Sharon was furious when she saw Steve in the corner, asleep and covered in rubbish. I knew she would be. Blatant company time wasting, disregard of litter and misuse of company property, particularly her own stapler, that was balanced on Steve's shoulder. She wanted to know who was behind it, the work of art that I created by accident, but to my knowledge had been unsuccessful. The Buckaroo on Steve was started by me, but added to by most of the staff, so I wasn't really to blame. Steve was told to go home for a few days and rest. Preferably in his bed, not in the corner of a canteen. Today was his first day back, so I tried not to remind him of the litter-balancing act and focussed my concern on his overtime.
'Glad you've had a few days off, Steve. You were working a hell of a lot.'
'I'm just trying to lose a bit of weight. Keep in shape and that.' He replied, pulling up his belt.
I could tell he was well rested because the bullshit was back. He wasn't trying to lose weight, he just didn't have the nerve to talk back to his mother. But I was still feeling guilty, so I egged him on.
'Good on you.' I smiled.
'Yeah, don't try the milkshake diet I tried.' Alex shook his head. 'Load of rubbish, didn't work.'
'You're supposed to have specific milkshakes, though Alex. Not go to McDonald's every day.'
'I had banana flavour, none of that chocolate stuff!'
'There's still sugar in it.'
'Oh...no wonder I put on two stone in a month. I was having them three times a day.'
Steve rolled his eyes as if he was amongst idiots. I rolled my eyes because I thought I was amongst idiots. Out of the three of us stood there, one had tried to lose weight with fast food and the other was a 46 year old man who's new nickname was, thanks to me, BuckaSteve. I certainly wasn't the idiot.
We were standing around for quite awhile, chatting about different things. Alex kept talking about his night at the cinema with Fran, which went well. Only they couldn't sit together as there were no free seats next to the disabled area. Alex was furious, but Fran got to sit right at the front. A plus side to being in a wheelchair. It seemed odd to me that none of us felt guilty about standing around. But every so often Sharon taps on the window and shakes her hand about, like she was shooing away insects on her Sunday roast. But this time, twenty minutes into a decent debate on films, Sharon tapped violently on the window and pointed at me. Not Alex, not Steve, not even us in general. She pointed at me and ushered me upstairs.
'Oh, what?' Steve motioned up to her silently.
'You're in trouble now!' Alex grinned at me.
We were all stood chatting, why would she single me out? I sheepishly made my way up to the store, the jeers from Alex and Steve behind me getting quieter and quieter. I felt so guilty. Sharon had a great way of making you feel a lot more guilty than you should be when entering her office. She'll sit there in silence, maybe light one of her long cigarettes and glare at you. She always made you speak first, to prove your guilt.
'I'm...we're sorry, Sharon.'
'For what?'
Oh, that was a good trick, too. Making you explain exactly what you've done wrong. Just like High School.
'For, you know...standing.'
'You're sorry for standing?'
'Yeah...and chatting.'
'Oh don't worry about that, dear.' She said gently, tapping the ash into her shiny black tray.
'Really? It was quite a long time. Twenty minutes, nearly.'
'No. What I want to know is, was it you who started the litter game with Steve?'
Oh God. That's why she wanted me in here. I knew I shouldn't have started it, but it was just so tempting. It's in every man's blood. You see a friend fast asleep and you do one of three things:
1) Put stuff on him. Either litter, shaving foam or water.
2) Shave off some or all of his hair.
3) Give him a swift kick in the bollocks.
Sometimes all three. Believe me, I know. I'll always remember that morning I woke up piss wet through with no eyebrows and aching testicles. Not the best way to start your 21st birthday. Sharon wouldn't buy that, though. Being a woman she wouldn't understand. A woman encounters a sleeping woman and they do something weird, like put a duvet over them or turn the telly off. Very strange. But I decided to be honest, the guilt she managed to draw out of me was getting too much.
'Erm...I may have put a can of Fanta on him but, honestly Sharon, I didn't mean for it to...'
'Oh, yours was the Fanta, was it? Good one.'
There were a few moments of stunned silence. Sharon didn't do sarcasm, she'd told me that many times.
'I'm sorry?'
'That was at the bottom. I presumed that belonged to the person who started it.'
'Hang on Sharon. You're not angry about this?'
'I'm angry, yes. He woke up before I could take a good picture!'
I laughed, but not out loud. I still wasn't sure about what she was saying. Then she told me.
'Basically, Dylan. When I saw Steve there, asleep in the corner, my first thought was to put something on him. But as a manager I can't be seen to do it.'
'Chris did it, he's the deputy manager. He put cutlery in his pocket.' I said.
'I know, I've seen his pictures.' She leaned in to me. 'I want you to help me do more. See, I'm not really one for fun, Dylan...'
Shocking.
'...But with it being a slow month and now Darren is in charge of your department, things are a little boring. So I want you to come up with a few more games to play on Steve.'
'Why Steve?'
'Why not Steve?'
Good point. I did have experience in Steve-based practical jokes. At first I thought she was joking. A test to prove my reliability to the department. After a few seconds a little smile cracked on her face, but I still wasn't sure if it was a test or a giddy reaction to possible games she could play.
'You are joking, aren't you? '
'No. Do I joke?' She said bluntly.
'No, you're just asking me to do it for you.'
'Exactly.'
'But what would Margaret think? His own mother?'
'Oh, she's on board too. Gave me a few ideas herself.'
I sat back, put the tips of my fingers together and put on my thinking face. With narrowed eyes I told her I'd get back to her and left the office with a smile. This was amazing, Sharon's hired hit-man for the day. She was right, she didn't do jokes, simply because she probably hadn't encountered any in her life until she saw the BuckaSteve. Then suddenly the joke gene had evolved within her, letting out millions of tiny giggling possibilities. They were still possibilities, of course. Her joke gene hadn't evolved enough for her to come up with actual practical jokes, just the knowledge that there could be jokes in the future. And I was the one called up to come up with them.
An hour later I strolled into her office with a notepad and pen, like a journalist in the editors office who'd bagged a front page story. She spoke first this time. The tables had turned.
'Ah, Dylan, what have you got?'
'A few ideas.' I said, settling myself on the chair.
'Shoot.'
I flicked the notepad pages a few times and began.
'The Name Change...'
'What?'
'Oh, I've decided to give every joke a little title.'
'OK, go ahead...'
'The Name Change: Get everyone to call him Nigel from now on.'
'Right...'
'The Odd Smell: Get everyone to give him a little sniff when they pass him.'
Sharon frowned, but I kept going.
'The Invisible Man: Get everyone to ignore him.'
'These are weak, Dylan!' She interrupted.
Weak? It took me an hour to come up with these. I bought a notepad especially, and that was the abuse I got!
'Petty little jokes! Primary school pranks, Dylan! I want real jokes!'
She'd only discovered jokes four days ago, now she's a joke snob.
'I've got one more.' I winced.
'You've only come up with four? In an hour?'
'I've been working as well.'
'Never mind that, Dylan. What's your last one?'
'The All Fours Fall.'
'What the hell is that?' She barked.
I explained the simple process. We've all done it. You get on all fours behind your friend and get someone to push them so they fall over you. A simple process.
'What's funny about that?'
'Well, falling over is funny, Sharon.'
She stared at me.
'I don't think so.' She scoffed.
'But you're thinking of you falling over. Try thinking of Steve falling over.'
She burst out into laughter.
'OK, OK..' In between spurts of giggles. 'Let's do it!'
'OK, me and Alex will do it.'
'No...I want to do it.'
A shudder of fear ran down my spine. The thought of me on all fours, looking up at Steve's shiny grey ponytail and Sharon thrusting her hands into his chest, making him reel and flounder and panic, before crashing to the floor amongst shrieks of laughter and tears.
That didn't happen. Sharon hadn't changed her mind in a sudden revelation of professionalism, she simply wanted me to do the pushing and her to be on all fours. Which looks funnier, in my opinion. So we made our way down to Steve and Alex, who were still stood in the same place, by the trolley bays, chatting away. Sharon had to stop smirking if she was going to get through this. Suddenly I was professional, the teacher and the student at the University of Jokes.
'Steve. Alex.' She nodded to both of them.
'All right, Sharon.' Alex nodded.
'Listen, Sharon. We're simply having a meeting here.' Steve proclaimed.
'No, no, that's quite all right. Dylan wanted to talk to you about something..'
And so began thirty seconds of wandering, off the point waffling from my mouth, whilst Sharon winked at Alex and slowly knelt down behind Steve, who was stood solid in front of me. We pre-arranged that if something were to go wrong and Steve asked why she was on the floor, she was simply picking something up. I didn't think it would wash, though. Sharon was wearing a pristine light brown pant-suit and would never pick up something off the floor. Especially with three lads there to do it for her.
I started to sweat, repeating myself and staring at Steve's confused face. When Sharon was in position and Alex finally realised what we were up to, I slowly moved towards Steve and nudged him. It was a slight nudge, so he didn't go down straight away. He did that embarrassing I-seem-to-be-falling-over fall were it lasts about twenty minutes, with flailing arms and cries of panic. He finally made contact with Sharon and fell backwards onto the floor.
The ambulance arrived shortly after. Steve had been knocked unconscious, hitting his head on the concrete. He was still unconscious when he was loaded into the back of the ambulance with Sharon shrieking 'I was picking something up off the floor!' Everyone was outside to watch. It's a knee-jerk reaction to seeing an ambulance. Even with a police car or a fire engine, your first instinct is not to panic or worry, it's to get as close to the vehicle and find out what's going on, and then to film it on your mobile phone.
'This is your fault, Dylan.' She pointed at me, with half the colleagues and nearly all the customers glaring at us.
'My fault?'
'It was your idea!'
'You asked me to come up with ideas, you wanted to do it!'
She stared at the ambulance that was now moving off and towards the exit of the car park. Sharon's joke went wrong, but she wanted to make up for it, by changing the joke for another. So she yelled 'Hope you get better soon, Nigel!'
'I'm sure he can hear you, Sharon.'
'Should I have told the paramedic to sniff him?' She panicked.
Her joke gene had a lot of evolving to do.
No comments:
Post a Comment