Office Trolls

The thing I hate most about Fridays at the office are the trolls. I don't think anything can be done about them: no amount of bug spray or steel-sprung traps seem to reduce their number or deter them from coming out into the open.

I cross the hallway from the small office kitchen back toward my work sanctuary. I have a mug filled chock to the brim with an oily, skunky office coffee, and I must navigate slowly to avoid upsetting the brew. One step. Two step. I march down the hall like a North Korean arms-bearer submerged deep in an icy ocean. Left foot. Right foot. And then I see it.

A dark discoloration in the carpeting. A half-liquidy, half-slime puddle of darkish ooze. It has soaked into the flooring and splashed against the baseboard molding. The sickening sweet and musky odor of the substance overpowers the stench of the office java. Troll droppings. Great.

I pick up my pace, sacrificing some coffee drops over the side of my cup for slim hopes to reach my office sans confrontation. But luck be a scorned lady today: the troll is at my door.

Hunched over and exhaling white plumes of dusty disease motes, the troll eyes me up and down with hungered interest. Sour-apple saliva drops from its lips. Whistling sores pucker its face, opening and closing their mouths in a symphony of decay. "The copier needs a new toner cartridge, my pretty..." it groans with a voice like fracturing limestone. It shifts position and flies and cockroaches pour from the flaps and folds of its skin. Mimicking the sound of blended infants, the troll cackles wildly into the expanse of office hallway, and then dashes into the shadows of a nearby office.

A slimy trail of troll-filth remains hanging from the door of my office. I work myself a few feet into my office, but the place already reeks of a corrupted odor. I feel the blood draining from my face, and my stomach begins to clench. I splash the hot coffee in my face to try to settle myself.

TGIF. In God's name we pray.

Wednesday is here to stay.

Petronox crashes into my office, breathless and agitated. One hand rests against the frame around my office door, the other points down the hallway toward the front of the building. He is trying to tell me something, but all I catch is:

"Look...(pant)...dark...(gasp)...quick...(huff)...now...(rasp)!"

"Is it a monster?" I ask him, reaching across my desk for the small box of raisins I had placed there this morning. One by one I separate a raisin from it's smooshed brethren, waiting for Petro to regain his composure. One by one I place a wrinkled bit on my tongue, and then mash it between my teeth, while Petro doubles over coughing and gagging. I use a #2 pencil to pry some raisin from between my molars as Petro spits foamy saliva onto my office carpet.

There is no way I am going to clean that shit up.

Precise Instructions for Murf's Summer Stew

This recipe entry is dedicated to a special chef out there who, through some delicious creations of her own, has inspired me to improve my culinary techniques and methods.

Now, on with the show: MURF’S SUMMER STEW (recipe based off a recipe from Murf’s mom, who is an artisan stewstress.)




Why is it called ‘Summer Stew’ you ask? Well, because I made it in the summer. BAM! That’s why. Now here is the ingredient list. If you want to recreate this stew for yourself, then you must follow these instructions with the utmost precision. Luckily for you, I wrote them all down. And by ‘wrote them all down’, I mean I will vaguely recall what I think I threw into the crock pot this morning.

1 cup of Stew-beef-meat. Maybe it was half a pound? It was one good-sized handful of those chunks of beef that are already cut into big pieces. It was two small-sized handfuls of those chunks of beef that are already cut unto big pieces. If you have medium-sized hands, then I will trust in your own interpolation methods to figure out the correct amount of beef.
14-17 baby carrots from one of those bags of baby carrots.
2 red potatoes chopped into potato chunks.
1 can of diced tomatoes with the basil on the label.
1/3 of a softball-sized white onion, chopped into onion chunks.
1 and a half cups of SANGRIA BOXED WINE (angelic humming queue here) Maybe 2 cups. Heck, just use as much as would fit in a small crock pot to fill it up to an inch short of the top of the vegetables.

Directions: dump all of the above into a crock pot. Make sure you dump all the juice from the can of diced tomatoes in there as well, as it, combined with the boxed wine, makes the perfect sauce. Cook on High for 8-10 hours.

How it tastes: Friggin amazing. It’s as good as a backrub from the Queen of England.

Office Dream

You know that dream where all of the sudden you are naked at work, and everyone is staring at you? That dream where, one moment you are in your pressed khakis and your sunset-pink button down, standing in front of the big dry-erase board trying to explain to your colleagues some pulse-width correction scheme, and then the next moment you are completely unclothed, chest hair undulating with the breeze from the ceiling fan, naughty bits hung akimbo, your heart's quickening beats visible for all in the conference room to see. That dream where you slowly turn back to your presentation, intensely aware that your pale buttocks are surveying the room, and that every freckle, every hair, every imperfect inch of your skin is screaming out to your audience for attention. That dream where you can feel the heat of those dozens of eyeballs burning through your body, hungrily devouring your every movement, lapping at the lines and angles of your exposed flesh as you shift positions and try to concentrate on explaining your thoughts on time-gain control and multi-trigger levels.

Do you know this dream that I speak of? Well, today I plan to live the dream.

Post Coffee, Pre Demerol

Dillian walks into my office this morning and comments on my work attire.

"Are those grenades on your shorts?" he inquires. His eyes protrude from their sockets. They pulse with greedy desire. "Are those actually orange grenades all over your shorts?"

"No Dillian, those are pineapples." I correct him with all the patience of atomic fusion. "And these aren't shorts, they are jams."

Dillian stutters and convulses in my doorway. He shapes his mouth into a grimace of mental anguish. "Would HR approve of this?" he guffaws at me, his teeth vibrating in his skull. My hand moves slowly toward my bottom desk drawer, where a real grenade sleeps, but then Dillian turns to leave. I can hear him bouncing and sliding down the hallway.

Highway to the danger zone, Dillian old buddy old pal.