Rachel Young

wednesday, october 16, 2002

This morning, I saw a woman (probably in her early 40s) entering the subway station. I was leaving as she was coming in. She approached the turnstile to get down to the tracks, attempted to push her way through, and failed. She moved over to the next turnstile attempting the same thing and was jerked back. She was surprised it wouldn't let her through. Flustered and frustrated, she moved over to the third one, and at this point, I'm wondering if this woman has completely lost her mind.

Finally realizing what she was doing wrong, she shook her head, reached into her wallet, and pulled out her Metrocard. Sliding it through the slot, lo and behold, the turnstile loosened, and she found herself on the other side.

Aigoo.

As I watched this scenario take place this morning, I remember looking at the woman, shaking my head and pitying her (while secretly laughing on the inside). Then a scary thought occurred to me. That woman could be me a few years from now.

I stopped laughing.

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So I got into work this morning, and my boss asked me to revise a very confidential, important document with notes he marked up in red ink.

Okay, simple enough. No big deal. But I put it off to finish up another project.

An hour later while sipping my mid-morning cup of coffee and searching for the agreement, I realized I made a major boo boo.

The first thought that immediately occurred to me: "I cannot believe I did something that stupid. Shoot! My boss is going to kill me!"

Second: "Better update my resume."

Third: "More importantly, I better put away all sharp objects."

Fourth: "OMG! I am that woman at the turnstile."

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When I saw my boss later in the morning, I asked him if he was in a good mood today.

"Okay, what did you do?" he responded without warrant for the accusation. I mean, come on. I was simply asking if he was in a good mood or not. Sheesh. Don't people have the right to ask that question without it meaning bad news is going to follow immediately afterwards?

Okay, so maybe not.

I proceeded by presenting before him a hypothetical situation:

"Let's say the document you gave me this morning . . . kind of, sort of, by some weird mishap or alien abduction . . . no longer existed. I mean not one single trace of it anywhere. Wouldn't that be funny? *nervous chuckle* Or how about we make it more believable and say it accidentally got mixed in with some other paperwork and the shredder just happened to eat it up? Hypothetically speaking, of course."

I smiled, desperately hoping a chair or printer wouldn't crush my skull within the next few seconds.

Silent, he just looked at me, but I could see the fire in his eyes. And then finally he bellowed out, "RACHELLLLLLL!"

He likes to do that just for kicks. He thinks it's funny. He's a strange man.

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So yeah, seeing as I'm still alive to type this up, I'd say it went over real well.

But to get back at me, my boss informed me his "cute" half-Japanese, half-Caucasian friend is having his third phone conversation with the VP of Marketing and Sales tomorrow morning. Looks very promising, he says.

Wonderful. Just wonderful.

Maybe I should get fired now to save myself the humiliation destined to come down the road.

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