The day started like any other. I reluctantly oozed out of bed, groped for the stair rail while avoiding the blinding light of dawn, ravaged the coffee can, impatiently waited for caffeine to surge into my veins while in the shower, performed the appropriate albeit mundane ablutions, sprinted the last few precious minutes of freedom to the office and took my dutiful position in the corporate workforce.
While the windows developed prison bars, I set about the tasks awaiting my attention. Today corralling paperwork and details felt like herding felines since my attention was repeatedly summoned by “The Leash”, cynically referred to as the telephone.
Then it happened. From across a wall partition wailing and gnashing of teeth could be heard! The end of the world having been announced by many scruffy street dwellers was upon us! It was being heralded aloud!
"Armageddon is nigh!"
The paper shredder was jammed!
Whatever shall we do? Who will save us from certain doom?!
I leaped from my helm, donned my equipment belt and hard hat and headed to the source of the catastrophe. Along the way, I wondered if, perhaps, just perchance, the bin was full and the shredder, not really jammed. At every turn on the route the feeling of calamity became palpably concentrated.
OHHHHHH, it was JAMMED. No amount of cajoling, supplication or entreating would turn the sadistic metal teeth free. I wrenched and jabbed and flossed the living whoopee out of those ferocious incisors.
Time passed. I was repeatedly reminded that ‘the leash’ was securely fastened around my neck and that there was no life outside the walls of this dungeon.
After much brow mopping, flailing of paper ribbons and occasional swearing, the violent fangs gave way!
I had done it! I had conquered, triumphed, surmounted the impossible!
My coworkers cheered, threw ticker tape into the sky, and cavorted in the street. Two raised me onto their shoulders and walked throughout the building chanting, “Dana is the queen, Dana is the queen!”
“The Leash” yanked me back to the stark reality that I was lording over a mechanical monster with nothing but a letter opener. It was not my coworkers singing my praises, but my own little inner voice reminding me of a single fitting phrase. A self satisfied smile crept over my lips with the memory of it.
“More than merely a secretary – only slightly less than a goddess”.
