Stormy West Texas Weather

The Redhead In The Sandbox

To love a red head is like making love in a sandbox.

I attract them like flies...copper pennies--not dollars, from heaven.

I was coding in my cubicle a number of years ago when Christy showed up out of nowhere, on my right. I was concentrating and hardly noticed her.

"My husband's leaving me." she sobbed. oh gawd...go away These are things I don't want to hear. But they rain down like softball-sized hail in Kansas on a Mennonite wheat field.

She burst out crying.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"He doesn't love me anymore."

"Quit sobbing so loud. PLEASE...Someone's gonna come over and see you and think I did something to you." I said. "Besides how do you know he doesn't love you anymore?"

"HE HAS A GIRLFRIEND!"

She starts sobbing louder.

I put my finger to my lips hoping she could at least be more quiet. I've accepted the fact she would stay in my cubicle for awhile longer. Shit! I shoulda kept my mouth shut.

None of it mattered and her boo hooing got louder. I told her to please leave my cubicle and she ignored me. At the moment I was working on a program and don't want to break my concentration on it. But it was too late. Then my supervisor who is female entered my cubicle...the GrindMachine.

"What's the matter Christy?" she says then scowls at me like I did something. I was afraid this might happen.

"Oh nothing!" Christy says.

"Her husband is screwing around on her." I said without hesitation. "Uh...She just showed up in my office and started sobbing. I was sitting here working." I tried to explain to my boss. I'm not sure it worked.

"Are you sure you are OK?" the GrindMachine asked her again. Butterfly puddles of tears were dropping on my desk and she moved closer to me. I tried to ignore both her and the GrindMachine and tried to finish my work.

"I have to finish this." I say to both of them, staring at my monitor and typing away.

My boss the GrindMachine seems somewhat satisfied and left. "No offense but get the fuck outta my office and quit crying." I tell Christy.

"Can we talk later?" she said.

"Yes, yes...just get outta my office." I was getting pissed.

She whimpers off and I was relieved but I know I am going to have to explain this to the GrindMachine later. Chances were good that her husband wasn't leaving her at all and she came crying into my cubicle for some other God-forsaken reason unknown to anyone but her. God dammit....the GrindMachine will drill me into the chair like a stripped out screw and probably ask Christy if she needs to file a grievance to HR.

I'm so fucked.

~~~~

Christy was a cutie as far as that goes. She was notorious in the office. She was a pathological liar and the stories she told though interesting were always hard to believe. Her life was the Titanic headed for the iceberg but I couldn't put my finger on why this was. It seemed like she had one disaster after another. Christy would say things like, she had known so and so in high school and dated Mr. SoAndSo and Mr. SoAndSo had no idea who she was. It was weird. Her wild stories were legion. Most people in the office ignored her.

Lies or not, it was her and her stories that were fascinating.

I was outside smoking one afternoon on a Spring day when she decided to follow me and light up too. When she told one of her stories she'd get right up in your face to where you'd get gassed out from her perfume. Sometimes to try to keep some distance she'd end up backing me into a corner and I couldn't escape until she finished her tale. Then she'd laugh about it. Today though the story got good. Well, as good as moldy bread when there is nothing left in the house to eat that is.

"I went to the lake last weekend with my husband and kids. We rescued another couple. Their boat's motor had flooded and we towed them in." She had this mischievous look.

"Cool," I said, "Did you have fun?"

"You bet we did!" she blurted out. "While we were towing them back to shore, the guy's girlfriend started sucking his cock giving him a blow job!"

"Whaa?" I asked a bit stunned by this statement coming out of nowhere. I played along and I was going to call bullshit on this one.

"You let your two boys see that?" I asked. Who knows if she had kids, I never saw them.

"They were asleep at the other end of the boat." she said without thinking.

"Then that really DOES sound like fun." I said, "But I thought you hated porno movies. Say...did everyone enjoy watching her suck his dick?" I figured I would up the ante and see how this story of hers would grow.

"We sure did!" That comment had to sink into my head for a couple of seconds. And then...

"Can I ask you something?" I was going to see how far she would take this bullshit story. Maybe I would find out why she blurted it out in the first place.

"Sure," she said, "ask me anything you like."

I pondered whether I should ask or not. Even if she told anyone (being the notorious office liar that she was) no one would believe her even if she told everyone in the office.

"Do you like sucking cock?" I asked. That line never works anywhere the first time except in a Mexican whore house.

I was curious to know anyway. Some women love it, some hate it and some women just do it for you. You can tell the difference you know.

She looked at me with that deer-in-the-headlights look. I thought, This is carrying it too far!.

"Of course I do." she said. And she SAID it so matter of factly.

"But I guess I am not good enough at it. My husband is still leaving me."

And then she said, "What I really like to do is..."

I stopped her in mid-sentence before this got way out of hand. I decided that she won this one and probably all future stories as well. I was convinced she could always top whatever I had to say about her stories no matter how much I upped the 'price of admission'..

Now her last statement was a leading one and I stood there smoking, wondering if I should say the next thing that was about to come out of my pin head mouth. In situations like this, it was probably best not to.

I didn't ask her to prove it nor did I want to know what she really liked to do. I stubbed out my cigarette and got the hell out of there.

I am so fucked.

Selling 'swag' at work...
Of Christy's many problems one was money. Her and her family lived with his parents. I found this out one day when I went to the parking lot after work and my battery was dead. She volunteered to give me a ride home. I crammed into the back seat of their VW and we talked and laughed all the way to my house. Her husband didn't say a word and found nothing about me and her amusing.

"Wanna ride in the morning too?"

Bitchin'. I thought. But I knew better.

"Thanks but no." I declined.

I watched as the couple drove off. I could tell they started having an argument the minute I was out the door. It was probably about money.

Because of her lack of money someone had talked her into selling Avon. So during the week the women in the office would pass around her catalog, fill out an order form and write a check for the order. I think they did this more because they felt sorry for her than the fact that they needed any Avon products. This went on for about 2 months. The company looked the other way, as long as the ladies weren't blatant about it.

Then I started noticing that the other women weren't talking to her much and they quit passing around the Avon catalog. Her supervisor was always on her ass about stuff. I would ask Christy what was going on but she gave me some reason that didn't make any sense. Around Halloween see came to my cubicle.

"I'm getting fired" she said. "I lost all the Avon money for two months. They won't let me pay it back either." I knew it must have been a lie.

That was the last time I saw her.

They had given her a choice. Either quit or get fired and have criminal charges brought against her. Apparently, they had given her two months to pay the money back. Something she didn't or was unable to do.

After she left I hadn't realized how boring the office could be. No really....

Earl Thompson: One of America's Greatest

"Love a place like Kansas and you can be content in a garden of raked sand". This begins Thompson's first novel, "A Garden of Sand". If you want to treat yourself to a writer that is full of grit then check out Earl Thompson.