2003-01-30

One of my coworkers is particularly neurotic. Like, certifiably so: she had some sort of breakdown a few years ago (the rumour mill is frustratingly reticent regarding the details), and now she only works three days a week, and nobody seems to know what it is exactly that she does � low-stress busy work, I�d imagine, involving glue, macaroni wheels, and safety scissors. She�s nice enough, but she freaks out about very minor things. Like last year, when the directorate was doing a big move and the carpet in everyone�s new office space was supposed to be cleaned, and for some reason her section had to wait an extra few days for this to happen. She sent off a flurry of e-mails about how dirty and unsanitary the carpet was and how she was �deeply upset� about not having a newly-shampooed eight foot square of fugly carpet under her desk. Deeply upset? Shit. I can only wonder at the kind of devastating emotional turmoil she must experience when faced with the real tragedies in life, like getting a run in her nylons or discovering that Revlon has discontinued her favourite shade of Prozac Pink nail polish.

And she has a real fixation on the communal refrigerator. She�s forever trying to work the office into a frenzy of righteous indignation over the disgusting condition of the fridge, and attempting to assemble �clean-up teams� to toss out moldy leftovers. I parried one of her recruitment pitches by saying that I don�t, in fact, USE the fridge. Which is true. If I bring a lunch, I just leave it on my desk until I�m ready to eat it.

This was absolutely too much for her. �You just�leave it? Lying out?� she said incredulously.

�Yeah,� I said. �It�s only for a few hours.�

�But aren�t you worried that it will�go bad?�

�Um, no�it�s usually just a sandwich or something, so��

�But is that safe?�

This line of questioning went on for much longer than could reasonably be expected of a mature adult with intact mental capacity. For fuck�s sake. I shudder to think what kind of exaggerated fantasies she entertains about being surrounded by menacing hordes of potent bacteria. Like the microbial conditions in my bowl of pasta are so incredibly volatile that one wrong move will trigger a virtual Intifada of explosive contagion, like a microscopic Gaza Strip in Tupperware. I can only imagine the well-synchronized operation it must take for her to get her meals to work, storing them in canisters of liquid nitrogen and rushing them to the fridge like freshly-harvested organs to the operating table.

I love the insane. Love them.