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vmfx · 3 years

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#1 ANSWER.

It was my first week into my new job that I meet Barney. It didn’t take long for me to realize how much of a low-art asshole he was. One thing they didn’t tell me about being hired to work in this place was to not be myself or have dissenting views.

Only a couple of weeks went by and I started to see how bullish and intrusive Barney was. Ordinary conversations became interrogations. Barney became easily fascinated when he asked me about myself, my point of view, or what my stance was on certain people or subjects. So fascinated that it got annoying real quick. For instance, my co-workers were talking about this since long-forgotten reality show The Jersey Shore. As usual, I could care less about pointless things. I was minding my own business doing my job until I was caught in his crossfire.

“So, tell me. What do you think about Snooki?”

“No thanks.”

“What?You’re kidding me. Tell me you wouldn’t want a piece of Snooki.”

“No.”

“What?! You’re serious!”

“No. I don’t care for her.”

“C’mon! You’re serious, right? Everyone thinks Snooki is hot! You don’t think Snooki is hot?”

“I don’t.”

“So…you’re saying that you don’t find Snooki hot.”

“No.”

“C’mon. What are you? A homo?”

Let’s take the time and run through this. Barney asked me a question and I gave him an answer. Simple as that. He wasn’t happy with my answer because he expected me to say what he wanted to hear. I shattered his expectations. Instead of letting it be, he kept on persisting me for re-assurance because his small implosive mind couldn’t take it. He also assumed to speak for everyone that some non-factor was hot, confusing opinion with fact. When I ultimately refused to give in, he insults me. As the old saying goes, ‘the television is always right’.

Because of this, Barney the One-Trick Pony™ constantly (and falsely) accused me of being gay. He went as far as trying to set me up with one of his lady friends. He even went further in lecturing me on why I needed to be married and why I should carry on the family name.

That was my mistake. I should’ve kept my mouth shut. I leave myself open to this and Barney turns into this Long Island ‘muthuh’ who endlessly criticizes others because they don’t live up to their standards. But he was no normal muthuh, he was a six-foot-three 350-pound 45-year old has-been who lived alone, had no girlfriend, and was very much into queer jokes, six-packs of beer, and phone sex which he openly disclosed to me while I was having lunch.

Perhaps if I criticized Barney on wearing an old, faded, crackling football jersey because they’re pathetic legendary losers who consistently fail to make the playoffs, he would be greatly offended. But I don’t do that to people. Unlike him, I have some sort of respect for others. I also can’t imagine if I called him out on his low-brow world of 1-900 numbers, bathroom stall writing, and online porn; because no one should ever put another person’s manhood in question of someone who watches sports, guns down a twelve pack, and relies on cheap obvious women. God forbid.

**********

Another Sunday, another weekend to disrupt my life and throw away beautiful blue skies, green grass, and white clouds to go to work; to deal with the curious public and an even more curious group of co-workers. When I mean curious, I mean ‘violating my privacy to the point it’s disgusting’ curious.

As usual, anything and everything about everyone working behind the counter is mined, revealed, sensationalized, and talked about for weeks if not months at a time. Whereas cameras are everywhere where I work; their plastic domes, tinted lenses sophistication, and inability to talk have absolutely no effect. But human nature is so cunning and so complex that my co-workers are an even bigger threat. They do everything they can to make other certain co-workers uneasy and destroy whatever sense of boundaries, privacy, space, or etiquette they were supposed to have all for a laugh or two. Our. God. Given. Right.

Elvis, who is best friends with Barney, is one of the most insipid, obnoxious, and mentally bankrupt individuals I have ever met. He always seems to strike up random conversations with me at the worst possible moment, which is usually when I’m working. If it’s not about something I’ve gotten over or experienced days, weeks, or months ago, it’s always the same stale repetitive boring questions. “So, how’s your dad? Is he still staying home? Still watching Maury? Does he go out? What does he eat? Do you guys go out? Where do you go? Do you have fun with your dad?”

Sometimes as I’m having lunch alone in the break room in complete silence, he would sit down with me, uninvited of course, and start asking me those rapid-fire series of pointless questions that are below me because I moved on from that game decades ago. “So what’s in today’s paper? What happened? Anything good? What’s this headline say? Hey, would you fuck Amana Bynes? You wouldn’t? Why not? Are you OK? Why are you feeling annoyed?”

This is pretty much the level of stupidity I endure every day working with Elvis. As if I don’t get enough unwanted unsolicited dumbstruck comments and unneeded questions from customers, I end up having Elvis’s display of genius come to me. It’s very hard to avoid. We’re only a few feet from each other at all times but somehow dumb is so generous where I live that there’s always more to go around and share. It wasn’t until very recently that a red card was pulled right in front of my face that made me dismiss him and write him off totally.

One Friday morning before work, I took Cath- to a salon to go get her cut for her sister Cheree’s graduation in Pennsylvania. My assistant manager Alphonso gave me a very rare Saturday off. It would have been ideal for both Cath- and I to get together for Saturday but it wasn’t possible because that was Cheree’s graduation day. Take one in the loss column. The following busy Sunday at work, Elvis once again pitches for conversation towards me.

“So, uh, how was work yesterday?”

“I didn’t work yesterday. I was off.”

“Oh, really? Off on a Saturday?! How did you end up getting off on a Saturday?”

“I don’t know. Alfonso just scheduled me off for Saturday, I guess?”

“Really?”

“…yeah.”

“So what did you do on your Saturday off?”

“Well, nothing really. I just went to the gym then stayed home for the rest of the day to relax.

“Wow, you went to the gym and that’s it?”

“Yeah, it was miserable out. Then again, all that didn’t matter as my friend was in PA for a graduation.”

“Was your friend a guy or a girl?”

“…it didn’t matter. Nothing really happened that day.”

“Was your friend a guy or a girl?”

“Why are you asking me this again? Why does it matter who I hang out with?”

“Was your friend a guy or a girl?”

I shook my head at Elvis, exhaled, and walked away from him. Next week we will play this game again, but for now I just saved myself from another round on endless embarrassment and unwanted humiliation.

That is why I can no longer talk to people anymore. It mattered so much to this fucking stumble. Elvis was looking to once again take something personal of mine and turn it into a front-page headline for the entire department to throw around, make fun of, and blow up as the workplace news story of the week. Because we’re so needy for excitement and self-gratification that we have to know every little thing that goes on in other people’s personal lives, in this case for my co-workers to use it against me.

This seriously took off on me. Our own mini-NSA-in-training Elvis was really that fascinated as to what gender my friend was. That meant so much to him. He really wanted to get off on the fact that I spent time with a female since the only things that take up real estate in his mind are getting plastered on weekends and “hot girls”, according to him. OK, so what else does he want to know? Did I sleep with her last night? What was she wearing? Was she a Ginger or an Asian? What positions did we do? How long did it last? What exact words did she scream out? Was it good? And did I kiss her goodnight, make her breakfast, or just get dressed and run out of her house? Do I get $100 for every correct answer?

How would Elvis like it if I would stop his world every five minutes to ask about his everyday mundane life of nothing? Would he appreciate it if I would distract him endlessly with pointless questions and ‘yes’ and ‘no’ answers? Would it annoy him to no end if I intruded into his personal life only to ridicule it along with all of the other co-workers around? Should I ask him about the photos his friends took when they drew cocks on his head while he was plastered drunk at a party? Or when was the last time he touched a girl or when had any female gave him eye contact? I wouldn’t think so, either.

**********

Questions. I gave up on them. I no longer have the time, care, or patience to tend or answer them anymore. I don’t deserve to stand in one place with my life being put under a microscope as undeserving people around me are dying to know a lot of things about me that will never pertain or affect them.

I mind my own business doing what I need to do for the day. I only focus on the bigger, more important things at stake. They stand there and start asking me questions about my personal life as it is so special or urgent. It’s not, really. It’s just a little different than others. What could I tell them? They feel unusual enough to stop at every answer and act like they’re so surprised. Really, what is such a big deal about the mundane things in my life that catch them off-guard? Obviously they’re un-accepting and shallow-minded, the blinders they wear have not been widened.

I had gotten tiresome of their interview sessions. I stay away and I do, but only for a while. I have been told to ignore them, to not answer them. I do take the advice but these downturns push harder. They ask and ask and ask and persist to no end until I give up and hopelessly answer because I know they will never stop if I don’t. Somehow my answers complicate things even more for them so the hits just keep on going. It’s a lose-lose situation.

The difference between me and them is that I understand and they don’t. I respect people for who they are because I understand. I have it all figured out so I don’t need to ask any further. Barney and Elvis’s child-like fascination with my life want me to “get with the program” because they don’t get it the first time. Conversations aren’t worth having with certain masturbatory people when they clutch and pull themselves over the answers they are given.

I’m not a celebrity and I never asked to be one. I never asked for them to make me special. I never asked for a circus surrounding my life and I never asked to be put on the hot seat. I don’t need them questioning every move I make in my life when there are better things during the day I need to focus on. I don’t have to answer to anyone if I don’t want to. I don’t need to pay attention to the feeble-minded and uneducated to constantly disrupt my day and waste my time. I have way more important things to worry about other than to satisfy simple minds who can’t figure it out and worry about things that have nothing to do with them. They truly don’t deserve the attention, therefore they will be forgotten about.

#VMFX #writing #personal #oops #WTF #privacy #Long Island

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