Venting

Paula, my friendly cubicle co-worker, is getting crazier by the day. She said herself just yesterday that she might be getting 'the dementia'. At least her epic three week long phone battle with Hawaiian Airlines over her incorrect frequent flyer miles seems to have been resolved, or at least given up on. So, now we've moved on to the hourly updates on her apparent menopause symptoms. Mainly she whines about them to Flo, who is a remarkably good sport about it. But she has to stand up and lean over the cubicle wall, hands on hips, and talk really really loudly, so that everyone around has to hear about her hot flashes, hunger pains, and sudden memory loss, amongst other things. She asks at least 5 times a day if there isn't some drugs the dcotor could give her. In fact, yesterday she spent a good 15 minutes on the phone with some clinic trying to convince them she was in real need of medication.

She's also been regaling me mercilessly with cat stories. I guess she plays hide and seek with the one cat, now that the other cat is dead. She also enjoys telling me stories of how she stereotypes people at her security check job at King's Dominion theme park. Although, she claims it's also largely her special 'sixth sense'.

Right now, she's making sure she isn't required to help the woman she's on the phone with, cause the woman is asking for info about a county park. She is very pleased to discover that it's not in her job brief that she has to help her or give her any info, even though it would be simple enough to do. This has freed her up to go back into a description of her sleep problems. It must be real tiring to be a hypochondriac.

Yesterday she poked her head up over the cubicle wall and asked very suspiciously if I had seen anyone poking around her desk when she wasn't there. Of course, I said no. On account of I haven't. Most people here wouldn't be caught dead in there. She asked if I was sure, because somehow her timesheet keeps disappearing from the folder she thinks she's been saving it to on the computer. This is the third time I've talked her thru how to find it and save it to the desktop.

I'm really not a judgemental, impatient person, like I'm sure this blog makes me look, but somedays having that incredibly loud, uneducated, red neck voice in my ear for 8 hours really starts to grate on my nerves. I don't even know what to say to most of it, just smile and nod and hope for an incoming call. I've honestly never seen someone work so hard at finding ways to not help people.

She's getting paranoid. She claims she's having memory loss, and she just can't handle dealing with people, and she's having hot flashes. When Flo suggested she try some natural herbal supplements she scoffed and said no way, she doesn't need to get cancer.

Oh, god. Now she's looking at me. Now she's popping over the cubicle wall to interrogate me about my lamaze class, and 'when is you gonna hae dis child.' I really wish I could tape some of the things she says and play them on here, just so you all could share in the experience.

One of these days she's going to be standing in the lunch room staring at you with those dull eyes and giant gums and suddenly sway forward and attack you with a plastic knife, and try really hard to do some damage while you just stand there and ask her what the hell she's doing. Just wait for it.