Excuse Me While I Disappear: Tales of Midlife Mayhem by Laurie Notaro

Author:Laurie Notaro [Notaro, Laurie]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Little A
Published: 2022-11-01T00:00:00+00:00

Are You Serious?

I was as surprised as anybody to find out that I really liked going to work every day. For almost twenty years, I had holed up in my little office at home, writing day in and day out by myself. The differences between me and Ted Kaczynski were nominal, especially if you factor in the rate of our beard growth.

I now had work friends. People who wanted to meet me for happy hour. People who wanted to go to lunch with me. People who asked me if I wanted to grab a cup of coffee on our breaks. Even people who didn’t sit in Death Row became my friends, once I showed them that old wasn’t catching.

Sure, there had been some mishaps at my job, but nothing terrible. I’d told someone to punch me in the face at the next staff meeting after a miscommunication during an interview, but I was immediately informed that this was not funny and that I needed to apologize for encouraging violence. After I asked, “Are you serious?” and got an answer in the affirmative, I bought a ten-dollar box of chocolates and left it on my victim’s desk with an apologetic note. And then there was the time that I accidentally kissed my boss, but I don’t need to get into that here.

I loved seeing people at work, and everyone was pretty cool as long as I wasn’t telling them to harm me physically. One day, several of my coworkers invited me along to try out a new bagel place. Since I’m originally from New York, I scoffed until Jim, who was from New Jersey, said he had tried it already and it was great. George, the boss I’d accidentally kissed a week earlier, said that he could also vouch for the bagel place; he was from the East Coast and believed it was awesome.

All right, I agreed. I’m in. I’ll go. Another coworker, Maggie, was also going with us. She, I found out, was the same age as me, and had lived in New York City during the early ’80s, which was evident in her taste—almost identical to mine. She sported vintage sweaters, had bright red hair, and wore Docs to work. I had sensed that we could be friends when I’d started but hadn’t quite sealed the deal, so I was happy that she was coming along too.

Since moving to Eugene in 2004, I hadn’t made very many friends. I was working at home and didn’t have kids. I initially joined groups and took classes to meet people, but this was an utter failure. It was hard to meet people when the most social experience I had was going to a doctor’s office. Almost fifteen years later, I had three friends outside of work, and one of them actually was my doctor. But here at work, the potential was incredible.

So George, Jim, Maggie, and I ventured to the bagel place the next week, and I was happily surprised.

“This is a great bagel,” I said, cream cheese lining my mouth.

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