Not Cool

Phaye was sitting in the office this morning in front of the bank of blank, powerless monitors, reading and dutifully glancing up at them from time to time. I love the seriousness of youth.

I sat at my desk to look at the paperwork that accountant Bethann had left for me. I swiveled from side to side as I read, then further to each side until I was what is called, “Twirling in your chair looking into space.” I stopped before I got too dizzy and I started to think about how I was acting like a brat, resenting doing actual work. I looked at the ceiling and walls, wondering about some improvements and saw a really big spider egg sac on the ceiling in the dim corner of the room. It was a weird place and time for an egg sac. We don’t bother the spiders because if we kill them more just move in. I got a chair and towel to pull the egg sac down and as I reached to get it I saw that the object wasn’t organic, but a tiny black box with a red light shining against the wall where it was mounted. There was a second one catty-corner to it. Security cameras. Someone—one of the electricians or even Dirk-- had mounted these cameras within the last two weeks.

Oh, crap. There was one camera in the break room but nothing in the store room or bathroom. This was messed up. It was so... airport security, hotel elevator, mall parking lot, condo complex. Our little dim office is just any old stupid place? The criteria of the Being & Nothingness Cam Project requires us to be open to what comes along--not to anticipate something, necessarily, but to be ready and flexible. But this was so depressingly common and not in a good way.

I asked Phaye if she’d seen the cameras before and she hadn’t, but she wasn't alarmed. She said that she lived assuming everyone was taped at all times, but it wasn't a problem, or Dick Cheney would be in jail. She said it was a sorrowful and dark heart of society. I hate the philosophy of youth.

I sat at my desk until noon, reviewing how many times I had might have pulled my underwear out of my crack, picked my nose, or dropped something on the floor and then scooped it up and ate it anyway. I wondered if the camera angle could see how much I drool when I fall asleep at my desk.

Tom and Sia came in at 12:30, despicably cheerful, surprising us with sandwiches. April Fool’s! Fake toy cameras! Life at our little wooden-house-turned-office-with-black-lawn-furniture is okay!

The English language has a paltry selection of insulting words for women. Bitch and hag are boring and other stuff is yucky and not funny. You can insult men with a glorious kaleidoscope of funny, vicious, and creative words. Another example of women having to take a back seat to men.

Sadly, I had to leave it at telling them a simple "Piss off" and I went home.