See You in Hell!

Last week I finished reading Dante's Inferno at work. I did this partly because it can be awfully slow, so it's nice to have some reading material; but mostly it's just that the performance artist in me relishes the aesthetic I create by reading it in my little beige government-issue cubicle.

Probably the most demonic figure in our office is the Bitching Smoker, of whom I've written before; though she's really not evil at all, just in a very, very bad mood. She's worked for the state for 20-odd years, so this is somewhat understandable.

"Good morning," she said to me, when I smiled at her one day as she was retrieving papers from the printer just outside my cube. But before I could respond, she corrected herself: "No - just 'Morning.' Nothing good about it," glared at me, and stalked off.

She has a point, I guess. Everyone knows there's a special circle in Hell for the unacceptably perky, even though Dante doesn't mention it. We probably end up tangled in Satan's leg hair.

B.S. works one aisle over from me. Fortunately, I'm surrounded by people I like on every side; but Robbie sits next to B.S., and if you ask him, he'll tell you how he feels about it.

This morning, our lead worker, with whom Robbie and I took a day trip to Bryan last week, mentioned that he needed to take another day trip out to Yoakum, along with the Yoakum rep from our office, to meet with the District Coordinator there. Since Robbie and I got out to Bryan, my other new-hire cohort, Jason, jumped at the chance to take a day out of the office for a road trip, and got permission to go along. He shuffled around some appointments and then hastened into my neighbor A's cube to announce, "Hey, I'm going to Yoakum with you!"

A was taken aback. "What do you mean?" she said. "I'm not going - Yoakum's not my district."

"What? I thought you were Yoakum!" said Jason. "Who's going, then?"

"Robert and B.S.!" said A.

"Holy Shit!" cried poor Jason, realizing horribly that he had just signed up to spend several hours enclosed in an aging Jeep Cherokee with the bane of our collective existence.

And as if that weren't bad enough, there's no legroom whatsoever in the back of those things, but she has to sit in front because she gets carsick.

They weren't back by the time I left for the day, so I hope the trip went all right. Robbie and I figured that next time a fun trip comes up, Jason should be first in line for it. But at the very least, he's paid off a few dues towards Hell in advance. I think he can probably commit, say, some form of fraud, and just get damned to the Circle of the Carnal. Or maybe today's ordeal is good for wholesale absolution, I don't know.

I'm not really a theologian. I work for the state.