I just about had it with the people at work this week. Make that the women at work. The secretaries, to be specific. My sisters, my teammates, my co-workers. Part of it was because it was Valentine's Day and all the little Martha Stewart wannabes pulled out all the stops to decorate the place with red and pink hearts and garlands and flowers and bowls of candy everywhere. Added to that the various bouquets of roses received on THE DAY, all ostentatiously displayed (as if it's impressive to receive a dozen roses from your husband - ho hum). Then there was a lavish dessert buffet set up with cheesecakes of the world, chocolate-covered strawberries and other pink, sticky, sickly sweet things. And, of course, today was the endless recital of the romantic evenings had by all, most of which centered around dinner at Applebee's and a late-night run to the Circle-K for a couple of razzleberry slurpos.
Well, sour grapes. Bah humbug. I'm damned sick of it. It's another plot shoved up our asses by society to congratulate/celebrate those who conform. Screw it. I'm not playing. I took my toys and walked off the playground years ago.
But this time it just got to me. I'm annoyed. I'm annoyed about the decorations and about people's cubby-holes being tchotchkeed up the wazoo with halloween-then-thanksgiving-then christmas-then valentine's-then st. patrick's-then easter-then cinco de mayo-then then then . . . I'm not in elementary school anymore. If I feel like weaving a placemat with strips of construction paper, I'll keep it to myself and do it at home, thank you very much. I will not foist upon others a tasteless, shameless need to slime the world with an oil slick of tacky crap. I'm just through, I'm telling you. Through! All week I dreamed I worked in a mahogany office with terrazzo floors and a severe dress code. Clean, quiet, professional. Not this joyless version of kindergarten with 40-year-old women romping around in red and pink snuggle-me outfits.
Somebody had the bright idea to keep the office's artificial christmas tree up all year and decorate it for each successive holiday. Oh goody. Goody goody gumdrops, y'all!! I'm sick, I tell you, sick of the endless parade of drugstore purchases, joyless plastic shit from China, invading my workspace and making me choke.
And I'm damned sick of being one of the "girls," one of the secretaries, one of the distaff staff, one of the handmaidens to the important people, who subjugate their second-tier status by becoming mommies to the men, by emphasizing everything that's been labeled feminine by the crap manufacturers of the world.
Four times, through clenched teeth, I was made to recount my Valentine's evening of haircut, grocery shopping and watching the DVD of Up the Down Staircase with my cat, as all of my office mommies tsked tsked at me like I was such a sad case, poor lonely Stevie who lives alone and doesn't have a widdle fwiend to pway with. Awwwwwwww.
Puke, I say. Puke on all the pink things, puke on all the sweet things, puke on all the misguided pseudo-mommies out there who feel the need to tie a happy ribbon on the world around them. That's it.
Okay, I'm done now.
