When It Rains

When it rains, it truly pours. And sometimes it rains 3 inch nails. Three inch rusty nails intent on giving you tetanus.

I go in to the office the next day as usual. And that is where the normalcy stopped.

I get a phone call while en route to the office from the cramped, shaky, disconcerting elevator upon which I was the only person (using the term charitably, now) without a tear drop tattoo on my face. Immediately begin humming "One of These Things Is Not Like the Others" to calm my nerves in closed quarters with murderous ne'er-do-wells. Answer phone cheerfully but never taking my eyes off the others in the appliance-carton-on-a-string contraption.

It is Lars. That "sprain" Hil had suffered to her ankle (not sure I've mentioned it, it was such a blip on the radar of our exciting life) is actually a break and she needs to be home for a few days, can I fetch her?

Of course I can, provided I emerge from the elevator alive, but let me retrieve some work from the office first.

However, upon walking into the Outer Limits I call my department, am immediately waved over by my boss who is wildly gesticulating about something critical to the ongoing security of our nation, natch.

I patiently take a seat at his table as I have a thousand times before. But this was different.

Seems there are changes afoot, positions being eliminated, people bringing in their own people to feather their own nests, new sheriffs in town,  reorganization abounding, yadda yadda yadda, blah-dee, blah-dee, blah.

However the big news is I will have a serious choice to make. Because in a few short months, the job I have will be eliminated.

There is a buzzing in my ears and I am not at all clear on the details of what Don has just prattled on endlessly about following lowering the boom.  I do know I can have what could very generously be described as a "future" in the department, but this is one of those winning occasions where both ends of the lollipop are fairly fuzzy.

I look at Doug directly, and he at me. I can tell he's wondering if I am about to cry (fat chance) or leap across the table and hack open his cranium with the business end of paper cutter that currently resides on his table, for reasons that can not be adequately explained.

I do neither, so he speaks again. Tells me to take a few days and think on things. I tell him I have to go and tend to Hil's ankle. She's broken it. Built like me, something was eventually bound to snap. He laughs and assumes everything is okey-dokey. It is not okey dokey but he'll never hear that from me.

I return to my car, riding this alone this time on the rickety death trap elevator, and immediately start making phone calls.