Hello Again

April 19th, 2007 Posted in Blog Posts

Our former IT guy dropped by the office this morning to say hi. He’d left earlier in the year for a better-paying job, but had the day off and was in the area, so thought he’d stop in.

So I’m sitting at my desk watching him walk in and receive excited greetings from everyone, and I’m totally confused, because I remember incredibly clearly that he’d already dropped by this week: he’d even stopped by my desk. We’d shaken hands, I’d asked him all about his new job. We’d had an elaborate, detailed conversation for upwards of fifteen minutes.

Or wait… had we? Doubt set in. Had I just dreamed it?

It was possible. The memory of it seemed incredibly lucid. On the other hand, I routinely have stultifyingly boring dreams about going to work: commuting in on the subway, returning email, laying out articles for the web, goofing off online. Often I’ll have gotten almost a full day’s work done and will just be returning a few final phone calls before calling it a day, when I’ll wake up suddenly and realize with mounting depression that I now have to go to work and do it all over again.

Not wanting to come off rude, I walked over to our former IT guy to feel out the situation. If we’d already talked this week, my greeting should obviously be more subdued; after all, we’d caught up with each other two days ago. I’d look like a callous ass if I came off like I’d completely forgotten about our conversation.

On the other hand, If I’d dreamed it, that would mean we hadn’t actually talked in over four months. Casually waltzing over with a cursory head nod and a “What’s up?” would come off pretty rude. The situation would require tact and delicacy if I wanted to come off non-crazy here. I thought for a minute about what my best opening volley should be.

“Hey! So, did you already stop by this week or did I just dream that?” I ended up going with, because to hell with tact and delicacy. It’s not like I’m not intimately familiar with looking like an idiot in social situations. As regular readers of this site might remember, you’re reading the website of a guy who’s been caught masturbating by construction workers. Once you walk away from shame like that, admitting you can’t separate dreams from reality to work friends is a cake walk.

Our former IT guy’s confused, slightly frightened look told me everything I needed to know: I had in fact dreamed his previous visit, and, yes, now sounded like a dangerous, unbalanced psychotic. Hoping to rally the situation, I immediately ramped up the enthusiasm level and greeted him, now confident we hadn’t seen each other in months. “Heyyyyyy!” So how is everything?” Then I sat back and listened—feeling more than slightly pissed off, however unreasonably, about getting locked into the same goddamn conversation twice. I didn’t want to be rude. It was simply that from my perspective, however caked with lunacy it might be, this entire reunion was pretty redundant. In my head I kept thinking, “Damn it, we just did this! I want to get some lunch.”

And so, after ten minutes of catch-up, I did just that. (Luckily I didn’t wake up at this point. I have a bad memory and lucid dreams, it’s not like I’m living in a Twilight Zone episode or anything.)