Killing Time

Like I always do throughout my workweek, today I sat hunched over my computer for an intense eight-hour period, during which I furiously and passionately avoided working. I usually manage to accomplish this through a combination of sheer willpower and a determined effort to ignore the people phoning me about missed meetings, deadlines, reports and faxes. Usually though, it's surprisingly easy.

Sometimes I’ll play Minesweeper, though because of a freakish bout of luck in my first week on the job, I managed to beat the stupid puzzle in three seconds—a giddy triumph since tarnished by the fact that I will now never ever beat my score again. Unless of course I reset the high score; but that would be foolish, since I managed to sweep mines in three seconds, beating my previously established record by well over a minute and a half. I secretly realize that I’ll probably never be as successful in anything else I ever do, and I can’t bring myself to let it go.

Today I took a sheaf of address labels, and printed this out on it:

On my lunch break, I went and affixed these stickers next to the second floor button of every elevator in the building next to mine. I consider this a public service to the fat and lazy, of which I am a card-carrying member. If I won’t help my brethren, I must ask, who will? Certainly not the lithe and athletic among us. No, they find us too amusing.

Before I left I decided to compile all of the short uncollected fiction written by two of my favourite contemporary authors, David Sedaris and Neal Pollock, from their webpages, and bind them into nice little books. I started doing this around five, and before I knew it, it was actually getting all kinds of late, around seven, seven thirty.

I was just finishing up when the lights went out in my building. I collected my things in the dark and felt my way towards the door, where I fumbled for my keycard and pressed at the blue blinking button in an attempt to get the door open. I pulled. Nothing happened. I squinted at my keycard in the dark, gave the black ribbon part of it a good rub, swiped it through again, and mashed the blue button. Pull.

Nothing.

My heart’s starting to beat a little faster now, since I only recently came back to this company, and was given a keycard I had yet to try out. This, apparently, was to be the testing ground, and so far it wasn’t the rousing success I’d hoped for. I tried again, angrier, holding the button down, jabbing it quickly, leaving my card in, running it through real fast, rutting it through in a quick back-and-forth motion. Pull.

Pull. Pull. Pull.

Nothing.

At this point I’m contemplating actually having to sleep under my desk for the night, and wondering what plausible excuse I’ll have to tell my boss in the morning. I’ve never slept in an office before. It somehow seems perverted, like masturbating in a public place.

I try the card one more time, even though I’m confident nothing will happen. I swipe the card through quickly, jab the button, and give a halfhearted pull.

Nothing.

Shit. I’m going to have to sleep under my desk. I’m actually going to have to sleep under my desk. Like an employed hobo. This is so depressing. And all because those retarded IT idiots couldn’t take their heads out of their fat Quake-playing asses long enough to give me a working keycard.

I throw my shoulder on the door, lay my head against my shoulder, curse bitterly, and fall out into the hallway as the door pushes open.

Yes. Yes, I’m really that stupid. I almost slept the night in my office building because I couldn’t push open a door.

On my way out of the building, I overheard two people in the smoking area talking about my elevator stickers. The guy thought it was kind of funny, but weird. The girl, who was a little fat and for all I know actually lives on the second floor of some building, didn’t think it was very funny. She thought it was cruel. Well, maybe. I felt a little bad. Still, she probably had car keys with a picture of her cat imprinted on the keychain, so I didn’t feel THAT bad.

While reading my collected short stories on my walk to the subway, I didn’t pay any attention and fell down a flight of steps. What's odd is that I somehow managed to land squarely on my feet. Other than a ringing pain in my kneecaps, I was perfectly alright. By all rights I should have been lying on the ground in pain. Or, lying under my desk sleeping. By all laws of survival, my day should have gone much worse than it did. I’m the stupidest man alive, and yet I’ll live to see tomorrow.

I was feeling so giddy I started to wonder if I should hop out onto the street and stop a bus with my hands or something. In the end I decided to take my winnings as they were and go home.