Chapter 5 – Just Another Day
I hit the snooze button for the sixth time. I was going to be late no matter what I did so why bother rushing about? I turned my head to see the dim green numbers on my radio alarm. They read 5:45 a.m.. I was screwed. There was no denying it. But on the bright side, I did get an extra few minutes to lie around. Besides it was summer. You were supposed to relax in the summer time. But I didn’t think that Larry or Manager-lady would see it that way. I rolled out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom to brush my teeth. I liked brushing my teeth first thing in the morning. The high tone and vibration of the Sonicare seemed to wake me up, and I had that dentist clean feel too. I hadn’t bothered to turn on the lights in the bathroom yet. That was always the worst part about the ordeal of waking up.
My bathroom was in two sections, or little rooms you could say. One with a sink, counter, and drawers and the other with the pooper and shower. The two rooms connected like a hall with the vanity room, as my mother put it, opening to the upstairs hall. I reached around the little half wall that separated the two parts of the bathroom and flicked on the light. This was the safest way of going about this: the vanity’s light fixture was seriously bright this early in the morning. There were four halogen bulbs in the long silver bar that could light up a runway. And while this light was great for picking your nose, it was excruciating after a night’s sleep. The light in the other room was a big ball light on the ceiling and wasn’t so bad in the morning. The light bulb in it was a pain to replace so three years or so ago I went green and installed a bulb that said it would last for five years. It was on year three right now but I was skeptical about the five year promise. After all, who actually kept a light bulb box and receipt for five years just in case they needed to return it? Ok, if I was being honest, my dad would have. He still had crap from the sixties. but not me, and that wasn’t just because I wasn’t born until the eighties.
When the light came on, I squinted my eyes and averted my bleary gaze into the hall. I swore softly not wanting to wake up the cat, the dog, or my mom. After a moment, my vision adjusted and I was able to switch on the lights in the vanity room. I was standing in front of a white sink and a shiny chrome-looking faucet with brass handles arched across it. Behind the sink was the big mirror, like the whole wall big. The guy looking back at me didn’t look good. He needed to be put back in the oven for another two hours before he would be done.
Up to this point, I was standing on a soft, warm bathmat, but now I had to move to the cold white tile of the bathroom and make my way to the shower. I turned the hot water on full blast and then just a tad of cold. I stepped in and it felt wonderful. I lost my self in steam and everything else nice in this world. When I was done, it was later than I had thought but I was awake and clean. And you don’t want smelly sleepy employees, right? Most mornings I tried my best not to run the hot water out, but normally I didn’t succeed in that goal. Today was no different and it was 6:15 a.m. when I rushed to my car. Now that I was awake, the prospect of being late was getting to me. Thankfully, my car was a time machine. If I was late, I just drove faster thus arriving someplace sooner and changing time. I gunned the engine out of my neighborhood and flew down Wadsworth to C-470. The drive was fine for the most part. It only really sucked in the wintertime or in the afternoon when all the soccer moms were out in force. There was a little bit of a slowdown getting onto I-25 but after that, it was clear all the way to Orchard. It ended up that I was only ten minutes late—well within guidelines.
My computer whirled to life and I waited. There was a small cough behind me. No! I said to myself. Not again. Make it go away, oh make it go away, I thought. It wasn’t going away and it never would. I swiveled in my chair to look at a short woman. Her hair was a wispy blonde and her nose was a little oversized. She wasn’t fat but she didn’t miss a lot of meals either. She was older looking and tended to twitch and mumble. Moleth was a nightmare in the flesh. This woman made all of those who met her thankful for all the time in their lives she hadn’t been there. She was dense as a brick too. She disproved evolution as well; I was convinced of it. People as dumb as her only stayed alive long enough to pass on genetic material by the good graces of God.
Her voice grated on me like feedback from a microphone.
“Go- good morning. You’re a lit little late aren’t you?” she said nodding at me.
Yes, it was 6:40a.m. and her powers of observation were impeccable. Unless of course she needed to observe anything about her job and then, well…
“Yep I was running a little behind…” I didn’t finish. She wasn’t with me anymore. Oh her body was, yes, but her mind, if it existed, was elsewhere.
“Moleth?” I prodded.
“Yes?” she said looking inquisitively at me, like I was the one that just faded into oblivion.
She went on. “When I worked fo- for the Department of Defense, we would have gotten fired if we were as late as most of you here are.” For one, Moleth never worked for the Department of Defense. She claimed to be a master programmer from back in the mainframe days. She often talked about her high-paying job with the D.O.D. where she worked on classified projects like the actual Star Wars and the guidance systems for ICBMs. She left because she wanted a more relaxing job. We all knew she never worked on the top secret missile defense system or anything at the D.O.D. She had a hard time using the mouse on her computer, so I was pretty sure missile defense was out of the question. The only possible thing the military could have wanted from her was some software they wanted leaked to the enemy. You know, something they could steal and upload that would make them blow themselves up. While there is a saying, “All is fair in love and war”, there is still a line in the sand and Moleth was just too far over the line.
I got rid of her as fast as was possible. I found a trick: an iPod can get very loud and headphones block sound to a large extent. The two combined meant that you could ignore most anyone. It was a good trick. Moleth never said anything of value anyway. All she had been doing as of late was talking about her possible vacation to Peru. Apparently it had been in the works for a few years. Moleth was a believer of UFOs. Supposedly there had been crop circles or abductions…something had happened. So, she and her husband were taking a trip down there to help make first contact. Moleth said that the day she checked flights her horoscope was good, and how could you question the paper’s horoscope section? Mine was good today too: I had a chance of success but if it didn’t happen, I would get over it. It was deep.
I spent the bulk of my morning harassing customers. One guy told me to “F off” so I found a way to make his bill higher. All in all, it was turning out to be a good day. Yoda was in meetings all morning and Adrian had the day off for a horse show she was in. That meant that Chester was going to be my lunch companion. We were going to go to the park for lunch. I wanted to go to some place less creepy with Chester but he was adamant and I was too insecure to sit at McDonald’s alone.
At noon, I walked to his desk. “Are you ready?”
“Yeah. What did you bring for lunch?” he asked.
“I got a couple of hot pockets from the company store—gourmet.”
He chuckled and we left the building. The late summer air felt great compared to the dusty cold that the building’s AC pumped out. We walked to the opposite side of the building. There was a small park with a swing set and a play area. Kids were running around playing in the gravel, going down the slide, and digging small depressions in the ground with the little swiveling bulldozers that seemed to be in every playground;. others looked like they were playing hide and seek. All were enjoying the beautiful Colorado day. I couldn’t blame them. The sun was out but there was a small breeze that kept it from getting too hot, and the sky was full of clouds that could have been made from cotton balls. Upon seeing our arrival, a raven haired woman scowled at Chester and seemed to take inventory of her children. I felt an uneasy tingle creeping up my spine and I considered telling Chester I would eat at my desk, but
my hot pockets would be cold by then.
We sat on a bench, Chester unwrapped a sandwich, and placed an open bag of Jolly Ranchers next to us. “Want some?” he asked.
I shook my head and bit into the hot pocket. Bad call; it was still very hot and the melted cheese and pepperoni burned my mouth and throat. As I sat there for a few minutes, my mind went into overtime and my unease was now panic. He had candy at a park and he looked like a child molester. I looked around for flashing lights and I thought I heard sirens but I knew it was all in my head.
Chester spoke jerking his head at the mothers around the park, all of whom were clumped together, better to protect the herd.
“I hate these chicks.”
“Why is that?”
“They always give me dirty looks and tell me to go away, like I don’t have the right to be here. Riders owns this park.”
“Why do they tell you that?” I knew the answer.
“I don’t know. I’ve tried to be nice to them. I offer their kids candy and I even brought them some toys one day. That one over there told me she was calling the cops.”
He harrumphed. “People these days, huh.”
“Yeah, well people are protective of their kids. They’re lots of creeps out there, you know.”
“See and I think that’s BS too. I’ve watched that ‘How to Catch a Predator’ show and if it isn’t staged then it’s entrapment and should be taken off the air.”
“You don’t think stopping pedophiles is a good thing?”
“A, it’s staged, I guarantee it, and B, it’s jacked up to try and get someone to break the law and then expose them on TV before they do anything wrong.”
He looked in his bag to get something else to eat. I scooted away on the bench as I saw the mothers watching us, comprehension dawning on their faces. One mouthed, “Do you work with that guy?”
I nodded and she mouthed, “What’s wrong with him?”
I shrugged my shoulders and mouthed, “I’ll try and get him away from here.”
They all smiled at that and mouthed “good luck” with a thumbs up. Chester wasn’t a danger; I knew that. Well I hoped that, but I still didn’t think it was good for him to be here. What if some father came by? The dude would probably be justified in starting a fight. I would try to get Chester to eat lunch with us more often and try to get him to eat in the building if I could. When we were done, I was able to convince him that if he gave the mothers a few days off they may improve and reminded him that the claims girls ate in the building. He said he thought that eating inside for a few days might not be a bad idea, but that he wasn’t sure.
The rest of my day was a blur after the uncomfortable lunch. Moleth talked to me some more about her trip. I was getting to the point where I was more excited about her leaving than she was, but it wasn’t going to be for a while so I would have to make due until then.