A Spicy Mix of People

May 24, 2011

What do you get when you take a Mormon, a Jehovah's Witness, a psychic, and mix 'em all together?

A whole lot of blog material--that's what you get. Please, allow me to explain....

Last week, I walked into my office, and much to my surprise, there was a woman sitting in the office next to mine. I hadn't heard that anyone was renting the space, so I went right over to introduce myself.

"Hi," I said. "I'm Amy. I work next door doing very important things for very important people making very large amounts of money."

Okay, fine. Maybe I've switched the details around a little bit, to protect the innocent...and make it more exciting, but that doesn't matter. The woman was friendly and warm and very pretty. Her office was completely bare, except for one upholstered chair and two lawn chairs.

"Hi," she shyly responded. "I'm Stacy. They haven't painted the walls yet, and I'm waiting until they do to  move my things in."

"What do you do, Stacy?"

"I do spiritual readings," she replied, just as un-self-consciously as some other person might say, "I'm going grocery shopping."

In my head I was thinking, NO SHIZ! YOU'RE A PSYCHIC! I'm scared of you! I think you're cool! I should probably stop going on facebook at work, because you'll totally know! THIS IS INSANE!

But with my voice I heard myself calmly saying, "Spiritual Readings. Fantastic. Very wonderful."

And then we parted ways.

And then I immediately moved my work station to the other side of my office, up against the shared wall.

And then I strained to listen to every word of every spiritual reading she gave--but not too hard, because that would be disrespectful. (p.s. some people really need attorneys, not psychics)

And then I moved it back, because she'd totally know I was snooping.

Then I tossed up a quick blog post about the psychic over my lunchtime.

Then I took it down, because she'd totally know what I wrote.

And then, I finally settled for doing my own damn work, with the door open, watching the spiritual readees come and go and come and go. Occasionally I got to play along, letting them know that no, they didn't need to check in with me before they met with Stacy.

In my mind, my office life was about explode with a healthy dose of f to the u to the n. Or, at the very least, it would be at a smidge more spicy than it had been when I'd break up my days by farting in various vacant cubicles.

The next morning, I came in to work, and I was so early that I was only person in the building. A few minutes later, I heard footsteps coming down the hall, and before I knew it, someone cracked my door about four inches, slinked through the opening, and was standing in my office with a frowny-nostril-flarey kind of thing happening.

It was my friend from down the hall, and her eyes were the size and the shape of quarters.

She pulled up a chair, sat down, took a quick breath and said, "I don't know if you know this already, but I'm one of Jehovah's Witnesses..."

"No way," I interrupted! "I'm Mormon! You can knock on my door, then I can knock on your door, then you can knock on my door, then I can knock on your door, then you can knock on my door, then I can knock on your door! Why didn't I know this sooner???"

She scrunched down in her chair and whispered, "Have you met our new neighbor?"

I nodded.

"Well," she went on, making her eyes even bigger, "as far as I'm concerned, that woman is possessed by demons."

I had no idea how to comfort my friend, and all I could think to say was, "Her sneakers were very white."

Well I don't know?! What was I supposed to say?! As far as I'm concerned, I think peanut butter is possessed by demons since I a) can't stop eating it, and b) almost accidentally put it in James's snack bag every day, even though c) it's just about as dangerous as a loaded gun to some of his classmates. Evil, evil stuff I say.

Any way you slice this thing, I'm not about to get in the middle of it.

Does the psychic creep me out? Absolutely. She induces heebie jeebies every time we cross paths. Not because of the devil stuff, more because I'm worried that she knows I think she's chunky, even though she's not chunky, but I'm worried she can detect that I'm thinking it, so I think it just to test her out and then I regret it in case she's really magical and ends up thinking that I think she's flabby even though she's not. See? Creepy.

And the Jehovah's Witness? No creeps there, none whatsoever. She can hand me her pamphlet, and I can hand her my pamphlet, and she can hand me her pamphlet, and I can hand her my pamphlet, and she can hand me her pamphlet, and I can hand her my pamphlet and, so on and so forth.

So. Tell me. Who works next door to you?

24 comments:

paige said...

i might be psychic 'cause i see a "part 2" coming in the near future...

TheOneTrueSue said...

Door knocking. Hee.

My office suddenly seems really boring.

Mindy said...

I don't have an office with a next door, but one of the jobs I have, fitness instructor, allows me to meet some interesting people. There's a guy who has a bright yellow and a purple stretchy unitard thing that he wears to the gym, and he's serious about his workouts, people. He'll play ping pong like it's the world championships, but it's hard not to laugh when his junk is on display in neon colors, you know?

Mindy said...

BTW, this post totally cracked me up. As usual.

Anonymous said...

That's an awesome post! I am laughing...

you don't want to know who I work with... oy.

Evolving Through Running said...

That was some serious funny. Sadly, my office is completely devoid of any interesting characters.

funderson said...

HA! I work next to a mean lady-lawyer and down the hall a nice bearded builder-guy who's dogs like to come for snacks.

jed-laura said...

my office used to have an atheist jew, an asian ex-catholic gay budhist, a devout catholic, a baptist, and a mormon. It was an interesting mix of people

David said...

Perhaps the perpetual motion of the door-knocking and pamphlet-handing could be harnessed to achieve energy independence.

Katie said...

well, let's put it this way...since I am a stay-at-home mom, I don't have anyone in the office next to me, BUT I have an Ex-JW that sleeps in bed with me at night {aka husband}
Thank goodness his family converted back in the day, otherwise, I don't think I would have been one of the 144,000 that were saved..whereas with being Mormon..I have a much better chance, right?!

Team O'Connor said...

You haven't gotten a reading yet?! Are you crazy? I've still never gone to a psychic but totally would if they seemed kinda normal...which I'm sure most aren't but some people have the gift, right? So I just work with all military people in a hospital but right next door is the Facilities department and they are a mix of gross guys, one hot one and old men.

Amy said...

I'm hoping this post is followed by many more exciting confrontations.

Pam @ herbieontherun.com said...

This post had me cracking up!!! All kinds of funny going on here.

My office is in a rural location with nothing--ABSOLUTELY NOTHING--around it. There's a grocery store/bait shop across the road, but the owners are in trouble with the IRS and it's been closed for months.

Pony said...

I, too, see a part 2 coming!

On one side of me is a sandy trail where motorcyclists like to screech down and scare the crap out of me. On the other side is a convenience store with a woman who will call and tell us when drunkards are throwing piles of nails on my boss's car and trying to get into my car. Good times!!

Lynda said...

I work at home but that has some interesting moments when I'm on the phone with clients and my kids are in the background. When my son was still learning how to wipe after using the bathroom he'd find the most inopportune moments to tell me "my coolie needs to be wiped" - ass up in the air. Never a dull moment.

The Boring Runner said...

I'm 30, and my cube mate is a 61 year old GREAT grandmother..... Oh, and I'm her boss.

Yeah, it's like that.

Wanna know how to quilt?

Shauna said...

My cubicle is right next to a vietnamese catholic...she is quite the interesting lady!

Tara M said...

Another 'LOL' post. Everytime I read your blog I start laughing and Andy askes me what I'm reading.

Anyway, I used to hear some interesting stuff when I worked in Driver Ed (at BMV) because the OUI depart was on the other side of my cubicle. Now I work in records retention and data management (still at BMV) and the folks in Audits on are one side of us and the folks in titles are on the other.

I do get to process death certificates though, that can be interesting... in a morbid kind of way.

Rain said...

Thank you for giving me a good laugh at work!

Laura said...

Hi! Wanted to see if you'd be up for a meetup at the VCM this weekend - maybe at the expo on Saturday or at the finish line? (Though that gets crazy). Drop me an email - laura at 50by25 dot com

Anonymous said...

Hello my name is Zina and I am a Mormon too and you're funny. I bet you didn't know I was going to say that, with your not being a psychic and all.

Blaine said...

My office happens to be in a converted bedroom in my house. Occasionally I will find myself talking to no one. Maybe it's my psychic self?

Kim Kempton said...

So this was my first time reading your blog and it was too freakin' funny. . . Nothing too exciting here to report - work from home so, well you know I had a convicted sex offender next door and still have some questionable charactered neighbors . . .

Ms. G said...

My Cat!

"but I'm one of Jehovah's Witnesses..."

"No way," I interrupted! "I'm Mormon! You can knock on my door, then I can knock on your door, then you can knock on my door, then I can knock on your door, then you can knock on my door, then I can knock on your door! Why didn't I know this sooner???"

That is one of the funniest things I've ever read in my life.