Fucking Time Vampires.
“Time Vampires” are those people who’s apparent, sole purpose on this planet is to sustain the Rain Forest through converting oxygen into CO2. They don’t do a damn thing, are irresponsible, cannot take a social cue, and seem to wander hallways and office spaces solely to target the unsuspecting with their blathering.
The following is based on an actual occurrence this week. Names changed to protect the [del]innocent[/del] moron.
::cue scene::
[Tripler, dutifully typing away, hears a knock at his door, and looks up. “Bill,” a just-past middle aged, paunchy, balding Engineer has cornered Tripler in his office.]
Tripler: “Oh, hi Bill! Do you know if Joe signed that TPS memo yet?”
Bill "Oh hey Tripler! I’m glad I stopped by too! I was just thinking of stopping by. I thought to myself, “Man, I need to stop by Tripler’s office and see if he’s still into hockey. I hear there’s a new minor league team in Albuquerque and see if he’s been there yet. So I said to myself, “Self, let me make my way down here to see if you’d heard about the new minor league hockey team yet!” I figured you were into hockey, because of all that time you spent up in Wisconsin (1). There’s a lot of hockey up in Wisconsin, if you didn’t know. My cousin Mike played some hockey as a kid, but he got hurt with the asthma (2). He always wanted to join the Army, but couldn’t because of the asthma. Hey, YOU were in the Army (1), right? My Uncle Phil was in the Army. He was in Vietnam, too! Maybe you know each other! I’m sure you guys bumped into each other, but just didn’t know each other at the time. He was a bit of an odd duck I remember. He was up in Wisconsin too, and ran a dairy farm just before he wento into the Army. I don’t remember what he did in the Army though, but that dairy farm was a big place. He had 10 of 15 people working for him milking the cows and delivering the hay. That was up in. . . Lake Waubashaw, I think. No . . Lake Waubashaw is in Pennsylvania somewhere. Isn’t that where you’re from (1)? I always knew you were from Pennsylvania. I had a trip to Philadelphia when I was a kid to the science museum there, and that’s what got me into Engineering. I remember the museum like it was yesterday. . . I think it was the ‘Franklin Institute.’ They had a huge pendulum on a line from the ceiling, that would swing and rotate with the Earth’s rotation. It was cool. We tried to go to a Philadelphia Eagles game too, and got tickets, but they got beat by the Chicago Bears. I’m really into (3) football, don’t you know! Hey, how about them Eagles? You’re from Philadelphia aren’t you (1)? My cousin always liked Philadelphia. He had a little dairy farm down there, in Harrisburg (1). It was a nice little place, and I remember spending time there as a kid–got my first summer job there working in a barber shop! I didn’t cut hair, ya know, 'cause I was only fifteen, but I swept the floors to keep the place clean and rang up people on the register. It was a good job, and it kept me out of trouble. We always had our regulars, especially the guys from the Insurance office across the street. They were two middle aged insurance agents that would always come over for their “Friday trim” like clockwork. They knew I was only fifteen but they taught me the value of a good insurance policy. . . no mater how much insurance you have, you can always use a little more, am-I-right or am-I-right? Am I right?? You have good insurance, don’t you Trip? Who’s you’re insurance company? I can line you up with a good insurance agent. . . who’s your company? Who is it?”
Tripler: “Bill, I’m working on something, did Joe sign. . .”
Bill: “Well anyway these two guys would come in and teach me on insurance. All about it too. . . they said ‘Even if all you have is a coin collection, you need to have insurance on it in case it gets lost, or stolen. You never know when something like a house fire can take it all away. . .’. I wasn’t a coin collector, but more of a stamp collector as a kid. Ever collect stamps? It was pretty fun. I got my hands on a rare 1979 postage stamp from the Soviet Union (3). It had Sputnik or something on it. I can’t remember, but it makes me think about house fires. But what about them wildfires down in Africa (1), am-I-right? All them koala bears and kangaroos must be hopping mad down there. I hear the Beezos (2) was going to donate some money and “the Testla” (2) was going to send some drones down to help with the fires. Man them drones are something else! Remember when “the Testla” sent that underwater submarine to save those teenage fishermen (1) stuck in a cave down in Vietnam? That was pretty cool. I heard they had some Navy Seals go down to get those guys out. My second cousin, Phillip, was in the Navy. Maybe you know him! (1) He was in the Navy as a supply clerk, I think. Somewhere in California. But anyway, those fires are something else. Remember those fires in California, I think they were 10 years ago or something? I heard they caused about a million dollars in damage, and burned down a hundred houses! Man, if they can get those fires put out, they’ll save a lot of koalas, am-I-right? But anyway, those ranch houses in California got burnt up pretty good. Hey, don’t you have a cabin in Wisconsin? I hope you’ve got some good insurance on it. If you need a good insurance company, I can line you up with my agent. Who’s your’ company? Who is it?”
Tripler: “Bill, I need that TPS memo, did Joe sign. . .”
Bill: "Well you should have good insurance. I remember that summer, after the insurance agents, I got back to school and a kid in my Drama Club broke his leg–get that! You know how they say “break a leg” for actors? Well, this kid did it! He was supposed to be performing in our Annual Fall Shakespeare performance, and was supposed to be doing a whole monologue in Latin. He couldn’t do it, on account of his broken leg, so I had to step in and in single week, memorize his lines. I remember it like it was yesterday, it was:
'Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit." [sub](He now starts over-theatricising his gesticulations)[/sub] “Nullam neque leo, scelerisque sagittis pulvinar a, accumsan ac sem. Phasellus iaculis sagittis risus vel imperdiet. Suspendisse nec tincidunt odio. Morbi aliquam et quam sit amet aliquam. Phasellus et lectus commodo, tempor magna ut, efficitur velit. Nam in semper felis. Proin vehicula tortor sed tempus cursus. Donec ut massa diam. Mauris elementum ultrices pulvinar!”
Wasn’t that great? (3). Man, I can’t believe I still have that memorized. I want my daughter to get into drama. She’s an artistic type, not an Engineer like her Old Man. She’d doing pretty good in school though, thanks for asking! (3). She’s gonna do better than me, I think. I think she takes after her mother, my wife. But my wife is a twin, and I hope my Sister-in-Law’s genes don’t spread to my daughter. My Sister-in-Law’s got a really bad case of the gout; flares up like a sonofabitch, too! I remember this one time, she couldn’t walk around at our campsite, so we had to change her socks out after a 3 mile hike. Man alive, the smell of those sweaty socks after our mile hike was something. . . I couldn’t take it, but I was the only one that was willing to do the job. So I rolled up my sleeves, and pulled those socks off to let her feet air out. My wife was so mad! She started hollerin’ at me because I never do that for her, but I said to her, “Marcie, you don’t have the gout, and you aren’t complaining like Sue-Ellen is!” She got even madder and didn’t talk to me for a week. You know what I did? Do you know what I did?"
Tripler: “Bill, it doesn’t matter, I just need that TPS report. . .”
Bill: “I bought her flowers for a whole week! That’s what you gotta do for a good marriage, is communicate even if it’s through flowers. That’s the way to a successful marriage, my man. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about (3). The first three didn’t work out so well, but I learned this time!! But I hope my daughter marries a nice guy. She’s gonna be going to college soon. Do you know of any good single guys? I know you Marines are always a good bunch (1). I hope she marries someone good. I tried to get her into a church group, and introduced myself to a few of the other parents there, but the group just kind of dissolved after a few weeks, which is pretty strange because they’d been going strong for a few years. They met at the local Starbucks on Tuesday nights. Man that Starbucks though, there’s like one on every corner now! They’ve even got them in the department store down at the mall in Albuquerque! I was there last weekend, and that mall was packed. I saw some kid wearing some sort of hockey jersey, too. Didja ever see hockey in Albuquerque? Sheesh, what a tough market . . . That will never take off in Albuquerque. Those kids nowadays, with all of their music and The YouToobs and Twitter Faces (2), I just don’t get them anymore. There’s no good music either, it’s all just noise. Marcie and I like to relax at night to the Lawrence Welk show. You ever watch Lawrence Welk? Do ya? WHOA! Oh hey, look at the time. Well, I gotta run. You’ve kinda tied me up for 25 minutes and made me late for a meeting! I gotta run and get a TPS memo to Joe to sign; apparently Phyllis is waiting on it. I’ll talk to you later!”
[Bill abruptly turns and leaves, but not before leaving a sweaty palmprint on the door. Tripler dumbfounded that he just lost 40 minutes of his life span (that he’ll never get back), stands up, and pushes closed the office door with a rolled up piece of paper.]
::end scene::
[sub]
(1) Note: Time vampires often conflate places/times/things to ramble a train-wreck of a monologue onward. This is their tactic of baiting you to correct them, so they can continue with a “dialogue” with your “participation,” thus evacuating more hot, useless air from their diaphragm.
**(2) Note:**This particular time vampires is not that bright, and gets carried away with himself and his idioms. One does not “get hurt” with "the asthma.
**(3) Note:**There are periodic re-directs back to the self-speaker, either as a form of self-flattery, or to keep their buccal cavity’s wind tunnel at 100% throttle.[/sub]
I’ve learned in the meantime, to keep my door closed, turn off the overhead lights (I use desk lamps), and put some random fuze nomenclature on my out-of-office sign. Random acronyms confuse people, and make them think I’m out of the office.
For the record: I have never been to Wisconsin, nor did I ever get that TPS memo.
Tripler
Misspellings in the above narrative are not mistakes; the Vampire actually speaks misspellings.