9:00 a.m.Sometime in June
The photocopy room is my haven. It is there that I can stare out the tinted window to the Washington, D.C. streets at the trees growing, cars revving, people breathing, blood circulating in their veins to a heart that pumps with life. Life I tell you!
It is abound, outside the climate- controlled cubicles of the demonic conception they called the friendly summer workplace. There, right down there on ironic enough Independence Street itself, are people, respected people with names -- Hello Mr. Business Man! (And for those of you who enjoy Silver Spoons reruns and the Talking Heads, a little music break):
"Check out Mr. Business Man,
Oh, ho ho
He bought some wild, wild life
On the way to the stock exchange
Oh, ho ho
He got some wild wild life."
I'd rather be a schmoozy politician ... I'd rather be a schmoozer of schmoozers of politicians than this. Copy girl, copymeister, staperilizer slash colinater handing out the copies in a skirt-that-shows-far-too-much-thigh-for-company-policy.
I have no name. I am lint on wool sweater fuzz. I am the iceberg lettuce on platter number 47 at a Mexican restaurant. Call me The Summer Intern. I will fetch you a margarita.
And on this fateful day in the copy room, the ink fumes a comforting contrast to the percolating beans, I know I must get out.
I am -- oh this is unsettling to admit -- I am photocopying parts of my body. Sure it is just my outstretched fingers, but if I stay, things may get out of hand!
Oh the possibilities: I proudly show my cubicle-mates my creation, my masterpiece, (I'd like to say thank you to Andy Warhol), of my photo copied hand that I appropriately title "A Cry For Help." I start fantasizing about the fax machine.
11:17 a.m.
Do my cubicle mates laugh? Do they even smirk when I forward them the www.mullets.com Web site? No. Do they not bleed?
11:33 a.m.
Receive mass FWD: Subject: "Not So V. Funny!" e-mail from neighbor cubicle, full of tragic -- very tragic -- jokes. I can hear the bombs dropping. The office is peeing in their pants over this one:
Q: What does an Amish drive by shooting sound like?
A: Bang, bang, clop, clop.
(Note: Please insert WB sitcom-boxed laughter)
12:10 p.m.
Our "team" goes to a "working" lunch at Puerto something or other Mexican dive, and minus the trust falls, we are "bonding" amongst decrepit mule pinatas and pinto beans. Could use a Dos Equis The "office morale" has fallen low as our waiter Paco's pants. Could use a tres Dos Equis.
I foresee a hostile afternoon uprising -- emergence of "Lord of the Flies" factions in the cubicles to the fajita majority rule due to the fact a few people wanted to go out for Thai.
1:30 p.m.
The afternoon is a blur, a malaise only broken by the e-mail that some kind soul has put Belgian chocolates in the office kitchenette. It is a Shot Through the Heart for all the 30-somethings who are on that Atkins diet. They dream of hickory smoked bacon and Jimmy Dean sausages.
3:00 I have lost my stapler.
4:45 I have found my stapler. The angles sing. "Hal-le-lu-jah."
6:01 p.m.
I am getting on the metro. I am swimming the waters away from Alcatraz. Oh, I have been anticipating this moment from the moment I had first hidden my stone pick in my Rolodex so that I could tunnel out of my cubicles. It is rush hour and the metro is an accidental orgy, and I am relieved I am not sandwiched between anyone whose body odor is reminiscent of my taco lunch. "Aren't you glad you used Dial?"
6:04 p.m.
Alas, emerging from the escalator depth of Capital South stop where I meet other interns like myself so that we may drown our paper cut wounds in 50 cent buffalo wings and Happy Hour specials: half price Dos Equis. Michelob Ultra for those with carbophobia.
The bar is a sea of Brooks Brothers suits, and I float among the navy blue, in the summer haze, premature balding men putting their wedding ringed hand in their pocket as they buy drinks for girls who wear skirts-that-shows-far too-much-thigh-for-company-policy. Beads of sweat trickle off the brow of "networking" male interns who refuse to remove their jackets or loosen their ties in fear that they may lose their air of utter sophistication and appear, god help them, "office casual."
"Check out Mr. Business Man,
Oh, ho
He bought some wild, wild life."
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