Good Vibrations
It certainly had the beginnings of a good day.
A near-perfect loaf of pumpernickel (recipe follows), to start with. The newspaper tossed not onto the oil spill (from the car) in the garage, and not into the drain, but on a clean, dry patch of grass from which I managed to rescue it before the rain began. Said rain, just a drizzle really, which made driving to work much more pleasant that the fire-cauldron journey it usually is. And when I got to work, The Flint, cheerily telling me he would actually pay me for the overtime I’m putting in. (I’ll believe that when it happens, but still.)
A forty-minute break at work, not because of someone else’s delay, but because I got a good chunk of work done very quickly. And finally, the discovery that Fazal had left me the latest episode of his favourite TV show to watch. And finally finally, silence! All the reporters but one had gone home, and this one, remarkably, was working sans that cacophonic background music that our reporters are so partial to. So I put on my headphones and turned on the show.
And the copy chief came by.
And he started to talk to the writer in the next cubicle.
So loudly that I could hear him THROUGH MY HEADPHONES even with the volume on MAXIMUM.
He wasn't talking about work, no no no, but about gay marriage and how it is wrong oh so wrong and god never intended it to be that way and it is all about lust and all these people are going to hell and we shouldn’t tolerate this or what will happen to our society next we’ll want to marry animals and lord knows what and I wanted to pluck the –expletive– mouse out of my computer socket and strangle him with the cord and stick his –expletive– head in the drawer and beat him senseless just to give him a taste of what it felt like to have to hear him speak.
The copy chief, whom we shall henceforth refer to as The Annoying Bit of Phlegm That Won't Go Down And Won't Cough Itself Out (or just "Phlegm" to save space), is one person at the Beard that has actually earned his unpopularity. Equipped with a voice that sounds like a dragged out low-fi recording of nails scratched against a metal plate, he makes inconceivably moronic statements, and SOMEHOW NEVER MANAGES TO GET HIS VERB TO AGREE WITH HIS SUBJECT. *breaking a stool*
Long, long ago, I actually had this argument (and several others besides, on choice, on the death penalty, on war, on basically every topic dear to evangelical radioshow hosts) with the Phlegm. I listened while he waxed eloquent on homosexuality, and then argued every point with him. "Not natural!" he said, and I pointed out that it did occur in nature, among mammals, bonobos, for instance. "The Bible says it's wrong!" he said. "In thats parts about Sodom!" Well, I said, isn't that in the Old Testament and doesn't the OT also recommend stoning for adultery and apostasy? How come you don't follow those rules? "Thats is different," he muttered. And anyway, I said, doesn't that story end with Lot having sex with his two daughters and getting them knocked up?
It was the first time I had butted heads with an insurable adult who absolutely refused to be provoked to think. Instead, it enraged him that I used his own book against him (he wasn't even clever enough to lob that old yorker about the Devil quoting the scriptures) and he sulked, and refused to talk to me for two days, which effectively earnt me the envy of the rest of the bureau. Nowadays he doesn't argue with me: he waits till I'm absorbed in some other activity and then comes by and spouts his idiocy just within earshot, but staying safely out of the range of any impromptu missile I might feel inclined to use.
"The god want the peoples to marry only man-woman, not man-man or woman-woman because he say in the Bible that those who marries the same sex is committing sin and the god want me to talk this way as loud as possible because there is peoples in this room wanting to watch their goddamn tv show in peace but if I just GET LOUDER AND STUPIDER MAYBE THEY'LL COME RAM MY HEAD AGAINST THE WALL AND PUT ME OUT OF MY MISERY."
I was actually driven to take refuge at the photo desk, where the Phlegm dares not venture, the combined power of hostile estrogen keeping him effectively at bay.
The peoples is winning this rounds, I thinks.
A near-perfect loaf of pumpernickel (recipe follows), to start with. The newspaper tossed not onto the oil spill (from the car) in the garage, and not into the drain, but on a clean, dry patch of grass from which I managed to rescue it before the rain began. Said rain, just a drizzle really, which made driving to work much more pleasant that the fire-cauldron journey it usually is. And when I got to work, The Flint, cheerily telling me he would actually pay me for the overtime I’m putting in. (I’ll believe that when it happens, but still.)
A forty-minute break at work, not because of someone else’s delay, but because I got a good chunk of work done very quickly. And finally, the discovery that Fazal had left me the latest episode of his favourite TV show to watch. And finally finally, silence! All the reporters but one had gone home, and this one, remarkably, was working sans that cacophonic background music that our reporters are so partial to. So I put on my headphones and turned on the show.
And the copy chief came by.
And he started to talk to the writer in the next cubicle.
So loudly that I could hear him THROUGH MY HEADPHONES even with the volume on MAXIMUM.
He wasn't talking about work, no no no, but about gay marriage and how it is wrong oh so wrong and god never intended it to be that way and it is all about lust and all these people are going to hell and we shouldn’t tolerate this or what will happen to our society next we’ll want to marry animals and lord knows what and I wanted to pluck the –expletive– mouse out of my computer socket and strangle him with the cord and stick his –expletive– head in the drawer and beat him senseless just to give him a taste of what it felt like to have to hear him speak.
The copy chief, whom we shall henceforth refer to as The Annoying Bit of Phlegm That Won't Go Down And Won't Cough Itself Out (or just "Phlegm" to save space), is one person at the Beard that has actually earned his unpopularity. Equipped with a voice that sounds like a dragged out low-fi recording of nails scratched against a metal plate, he makes inconceivably moronic statements, and SOMEHOW NEVER MANAGES TO GET HIS VERB TO AGREE WITH HIS SUBJECT. *breaking a stool*
Long, long ago, I actually had this argument (and several others besides, on choice, on the death penalty, on war, on basically every topic dear to evangelical radioshow hosts) with the Phlegm. I listened while he waxed eloquent on homosexuality, and then argued every point with him. "Not natural!" he said, and I pointed out that it did occur in nature, among mammals, bonobos, for instance. "The Bible says it's wrong!" he said. "In thats parts about Sodom!" Well, I said, isn't that in the Old Testament and doesn't the OT also recommend stoning for adultery and apostasy? How come you don't follow those rules? "Thats is different," he muttered. And anyway, I said, doesn't that story end with Lot having sex with his two daughters and getting them knocked up?
It was the first time I had butted heads with an insurable adult who absolutely refused to be provoked to think. Instead, it enraged him that I used his own book against him (he wasn't even clever enough to lob that old yorker about the Devil quoting the scriptures) and he sulked, and refused to talk to me for two days, which effectively earnt me the envy of the rest of the bureau. Nowadays he doesn't argue with me: he waits till I'm absorbed in some other activity and then comes by and spouts his idiocy just within earshot, but staying safely out of the range of any impromptu missile I might feel inclined to use.
"The god want the peoples to marry only man-woman, not man-man or woman-woman because he say in the Bible that those who marries the same sex is committing sin and the god want me to talk this way as loud as possible because there is peoples in this room wanting to watch their goddamn tv show in peace but if I just GET LOUDER AND STUPIDER MAYBE THEY'LL COME RAM MY HEAD AGAINST THE WALL AND PUT ME OUT OF MY MISERY."
I was actually driven to take refuge at the photo desk, where the Phlegm dares not venture, the combined power of hostile estrogen keeping him effectively at bay.
The peoples is winning this rounds, I thinks.
