somewhere over the hump

Work has had me at a standstill lately. We're in a software release cycle, precipitated by an unwary Purple Monkey Prince's big mouth in front of angry client -- said Purple Monkey Prince could have benefited from a calendar and actual familiarity with a software release cycle, at least as it "functions" (naturally I laugh at typing that word) on the Island of the Purple Monkeys -- so we've all been ordered to work twelve hours a day, including weekends. This has been ongoing over the past week and a half. Over the weekend, the CEO popped in long enough to perform sporadic head counts, before evaporating into some mysterious Purple Monkey King oasis that drew the veil of invisibility over his doings. Demoralized enough to be obedient for a change, the rest of us plodded into work, trudged through the rote of software testing, then dragged ourselves home to weep into the bosoms of our families.

Needless to say, this has not contributed to a feeling of general joy on the Island, where the denizens are growing increasingly anxious. Lately, they've become prone to hurling feces at objects moving in their peripheral vision, a testament to the uniquely spontaneous and Big Brother management style that is de rigeur here.

This is also not contributing to my creative side, inconsequential as it is. My attention span is shrinking in direct proportion to my patience, and more than one meeting has been made memorable by my yelling at everyone to shut up, for fuck's sake, shut up and LISTEN, you simian relics of a defunct social experiment --! It is a sentiment that, so far, has won unconditional approval from my boss, whom I suspect would do the same if her voice were capable of the volume that mine is.

It's doubtful whether the evolutionarily mandated abnormalities that attend these meetings have the vocabulary to understand my outbursts. I've seen more than one recipient look baffled at the end of my torrents of eloquence. Still, I find them cathartic, and the other participants' comprehension of my rage is somehow less important than the mere expression of it. In that respect, at least, I've found ample outlet for my creativity. My own vocabulary isn't notable for being either expressive or expansive, but the challenge of spontaneously generating complicated insults to address the Purple Monkeyism of the moment is enough to keep otherwise dormant synapses in the game.

At any rate, those are my excuses. You'll have to pardon me if I'm a little scatterbrained and silent these days.

In a burst of enthusiasm (or at least willful oblivion to the specific personnel issues that are the root cause of our problems) the CFO called in a feng shui expert, who concluded that the reason our company is so dysfunctional is that the freeway running nearby is stealing all of our chi.

The result of these spiritual deliberations has been the installation of a large bell in our department's new VP's office. How this will iron out a corporate culture learned from threepenny comic books and poorly written Chinese Aryan Nation pamphlets is anybody's guess. In idle moments, the Purple Monkeys and I collect in the empty corner office to ogle the thing, fantasizing about the rescue that might come if we ring it often enough and hard enough.

Rescue, like good feng shui, is slow in coming. Our collective contempt for our Purple Monkey masters has at least found a new outlet; the predominence of Chinese workers on the Island has by no means guaranteed any interest in the mysteries of chi flow, as the majority of them appear to think -- not unreasonably -- that the money spent paying for a new bell and the feng shui consultation might have been better spent paying for a cleaning crew that would actually vacuum the two years worth of collected dust, dirt, and food particles that drag at our footsteps, not to mention the multi-generational families of insects that cavort happily in the cobweb mansions that are our windows.

The monkeys operate under the assumption that our current, aggressively lazy cleaning crew is, like the feng shui consultant, friends with the CFO. We vent our spleen by wandering into the corner office during moments of frustration to ring the bell, occupant or no occupant.

Our new VP, being white and Texan, suffers mutely.

Despite all the heart burnings and racking of brain, I've yet to accomplish the most important of my pre-wedding responsibilities, tending instead to get sidetracked by assorted trivialities. God, being in the details, finds this rather amusing, as does Heisenberg, who is showing an increasing tendency towards a split personality that contains more than a hint of snake.

Heisenberg's origins reside somewhere in the back of my subconscious, true, but like most of my imaginary creations, he has since blossomed into a unique entity with little or no relationship to my preferences or desires. The other day he stole one of my wedding dress shoes, for instance, and only yielded to entreaty when I falsely promised him a ride to Cold Stone Creamery. The shoe was safely recovered from the trunk of my car, but I shudder to imagine what will happen the next time I attempt to bribe him. Cats have fickle memories, but they're loath to forget a slight; like women and small children, they have a Biblical approach towards vengeance.

Yesterday he accompanied me to my first wedding dress fitting, riding comfortably atop the massive marshmallow of white satin and dry cleaning plastic. The shop was one recommended by a pair of coworkers, who had taken their own wedding gowns there and been pleased by the result. The web site seemed to suggest a professional entity possessed of at least some gravitas, an illusion composed as much by the suggestion of clothing racks and store fronts as (I'm ashamed to admit) the pictures of white people staffed as tailors and customers.

The reality was a cross between a sweat shop and a 100 square foot mobile home, manned by a small flock of southeast asian women who were collectively oppressed and bullied by the fiery little shop owner. As the best English speaker in the business, she tyrannized over her seamstresses and customers, cowing both with high-handed arrogance.

Heisenberg fell in love.

He followed her around the store with his tail curled over his hips while I stood on a pedestal in gallons of white satin, labored over by a tiny little woman who spoke in a whisper. "... ... ... bustle?" she asked me.

"What?"

"... ... a ...?"

"A what?"

"What kind ... ...?"

"Okay," I said, baffled.

The little seamstress stared at me helplessly until the boss woman stormed by. "Pin it up!" she shouted. "You no just standing there, show her!"

Meekly, she began to fuss over my rear end again.

... to no avail, of course. After the boss dispensed with two customers, bitterly fulminating on the idiocy of one and upbraiding a smiling, bewildered employee because she underbilled another -- "This sleeve take four hour! You charge only twenty-five dollar! That not enough for one hour, even. You have to work extra, extra, you no doing to customer like this. I am boss, I know, you ask me first! You know nothing!" -- she descended on me like a fury and repinned everything, disposing of my seamstress in a froth of irritable criticisms.

"Too much fabric here," she fulminated, (jab jab jab jab) jabbing with the pins. "Dress maker, know nothing." So much for Jessica McClintock. Self-serving and sycophantic, I agreed in a small voice. It seemed safest.

An hour later, I was permitted to divest myself of my dress, and was manhandled into a chair to sign my estimate. "This much," she announced. "I give you discount. Your dress, it obviously not cost much, I not charge you much because it so cheap."

Heisenberg writhed in a hairball spasm of glee. Not being invisible and imaginary, I throttled my mirth. "Do you want cash or check?" I asked shakily.

I drove back to work with Heisenberg, the both of us hysterical with laughter.