The Monkey Exhibit

Here’s an actual email I received from someone at the office where I used to work :

“Hello:-)
Well, Shackley* misses you she had to get [a whole box full of computer] paper out of the [supply closet*] this morning…hehe”

*names changed so normal people can understand them.

This got me to thinking: How is my old office doing without me? I expected them to contact me for help a lot more than they do, but so far I have only gotten one request. I hear from one person regularly to chat (whose name I will not give out in this post because she’s nice and this is a sarcastic caricature), but other than that they seem to have adjusted to not having me around any more. Or have they…?

The way I see it, I don’t hear anything because the office has collapsed into complete ruin without me. I can see Dr Tiller holing himself up in the waiting area, crouching behind a protective cave made out of chairs, shirtless and wearing his tie around his forehead (c’mon, he looks like a sociopath in that picture…he is Canadian after all…). There is probably a large, greasy expanse of chicken bones surrounding the chair barrier…and every once in a while a new bone comes flying out to hit a patient waiting to see Dr Miller (more normal looking, huh?). The pharmaceutical reps now know better than to show up without a family size bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken if they want Tiller to sign for medicine samples, something he does by jabbing the rep with a chicken bone and signing in the rep’s own blood (this really messes up the signatures done on laptops and PDAs…).

Out back in the clinical area, the Medical Assistants (MAs) have piled all of the free children’s books (which they are supposed to hand out during young children’s physicals) in the center of the room, doused them with rubbing alcohol, and set them ablaze. A rhythmic dance begins around the ad hoc fire and breaks into complete anarchy as the sprinkler system kicks in. They raise their hands to the ceiling, letting the brackish water (until the piping is flushed…) fill their mouths to overflowing. Unable to see where they are going, some dance through the fire, lighting themselves ablaze until the sprinklers put them out. Others merely run into each other, and often the squared corners of their sideboards, rupturing vital interal organs. When they run out of energy, or collapse of shock, they are found sprawled on the floor with an oddly enraptured smile on their face, periodically twitching as their spent muscles protest the previous few moments’ rampage.

Yes, this is surely a more accurate representation of what has happened since my departure. Luckily, my inside contact is too kind to share this morbid scene with me.