I often meet people at work who are hilarious. I don't know whether it is true for everyone. I'm familiar with a writers's dream of quitting their day jobs and becoming a full time writer. I really sympathize with that. Actually my favorite place to write is on the beach in some tropic islands just like what Ian Flemming did. He wrote many James Bond books by staring at the sea. Who knows what I will see when I'm in the same situation. Artist Jasper Johns goes to St. Martin every winter just to produce amazing art. So I will definitely try the same and I will do it soon. I actually have been to both Jamaica and St. Martin. The French side of the St. Martin is the most beautiful. I have attached a beautiful picture of Oriental Beach in St. Martin for your enjoyment. Anyway, enough day dreaming.
In the last five years, I find my day job is most inspiring and stimulating. It prompts me to write many comic stories. I will share them here one at a time. The story I share today has caused a room full of people laughing when I was giving a reading at the University Club of St. Paul. It has happened at least six years ago and I have changed the names so no one will know who he is.
Asshole
By Lisa Zhang Wharton
If I could, I
would smash his ugly face. If I were
allowed, I would pull his blond hair off his stupid head. If I don’t get into trouble for killing him,
I would stomp him to death (metaphorically). That was how
much I hated him for calling me “Stupid”.
I met him at work,
which is how I meet most people nowadays.
Work had become my home away from home.
His name was M. He was a short,
blond and well-built middle-aged man.
When I first met him I found him weird because besides constantly typing
at his computer, he also would continually eat Grape nuts. He always kept a big bag of it in his cube. Who would eat Grape nuts all day for fun
unless he was a “nutty person”. For a
while, our workgroup either had celebrations for finishing our projects to the
50%, 90% or 100% point, or “Goodbye” lunches for many contractors we had laid
off. I could soon be one of them. Sometimes I could imagine myself lying on the
chopping board, being slaughtered or simply being run over by a car. Luckily I was still working due to my long
hardworking experience or my pleasant personality. Maybe it was both, or neither. Surviving as a contractor in a technology
company was not easy. Not showing up at parties
would not be looked upon as a positive.
Once I asked M whether he was going to a free lunch/barbecue. He said, “No.
Why would I want to socialize with people who are not married to me or
related to me?” This comment was the
most blatantly anti-social behavior I had ever seen. I was even impressed. I mentally added another comment next to his
name besides “Weird”, “Lovely eccentric”.
One day, he came
near my test station to talk to D who was my friend and also a Caucasian. There were many East Indian engineers working
here. I thought M had a hard time
relating to them due to his small pea brain.
Even though I was not Indian, I had already made many Indian friends
within a few weeks. He started talking to
D about “chips”, the “computer chips”. I
was fascinated. Even though we were
engineers here, most people preferred talking about potato chips. After half hour of intellectual jostling, my
mind started wandering. I knew what his
problem was. He couldn’t stop once he
started talking. D was smart. He told M to talk to me instead, so he could
get back to work. I didn’t know when I
stopped listening. All I knew was that
for the next half hour I just nodded my head while whispering to myself, “Nerd,
Nerd”. I definitely would put “Nerd”
next to his name. I began to worry that
if I kept listening to him, people would start calling me “Nerd”. That was how serious it was.
One day, I was
sitting in a station next to M’s station, typing away. The reason I used this station was that it
had a faster computer. Since I had
automated my tests, I could let it run by itself. So I started chatting with him to pass the
time. He told me that he was going on
vacation. “Where are you going?” I asked.
He told me about some place in Iowa, which sounded so boring that I
didn’t pay attention to which town it was.
He told me that he could put in 40 hours work in two days and go on
vacation the rest of the week. I looked
at him with my mouth open. “How could you
do that?” I asked. “Just work 20 hours a day!” He said causally. “I can go 20 hours on and 4 hours off.” He was not only weird but also the hardest
working person I had even known. Later I
found out that he actually didn’t work twenty hours a day. He just said it. Did he try to impress me? If so, there was no need. He had already impressed me with his weirdness.
I didn’t know at
what point he started to dislike me. He
gave me no reason or warning. All he did
was being rude to me. Then I realized
that it was not him who didn’t like socializing, but rather the other engineers
who didn’t like to mingle with him. Also
he had a habit of ignoring every woman engineer’s opinion.
One day, I saw him
chatting with another engineer, which intrigued my curiosity so much that I
made a mistake of joining in. Of course,
it was not pretty afterwards. He and the
bearded engineer were talking about driving accidents. I remembered that I had something spectacular
to report.
“One day, as I was
driving to work, the car in front of me rear-ended the car in front. I slammed on the brakes, knowing that it
might be too late. Miraculously I
stopped just one inch behind the car.
Hurray. Without stopping for
another minute to calm down, I went around the cars and drove away because I
didn’t want to be late for work.”
“Do you know there
is a state law requiring a material witness to an accident to file a report
with the police?” He cocked his head
with one of his satirical smiles.
“I didn’t know
that.” I said honestly.
“You are stupid
for not knowing such a simple law,” said M.
He called me
stupid. He called me STUPID. I didn’t remember anyone ever calling me
“STUPID”. I could feel my head
expanding, blood rushing toward my brain, and vessels on the verge of
bursting. Actually, a few capillary
vessels had already burst.
“You,
asshole!” I couldn’t help blurting this
out. “You, asshole!” The second time, it was louder.
Then I raised my
fist.
“Stop, lady.” He tried to stop my fist from hitting his
face.
“You stop! You try to use the rule: that the more you
ignore a lady, the more she likes you.
Let me tell you that I’m not that kind of lady.”
I hit him in the
face. The blow was so weak that didn’t
break his nose or anything. He smiled, a
big smile showing his crooked teeth that I had never seen before.
