9:09 p.m. - 2006-01-10
Anybody want a little whine?

I Can't Hear You

It was a tough day at work today. My boss, Joe, has not been in a good mood lately due to a lag in sales. We received a $97,000.00 check today and we needed it badly. I can remember last week when I submitted the cash requirements to pay our bills, how Joe and I went over and over the report trying to figure out how to last until mid February when this $97,000.00 invoice would be paid.

"I'm gonna make your day", I typed into an email, notifying him that this invoice was paid a month early. Greg, the Vice President who is also the man who built this company only to lose the top position to this controlling, neurotic interloper, beamed with pride and announced that it was his personal relationship with the customer that got that early payment.

This comment set up a situation in which Joe was compelled to pretend that he didn't give a shit if this invoice was paid or not. He smugly and sarcasticly kept repeating in his Jack Benny voice, "Paula, I'm giddy with joy, what other good news do you have for me."

Later in the day, he asked me when I was going to hand out the paychecks dated the 15th which is Sunday. I told him I would hand them out the 13th. This launched him into a discussion with all company officers and myself about how they shouldn't be handed out until the 16th for the employees own good because it was a long stretch between paychecks from the 13th to the 31st. Since no one agreed with his need to control the lives and spending habits of company employees, he felt compelled to continue the argument for over an hour until he could get everyone to see it his way or wear us down. Minutia and control are Joe's game.

I came home war weary and saddle sore (from having worn, not ridden in the saddle) and went immediately to see if my homemade chili I had squirreled away from Christmas Eve in the freezer was thawed. It was and I dumped it into a bowl and headed for the microwave.

Just before I turned on the microwave, my Mother in law bellered from her dimly lit room, "Is Michael in bed"? Which in her whiney voice came out more like "Is Mokle in baid"?

"No" I yelled back, offering no more conversation than a quick reply and quickly turning on the microwave which began it's loud HUMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!

"We were both sick today." she started. "I had Dia........"

I put my forarms upon the counter top and leaned forward towards the humming microwave becoming lost in the white noise of the HUMMMMMMMMMMM, which drowned out the droning of the hypocondiacal woman sitting in the darkened room. Now and then the shrill pitch of her voice would penetrate the hum of the oven and I thought I might have heard the word vomit or cough or some other word denoting the sickliness she was always spouting.

Perhaps if she wasn't such hypocondriac, I would have said something like, "I hope you feel better" or "gee that's too bad" but with either her or Mike, if you ask 100 times how they are, 98 of those times they will be sick and regale you with the details.

Today, I didn't have the patience for it so I took comfort and solace in the hum of the microwave. Mesmerized by the vision of a boiling bowl of chili through the little glass window and lulled by the sound of the hum. I was shaken back to my senses by the loud DING. (Yes, it's a 20 year old microwave). The hum was gone and blessedly, so was the sickly whine from the bedroom off the kitchen.

P. I. Yarnsmith

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