may she be well...

"I don't know what is going to happen with the culture of death in this country...with all these abortions..."

Well that was all I had to hear. I overheard her say that on the phone around the election last year. It popped into my head immediately as I tried to think of the reasons I can't stand the woman. "The woman" being Marge. The 50 something year old annoying Catholic woman I sit next to at work whose mere existence at my work place is adding insult to injury. She is a harmless woman who has lived in Staten Island her whole life. She gives me updates about the temperature in Staten Island, she only reads the Staten Island newspaper, and she thinks the Staten Island groundhog was THE groundhog people care about on February 2nd (hello what about Punxsutawney Phil?!?).

We used to have somewhat pleasant small talk with one another. But you can only hear so much about the pain she has in her arm and her physical therapy and about how she doesn't know if she can make it to her church group after work because she is so busy and so tired. Now we never talk. Well that's not true, she is always telling me exactly where she is going and when she will be back and what to do if so and so calls, and putting little post-its all over my phone. I say good morning when I get in and good-bye when I leave. She is probably the only person on the planet who has successfully mastered the art of getting me to shut up.

Although most people would have a problem hating a God fearing church going lady. I have no problem hating anyone. Alright I don't "hate" her, hate is such a strong word, but she is really annoying. In fact I am sure her presence in my life is just bad Karma for something I must have done. I try to keep to myself as much as possible these days although it is hard with her frequent updates about getting a "cup a tea", going to the ladies room, running to Linda's office, heading to accounting, or wherever else she goes around looking for work. Marge is in fact as useless as I am. Ok, that was mean. She perhaps has some purpose at this job if only because it is her responsibility to heat up her "bosses" lunch everyday.

The thing about Marge is that although she doesn't do shit, she takes her job very seriously and while I get paid to read books and play on the internet she gets paid to look busy. Constantly cleaning her desk, rearranging something, reading and re-reading two sentance emails, sitting at her computer with her hand on the mouse getting ready to click while staring blankly at her inbox. She is always talking to me about how she is not used to the pace and that she will lose her skills. But whenever asked to jump to action she always finds some way to hang up on a caller or print out the wrong document. It must be very frustrating. I think my laid back approach to the work day has had a positive effect on her. The other day she left at 5:28 instead of 5:30 and I don't think she went to confessional about it. She has also worn pants, instead of a skirt, three times in the past year which equals her total number of pants wearing days in the last 24 years combined.

When I try to explain to people why she annoys me sometimes I forget. Yes I suppose I am easily annoyed but the anti-abortion people, as you all know, put me over the edge. Call me crazy but of all the annoying things she does ALL day long that one little comment over a year ago made it almost impossible for me to tolerate her. But tolerate her I must because it doesn't really look like I will be going anywhere anytime soon.

"with all these abortions." Clearly she doesn't know what she is talking about. Her and her church's personal "moral" religious beliefs (that apparently have no problem with the death penalty, the war on "terror", and countless other things that are killing people all over the world) have had a very public effect. It is not easy to get any kind of abortion these days. Today I think I am going to go to the Planned Parenthood website and leave it up on my computer for a little while and hope to make her feel uncomfortable. Perhaps I will even call up and talk real loud and pretend to make an appointment for a "baby killing" and make some crack about how I have got to get rid of this thing because I have a big party this weekend and being preggers is a real downer. Because ya know that's why women get abortions.

Maybe she will try to bring me to Jesus. Then I could go on to talk about all my gay friends and how I believe in evolution. I wish she would just keep her God away from me because I don't think we would like each other very much. And how come I am the one going to hell? Lucky for me I don't believe in hell. I do however believe in karma. She can pray all she wants but she'll get hers. Perhaps in her next life she will come back as an aborted fetus.

I know I know I am a big huge bitch. May she be well. I wish no harm on anyone. But she would think the same things about me if she was allowed to think bad thoughts. I should give her some credit though. Without her I would never have dial car vouchers and would be constantly running out of printer paper. She also always has extra stamps I can buy from her. So there you go a silver lining to every cloud. So I will try to stay positive and take solace in the fact that at least she doesn't bother me nearly as much as she bothers the man she works for.