Chapter 12 – Workplace Safety
I felt Cory tense in my arms as the hero and villain battled it out on TV. We were sitting, or more lying, on the couch in my basement getting our weekly fix. My arms were wound around her waste and I felt her fingers tracing invisible designs along my forearm. Her head was resting against the base of my neck and her long curly hair would occasionally tickle my face. One of those advertisements for the next show flashed across the screen and we both grumbled.
“Does it seem like those keep getting bigger and more distracting?” she asked frustrated.
“Yes, they bug. I hate that one that stays on for like ten minutes telling people regular TV is going away. Please, we all know.”
“I know and it makes the screen all scrunched and stuff. It bugs.”
The show was on a commercial now and Cory turned in my arms so she could look at me better. She kissed my neck and I squeezed her closer. I liked commercial breaks.
“Do you have anything you’re looking forward to tomorrow?” she asked.
“We have a meeting on workplace safety.”
“That sounds fun,” she said sarcastically as she moved up my neck to nibble my ear. She didn’t really care about my meeting tomorrow and as she moved, I didn’t really care much about anything at all.
I tried to concentrate. There was something about tomorrow she would find funny, what was it? More importantly, why was I trying to concentrate on work instead of the girl kissing my neck?
I remembered. “Actually, it may be that Star Wars is leading it.”
She stopped and pushed up from me looking into my eyes smiling. “Are you serious? Can I come?” There was definite excitement in her voice.
I laughed. “Why do you want to come?”
“Hello, looks who teaching it? I’ve never met this guy, but the stories you and Yoda tell…I have to see this.”
Why was I wasting a commercial break on this?
“I don’t think they’ll let you.”
Oh yeah. I’m an idiot.
“Please, oh please let me go,” she pleaded half teasing.
“You work tomorrow don’t you?”
“I’m off tomorrow. Ask Manager–lady, she’ll let me.”
“I don’t think they’ll go for it. What will be our excuse?”
“We can say that we’re going to lunch together and…” she trailed off figuring out the reason.
“I don’t think this is going to work.”
“You’re probably right. Dang it. Oh well, you’ll have to tell me everything.”
“I will I—” She held her finger to my lips. The show was back on.
I woke up with a start to the sound of my phone’s alarm. Cory grumbled and I realized that we had fallen asleep on the couch. Even with my precious Choffy, mornings were hard times for me so I needed two alarms to get me out of bed. The one from my phone was the back up. It was the one that said “no more snooze get your butt out of bed” or in this case, off the couch. At some point last night we shifted because we were now completely lying down. Cory’s back was to the back of couch with most of her right side flopped over me. Her right arm wrapped around me. My right arm was around her too. Well, actually I thought it was more pinned under her. This couch wasn’t all that big and wasn’t meant for two to sleep on. I tried to move my arm to no avail. Great it’s asleep, I thought. My mouth was dry and so was my throat. I was on my back and on a couch. I could only wonder just how bad I snored last night. It must not have bothered her though because she didn’t wake me up. The phone went off again and I grumbled. I nudged Cory with my left hand.
“Babe, we need to get up.”
I felt her arm squeeze me and her head bury into my neck.
“Come on, I know it’s early. You can sleep but I need to get up.”
She mumbled something and I knew she was awake. She kissed my neck and using my other arm, the one I could confirm still existed, I reached over and rubbed her back and again felt her give me a gentle squeeze.
“How long were we out?”
“My alarm just went off, so all night.”
She was quite for a moment. “Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“We spent the night on the couch?”
“I know.” I groaned knowing exactly what she meant. As if my body was waiting for the command, I felt a twinge in my neck that could only mean a day of headaches and a sore neck. Still, it was nice waking up with her even if I lost the use of an arm. I could get used to that. Well, maybe not the arm. This was the first time we had had a ”sleepover”, so to speak, and a new problem arose in my mind: morning breath. I kissed the top of her head and then made sure to breathe away from her, twisting my head like I was stretching. The pain in my neck exploded and I knew instantly that I would regret this later. Cory must have been thinking the same thing as I felt her pointing her head away from my neck towards my chest, sending any noxious gasses away from my face.
We were still for a bit. “I can’t feel my arm,” I said.
She laughed and moved. “Sorry.”
She rolled on top of me, as there really wasn’t anywhere else to go. I felt hot, tingly blood rush down my dead arm. We were face to face now, a place neither of us wanted to be. To my surprise, she still looked cute this early in the morning. The left side of her face had the imprint of my shirt on it and her hair was everywhere, but her hazel eyes were still warm and friendly. I almost forgot about my breath issues for a moment when I thought about how nice this would make my mornings.
“Maybe I should call in.”
She smiled and pressed our faces lightly together. “No, because then we don’t get to hear about workplace safety.”
I ran my finger up her spine and felt her melt into me. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay home today?”
I felt soft lips on my cheek again and then on mine. The good morning kiss was much nicer than I thought it would be. Maybe it was because I already had the morning breath taste in my mouth or maybe because I really liked this girl. I didn’t know and after about two seconds I didn’t care.
“Go take your shower. I’ll make Choffy. Tonight we can go back to this…after you tell me what Star Wars says today.”
She was up and stumbling out of the basement. I followed behind her and up to the shower.
An hour later, I tilted my head to one side and heard a resounding crack. Instantly, relief came to my sore neck.
“Wow, that was freakin’ loud,” Yoda said standing at the entrance to my cube or enclosure, as I liked to call it.
“Yeah, but it felt good.”
“I bet it did. You sleep funny?”
I looked at him thinking for a moment. “Yeah, I fell asleep on the couch.”
“Not during Heroes!” he said, shock and horror etching his tone.
“No, no I would never do that. We fell asleep afterwards.” Wait did I just let ”we” slip?
Yoda raised an eyebrow. “We?”
“Shut it. I don’t want to hear it.”
A mock look of offense crossed his face. “What? You think I would give you a hard time about sleeping with your girlfriend?”
“Bill, you slept with Cory? Wow you guys are moving along, aren’t you?” Adrian’s glee filled voice rang out over the cube wall.
Manager-lady walked around the corner from Adrian’s desk. My heart sank. This was just my luck everyone was here and I knew I was in for it now. Yoda had a triumphant look on his face.
“So how was it? She didn’t laugh or anything, did she?” Manager-lady said with a smirk. Adrian snorted back a laugh and Yoda’s smile was showing every tooth he had.
“No, we didn’t have sex. We just fell asleep on the couch.”
It wasn’t a lie. Cory was really old fashioned and in a way, I kind of liked that.
“I didn’t say you had sex.”
“Oh, whatever ‘did she laugh?’” I said trying to impersonate her.
“Oh, so whenever you are ask
ed if a woman laughed at you, you just assume that they’re asking about sex? So does that mean you get laughed at a lot when you hook up with a girl for the first time?”
“Shouldn’t you be firing someone or something?”
Manager-lady rolled her eyes and walked off. I knew this was far from over and soon most of the office would know about Cory spending the night. The thing that was funny about it was that we didn’t even do anything, unless you counted losing feeling in your right arm. My phone rang and some irate customer saved me from further embarrassment. After I hung up the phone, I was expecting crap for the rest of the morning but it didn’t happen. Maybe they let it go?
At ten, I followed everyone to one of the building’s main conference rooms. Once there, I settled in next to Adrian and Ankle.
“Hey bro, how’s it going?”
“I’m good, you?”
“I’m doing good. How’s your neck? You’ve been rubbing it a lot today.”
“It’s fine. It’s starting to loosen up.”
“That’s cool man. Do you want me to call Cory and tell her she needs to be gentler on you in the bedroom?”
Damn it. I knew it wasn’t over.
“I’m good thanks.”
“Ok, well maybe today’s meeting will be good for you. Safety first, man, no matter how much fun it is.” He winked and tapped my arm with his fist.
I made a fist of my own and flipped him off. He just smiled at me and I heard Star Wars clear his throat. Adrian was on my left sitting closer to the front then I was. She leaned over to talk to me. As she spoke, she pointed to the front of the long conference table we sat at.
At the end of the table was a large yellow-looking tarp thing or maybe a plastic suit. It almost looked like one of the suits you saw people wearing on TV at chemical spill clean ups.
“Welcome to our safety meeting everyone. I will be in charge today so if you have any questions, please feel free to raise your hand. Ok, now my younglings…”
“Younglings?” Manager-lady asked. Star Wars gave her a disapproving look.
“Ahem, your hand?” he said raising his arm, just like my third grade teacher.
“Your boss,” she said sardonically.
“Sorry, what is your question?”
“What are younglings?”
“When a child enters the Jedi order, they’re called younglings until they get older. Then they move on to—” He didn’t get the chance to finish.
“We are adults, not kids.”
“Ah, yes, but you are younglings in workplace safety. Let me demonstrate. Bill, what would you do in the event of a terrorist attack on the building?”
Did he just ask me that?
“Die in a ball of flame and horror?” There were snickers around the room.
“Bill this is serious. This isn’t your love life we’re talking about here.”
My love life? Even Star Wars knew about last night? The thing was the others were joking. They all liked Cory, but Star Wars wasn’t joking. Now I was pissed, but was I going to raise my voice and act mad? No I am above that.
“I don’t know, run and scream? Then maybe see if I can get on CNN.”
There were more snickers around the room. No, I was going to be a dick.
“No you would go to the north parking lot and wait for instructions.”
“Shouldn’t we be trying to get away from the hot zone?”
“Bill there isn’t a hot zone.”
“Dude we’re being attacked by terrorists and there isn’t a hot zone?”
Adrian looked down at her pad of paper. I saw she was trying not to laugh. Star Wars wasn’t amused when he saw her.
“Adrian, do you know how to wear a HAZMAT suit?”
“Wh- what? Why on earth would I know that?”
“What if it was a chemical attack?”
“We’re an insurance company. I mean sure people hate us, the evil empire and all, but a terrorist attack? Come on.”
There was the sound of plastic being flung as Star Wars reached down and unfurled the HAZMAT suit in all its yellow glory.
“Why don’t you come help me show people how to put it on, Adrian?”
I bit my lip and started taking notes. There was no way I wanted to forget any of this. Cory was going to love it!
“Nobody needs to put on the HAZMAT suit. This is not standard Riders safety stuff here,” Yoda said stepping in.
“But people need to—”
“No they don’t. Please can we move on to the things that we need to know?”
Star Wars threw the suit on the table. “In order to keep toe injuries to a minimum there will be no more open-toed shoes allowed on the premises.”
There was an instant uproar. Had this statement been made in an office of men, there would have been a few chuckles and Star Wars may have even made a few people like him a bit more. This however, was not an office of men. In fact most of the office were women that all wore sandals, heals, flip flops and pretty much whatever else they wanted on their feet. Star Wars was going to die—I knew it. I wondered if I should duck out to go to the bathroom. I didn’t want to be filling out witness statements for the Greenwood Village police department all day.
It was hard to make out individual words with all the yelling that was now taking place. Personally, I thought that people were over reacting. Star Wars couldn’t set company policy. He was a nobody like the rest of us. I think it was trying to get Adrian into the HAZMAT suit that must have fired everyone up.
The best part about this meeting was I thought we would really see just how many Jedi tricks Star Wars knew. That thought reminded me of the younglings thing he tried not more than ten minutes ago. Up to this point, I never saw building security but I did now. Apparently, people outside the conference room called, and some poor rent-a-cop with bad acne and flaming red hair burst into the room. He attempted to calm everyone down. It was perfect. I wanted to ask him if he was a stepchild too but I decided against it. All of the guys in the room were edging our way to the door. Red looked like he was itching to use his pepper spray and I thought he was going to get the chance. It had moved from everyone yelling at Star Wars to everyone yelling at each other. This was how riots were born. On the bright side, Cory was going to flip.