes were closed. When I opened them I saw Rick. Looking amused.

  “I fixed it for you.” he said. “Had a good nap?”

  “Thanks.” I say and pretended not to hear his other comment.

  I scanned the room and saw both Jennifer and Keith looking at me. I could only hope I didn’t have the audacity to snore.

  I turned on my computer and found to my horror...an e-mail from my new manager...Mary Pedersen.

  “Hi,

  As you’ve heard I’m now the Executive Manager of the Sales Team. Therefore I want to schedule meetings with you guys to see what your needs are, how you’re doing, and what we as a team can do better. Just click YES on the invite and we’ll see each other later today!

  Regards,

  Mary

  Oh, like I needed to be reminded that she was now my manager.

  The invite came shortly thereafter. The meeting was two hours later which meant I didn’t have much time to kill myself before.