soapboxdiner

Paul and Lila

Lila is a grandmother of the true, fairy tale sense. Pear-shaped and motherly, quiet and comforting. She Knows Things, but doesn't loose her knowledge upon the masses over much; she saves the Things She Knows for appropriate moments requiring insight and direction. She's a good Christian woman who praises the Lord for saving her life and the life of her baby daughter when on a patch of black ice her car went spinning top over tail and broke her back.

She's traditional in that sometimes sweet, sometimes insanely irritating way that only women from previous generations and mind sets can be.

Paul is an insurance examiner who finds the details of his job mundane - beneath him. Instead of reviewing every case of household mold his team of adjusters bring before him to review, he dreams of the Big Cases. You know the ones; the ones that allow him to lean back in his chair and pontificate amoungst his fellow big shots, twirling an imaginary mustache above his narrow lip. But he trudges through those lesser cases - slowly - as if the world of work-a-day is putting him out.

I am the girl with a three page legal-sized paper printout that walks around the office. I'm the girl who effaces self with her head turned down, lest she interrupt the Big Shots like Paul when I ruffle through the papers on his desk. I look for missing or misplaced files. I don't talk over much, kind of like Lila, but I don't talk because if I do, I break concentrated, nearly constipated, lines of thought in the Big Shots. I get over it.

I walk into Paul's cubicle. He has blue bucket after blue bucket under, around, and on top of his desk. The blue buckets hold scores of files, each. As I get down on my knees and crawl into the dark cavern under his desk to inspect his files, I quietly say, "I'm back. You thought you were rid of me, didn't you?"

Paul does not respond at first. I, obviously and in numerous ways, am beneath him. I go about my search and leave him to his Big Thoughts when he absently enters into monologue.

"You. You people. You're like the people who call my house during dinner. You want to sell me things. Ring ring. Want some aluminum siding? Want to donate to the Fireman's Ball? Want to take a survey? Don't you see I have enough to do? I don't want anymore to do. I'm busy. I don't want any of their crap, and I don't want any of your crap either. I'm busy."

"Oh my," I say as I crawl further under the recesses of his desk and hit my head on the wall. "That sounds miserable." But that was the whole of the conversation.

I finish my search and on my hands and knees crawl back into the light. I take my papers, I take my pen, and I take the files I found. Silently I return to my desk and tell Lila the story.

"At first I was offended," I confided, "but then I realized how ridiculous Paul was being. Like he was venting stress and whining like a child. Then I just found him funny."

Lila's mouth closed into a shocked and perturbed "O" before she Shared A Thing She Knows. And the entirety of it was said in six short words.

Oh Paul. Get over yourself, dude.

And that is why I like her so much.

11:33 am - 01.25.03
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