dialectic and bizarre
last friday i hid my co-worker's clothes. this dude leaves his pre-approved work appropriate clothes strewn about the storage room and wears street clothes to work, whereupon he changes into said dress-code specific attire. so friday night my devious accomplice and i threw his personal effects in a box marked COFFEE FILTERS, taped it up, and placed it inconspicuously on a shelf of similar-looking items in the back room. and that was that.
not normally a prankster, i had been scheming for quite a while, once this fairly new transfer to our store made his peculiar habit visible. so it's easy to guess whose idea it was. i felt bad when my partner in crime took it even further by setting up an elaborate display of the skimpy remaining articles: he spread ian's green apron over a wooden chair and propped his starbucks hat on top of a toilet plunger behind the back of the chair where the head would be (?). he taped the apron straps to the seat of the chair. he set ian's big clunky black shoes under the hem of the apron, peeking out where the feet would be. finally, he laid a pastry knife across the apron on the chair seat, and drizzled raspberry syrup on the blade. it was brilliant. it had the effect of a museum exhibit between the two bathrooms in the illuminated hallway at night. it's common knowledge that brown st. is haunted, so it appeared the ghost had been wearing barista garb and then slid out of it all. you get the ankles, i'll get the wrists . . .
monday morning i get a call at 6 AM, which i declined to answer, opting instead to listen to the voice mail message, which went along these lines: "natalie . . . this is ian . . . where are my clothes?" taken out of context, this message sounds laughably inappropriate.
as if these mind games aren't awkward enough, i'm still shaking my fist at the stars, humbling trying to defy the gods of fate but coming up so pathetically human. the boy and i seem to have this bipolar relationship: he gets cold feet and splits with me for 2 1/2 weeks while his psychotic ex messes with his head; i spend his absence romanticizing suicide again. just when i decide to let the street fair let-down slide because i really do have feelings for him beyond broken promises, he comes around after a family reunion camping trip, gets his head screwed back on in the woods, and "sorry baby" says it all: he missed me.
i suspect andy got overwhelmed by overlapping job transitions and crazy-ex complications; i spazzed, classically, when he bailed for seemingly backwards-logical reasons. i guess this kind of unstable relationship is inevitable when it involves two neurotic people. we're both still trying to figure each other out. manic meets depressive.
not normally a prankster, i had been scheming for quite a while, once this fairly new transfer to our store made his peculiar habit visible. so it's easy to guess whose idea it was. i felt bad when my partner in crime took it even further by setting up an elaborate display of the skimpy remaining articles: he spread ian's green apron over a wooden chair and propped his starbucks hat on top of a toilet plunger behind the back of the chair where the head would be (?). he taped the apron straps to the seat of the chair. he set ian's big clunky black shoes under the hem of the apron, peeking out where the feet would be. finally, he laid a pastry knife across the apron on the chair seat, and drizzled raspberry syrup on the blade. it was brilliant. it had the effect of a museum exhibit between the two bathrooms in the illuminated hallway at night. it's common knowledge that brown st. is haunted, so it appeared the ghost had been wearing barista garb and then slid out of it all. you get the ankles, i'll get the wrists . . .
monday morning i get a call at 6 AM, which i declined to answer, opting instead to listen to the voice mail message, which went along these lines: "natalie . . . this is ian . . . where are my clothes?" taken out of context, this message sounds laughably inappropriate.
as if these mind games aren't awkward enough, i'm still shaking my fist at the stars, humbling trying to defy the gods of fate but coming up so pathetically human. the boy and i seem to have this bipolar relationship: he gets cold feet and splits with me for 2 1/2 weeks while his psychotic ex messes with his head; i spend his absence romanticizing suicide again. just when i decide to let the street fair let-down slide because i really do have feelings for him beyond broken promises, he comes around after a family reunion camping trip, gets his head screwed back on in the woods, and "sorry baby" says it all: he missed me.
i suspect andy got overwhelmed by overlapping job transitions and crazy-ex complications; i spazzed, classically, when he bailed for seemingly backwards-logical reasons. i guess this kind of unstable relationship is inevitable when it involves two neurotic people. we're both still trying to figure each other out. manic meets depressive.