On the way
to the elevator (no direct flight of stairs to the parking deck), I'll
ordinarily pass the cubicle of semi-boss, coworker, attorney, and IT whiz Ben.
I stopped at his cube-entrance this afternoon after I'd shut down my computer,
locked up the essentials, and donned my briefcase.
"I'm
going to make like a shepherd," I announced to him, then stood by, patient
and silent.
Ben pinched
up his face, laid a hand across his mouth, and began tapping his finger on his
cheek as he leaned back to think. I could nearly hear the gears, though in his
case they run pretty smoothly. Let's see; "Make like a drum" =
"…and beat it"; "Make like a banana" = "…and
split". (There's even the tasteless "Make like a baby and head
out".) But a shepherd? Finally he raised his eyebrows in annoyance.
I continued,
"…and get the flock out of here." And turned and began to walk down
the hall. Behind me, I heard (faintly), "You'd better run while you still
can."
Ben may have
been ticked off due to another exchange maybe half an hour earlier. I was
looking over some checks that had come in from a few of our indebted employees.
One check appeared to be someone's entire (US) tax-refund check – it had
"US Treasury" on it, the Statue of Liberty, and so on. The signature
was rubber-stamped (anyone remember Pink Floyd's "When the Tigers Broke
Free"? No?), and I looked closely at the name signed. "Oh, NO!"
I gasped, and leapt out of my chair and headed over to Ben's cubicle.
I showed him
the check, and pointed at the stamped signature. "What name is that?"
I asked.
Ben peered
at it, and began spelling the last name out: "M, A, N, G… E?"
"I
thought it was an A."
"Could
be."
"But do
you know what this means?" I went on, excitement building in my
voice.
Ben shook
his head in cluelessness.
"It
means," I explained as I took the check from his hands and began walking
back to my desk, "that he's an anime of the
state."
Most of a
minute of horrified silence. Then, from Ben: "I can't hear you."
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