Contamination

The boyfriend is not going to like this post. He already loathes John. Never having met him but having been fed a steady diet of John-is-the-devil stories for months he maintains that he hopes that he never meets John becuase he would be apt to punch John in the head.

Like I would stop that.

I was ready for a non-event "Monday" (I know its Tuesday, but its the first day after a Long Weekend and it might as well be Monday because it still sucks), just going through backlogged emails and stacks of paper. But as is so often the case in my beige cubicle world, things didn't go the way I planned.

After a few daily visits last week to "check" on my shoulder situation, John mercifully decided to leave me alone. I try to be courteous to him-- I do believe that life would be easier if I could master this skill. But my disdain and my abhorrence of the man that has made my life so miserable for so long just seeps out in venomous sentences and hateful looks. Anyway, today of all days (after my Long Weekend "hangover"-- my term for that first day back to work after a Long Weekend when everything just seems so much worse) he decides to resume these visits.

He came out of nowhere and with a shit eating grin plastered on his face started asking me questions about my arm, which I answered in typical non-plussed fashion. I mean, just because you are pretending to care about my shoulder now, doesn't mean I'm going to forget about all the s**t you have put me through. We're not friends, I don't trust you, and I'm not going to make this easy for you.

So he's going through the motions, and then...he touched me.

His hand touched my arm. I seriously almost hit him in the face. There was no permission asking (Hello? HR? Help?), no warning, just contact. I'll never be clean again. Anna says she won't have lunch with me. I'm ruined. And just as an aside, I'm reading The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson about America's first serial killer H. H. Holmes? And he touched women in the same creepy way- arm touching. And then he killed them. I'm just saying...

He kept going on about how my elbow should be straight at all times (this is the one thing he seems to be the most concerned about), he repositioned my monitors (yes, thats right, monitorS plural, so I can do twice as much work for less) and all the while he is touching my arm, or my hand. And I am repulsed. Then my wall buddy, Betty comes to my window (my cubicle "window", its basically a void of beige felt wall that is accesible from the cubicle next door) and exclaims that John is such a good boss, that he's taking care of me.

I'm pretty sure that my eyes almost bugged out of my face with the effort it took not to laugh. I hope that I arranged my face into a pleasant neutral expression but I can never be sure. Betty will have to be forgiven (although I think I will always look at her with some amount of distrust now) as she has only been in this office for about a month and she doesn't work for John.

After what seems like an eternity, John finally realizes that he might have an actual job to do and merrily skips off. But not before this ominous warning:

"I'll be watching you all day..."

I should clarify that it is to check to my elbow is always straight and supported but given my current reading material, you will forgive my allowing my imagination to get the better of me. He's already come back once and the man is sneaky! His feet make no noise at all and you don't realize he's there until he says "HEY!".

That I even managed to write this without getting caught is a small miracle.

Even my shiny new shoes won't make up for this day.