Smell the Burger

My new office comes with a price. It's right above the kitchen of the new Royal Oak on Bank St. And connected to the exhaust fan, I'm positive. They started cooking hamburgers at 10:26 today. Lunch rush had ended by about 2, I'd wager, since the smell was starting to wane by 3 pm when I left.

Nice to have the privacy, you can bet your ass. Hard to stay disciplined, but I can get snippy or lovey with the Beard without anyone pretending not to listen. There's a particular kind of busy-ness when one of your co-workers is desperately trying not to hear you whisper fiercely into the phone.

I'm not giving up the office on no count, but if you see me on the street at lunch, kindly don't stand too close or breathe too deep.

But you could take my hands and give 'em a good rough rub. The other downside of the new space is that we can't seem to figure out the temperature control. So last week when it was 24 degrees, everyone was sweating. Today, in the raw April air, we froze. I ate my lunch in my office because the lunch room was too cold.

And there you have it. A silver bun.

My Records Management class is now finished. Strangely, I'll miss my professor. A little bit. I realized today that he reminds me of my dad. Degreased, but still pretty rough around the edges. Also reminiscent in his trying-too-hard-to-be-PC.

My dad has gone from being super homophobic/sexist/racist, "the Alliance is too soft on those immigrants," to saying things like "Well, you know, eventually all the races will be intermingled and turn into one." My mother (and his ex-wife for darn good reasons) nearly spit out her gum. For my part, I tried not to fall off my chair.

Funniest thing that happened to me yesterday: I shut off the light in the kitchen and started walking down the dark hall. Forgot about the mop bucket till it went flying.

"Jesus," the Beard called "What was that?"

"I kicked the bucket," I replied. And collapsed into a heap of giggles.