Loathsome Says It's Classy

The corporate office cost-saving meeting on Friday has the entire staff up in arms. We're all more than a little peeved that Owner chose not to mention Golf Pro's excessive entertainment expenditures, including $2k for college football season tickets.

Everyone has to give up something. Water coolers, a Bags and Highway fave, are going. Plant care services are being canceled. I'm upset about that because I know many of the plants will let die of neglect. When I come in every day, maybe I'll make the rounds to ensure all of them have been watered. No more matching contributions to our 401(k)s. No more birthday cakes. Owner is lucky a small riot didn't erupt when he issued that pronouncement.

After all of the haranguing, the high level of tension, the lay offs and one of our offices being shut down, we have now discovered that we've been making a substantial profit all along. We've even been making a profit at the Houston office. Bags has no interest in letting Owner know that. He rightly suspects that Owner would be even more infuriated than he is now.

On a lighter note, just as I was getting ready to leave on Friday, Loathsome buzzed me on the intercom.

"I brought you and Superhighway some basil from my garden."

"Oh, thank you for thinking of me, but you should let Superhighway have mine because I grew some basil this summer, too," I told him.

"But this is from my garden I put it in a little baggy."

Oh. Well, now that you put it that way, then absolutely bring that basil right on over to my office. It's bound to be superior to anything I could ever hope to grow. I gave up.

"Okay. Well, you need to bring it now because I'm getting ready to leave in exactly two minutes." I can always hope, you know. I was thinking maybe I could sprint out the door before he had a chance to hoist himself out of his chair.

It was a false hope, of course. In a couple of seconds, there he was, with two baggies filled with basil. I took one of them and thanked him ever so much. I stuffed it into my tote bag.

"Wait. Smell it," I glanced over at him and he had his nose buried in the other baggy. "This is such a classy smell."

I dug the bag out, dutifully opened it and sniffed, smiled and nodded in agreement. That is exactly the word I would have chosen. Classy. I don't know if it's classy because he grew it or if all basil is inherently classy. My former daughter-in-law used basil as perfume, though, so maybe I'm not sophisticated enough to make a judgment call here.

Finally, Superhighway told me to expect Repo Man to come by and work on his resume with me. So far, I haven't heard from him and she said he didn't mention it today. I may dodge that bullet, after all.

Thursday, I'll be in Houston for pre-op, then surgery on Monday. Compared to the way things have been going in Crazy Land, surgery seems like the lesser of two evils. I'm positively looking forward to it.