Work Stories: Episode 45: Fettuccine, Linguini, Martini, Bikini

Sorry for there not being a Work Story last week, everyone.  Part of it was the fact that I procrastinated and then forgot about it.  Then there was the fact that I felt like taking a week off.  I had felt that way for a few weeks.  Anyway, I’m back to writing them.  Let’s get this a-rolling.

Previously on Work Stories, I told you about… Did I really write about cleaning a closet?  Really?  I am really boring sometimes.  I’m not so sorry about that because the story was going to come out at one point or another.  I don’t try to tell boring stories, but they happen.  Everyone has them.  At the time when you are telling them, you think that they’re good.  They aren’t.  They’re just something that you found a little bit funny.  Nobody else does.  Yet, you still write about the story in order to have another week’s Work Story completed for people to read.  It’s not the best inspirational tale of writing, but it happens.  Oh, I’m writing about me.  I should write about what happened to me at work.  That’s what you came here for.  Not for my depressing rambling about writing Work Stories.

This week, I would like to tell you about a painful experience that I had while working at the museum that I work at.  No, it’s not a story about the time that I hit my head on the hand dryer.  It’s also not about the time I burned my hand changing a light.  No.  Those are different stories for other times.  This one is a painful thing that I witnessed a week or so back.  The events are still vivid in my mind and I want to write them all down for people to see.  I want to share what I was an audience for.  I want you to know the pain that happened in front of me.

If past episodes of Work Stories are any hint, I work a lot of closing shifts at the museum.  That’s the schedule I tend to get.  Nights, lots of them.  This week’s story is no different.  It happened on a night shift, during one of the later hours when nothing was going on.  Again, I was the only person who saw it other than the people involved in what happened.  My credibility might be wavering, but I swear on my family that these things happen.  I have not lied in any of these posts.  I may have added some sort of amateurish artistic flourishes.  I’ll give you that much.  I just want you to understand that the events did happen though.  Everything I’ve described in these posts actually happened.  If you don’t believe me, so be it.

I was tending to the cash register.  It was just before midnight when I looked to the street and saw a man walking along the sidewalk with his friend.  They were passing the museum at an average pace.  They were not moving quickly.  They were not moving slowly either.  They were moving exactly the speed you would walk if you were travelling from one place to another without any immediate need to get there.  They were two guys walking down the street after a few beers.  They didn’t know how painful things were about to get.

As they reached our doors, one of the guys opened his arm for embrace.  He looked down the street as a woman, I’m assuming his girlfriend, fiancée, or wife, approached him.  He had a smile on his face as she neared.  I could tell that he was ready for a warm hug by his lady.  That is not what happened at all.

The woman ran toward him.  The man didn’t have time to know what was coming for him.  Neither did his friend.  Neither did I.  We were all shocked when she pulled back her arm and slapped her hand across his face.  I wouldn’t be writing about this if that was all that had happened.  Let me describe the slap.  Not only was it unexpected, but it was hard.  I could hear it through our closed doors as if it was occurring right next to my ear.  It was that loud.  We were all in shock.  Then she pulled back both arms and slapped him four more times.  He got five slaps across the face.  It looked and sounded painful.  Then the woman turned.  Her right breast had come out of her shirt.  Lucky for her, it was still in the bra.  She pulled the shirt back over her bra and ran down the street and out of sight.

Clearly there was some sort of situation from earlier in the night that had a repercussion right in front of the doors at my workplace.  The man was left there, mouth agape.  He clearly hadn’t expected to be slapped like that.  His friend and I were both as stunned by the situation as he was.  Then the two of them followed the woman out of sight.

I will never know what led to that, and I think not knowing makes it better.  If I knew what caused it, maybe I would take sides in it.  It’s not as satisfying as the slap coming out of nowhere and landing in view of my eyes.  The shock and surprise that accompanied it can’t be matched by something that you know the backstory of.  It just can’t.  And that’s the magic of something like this.  You don’t know what led to it, you just know what the results were.

That’s this week’s Work Story.  I think it’s a big step up from cleaning a closet.  Don’t you?  Actually, I don’t care if you do or not.  I liked it.  That’s all that matters to me.  I’ll try to be back next week with another Work Story.  I do have more to tell.  Don’t you worry.

Until next time, wax on, wax off.