In the Break Room:

By the Ice Maker and the Coffee Pot

Maybe I won’t have to suffer as much today now that I have a box of Cream of Wheat; great for sending heat straight to my stomach. It should make all the difference in the world. “How are you this morning?” “Mmmmwell, I’m alright. You know. How bout you?” “Eh, same as you.” Gary places his mug under the coffee pot and pours. I barely notice. I place my bowl of estimated measurements under the instant hot water knob of the coffee maker and push down. “Ten calls and I’m just now getting my cup of coffee.” “Mmmmyeah…it’sonlybeenanhour.” Nothing. Silence. Guess he didn’t make that out. I stir my bowl of gunky good morning. More silence. Add a little more steaming water. “Do you eat breakfast Gary?” “I do.” “You mean you eat breakfast before you get here?!” “Every morning. I get up at 5. …read the paper…” He sounds so content. “Gosh!” “Well,” he adds, “I think it helps that I was in the military.” “Oh, Really? I didn’t know that.” “Yeah. Thirteen years.” Wow, that’s crazy. I had no idea. Did you do, there, what you do here?” “I worked on the (he said something or other) of the planes…” “Oh. Well…same side of the brain then.” “Yeah, but I did do computer stuff the last four years.” “Hmmm, and so now you’re here.” “Well, I messed up my back while I was there...” “Does it still bother you?” “Yeah, I’m on 20% disability.” “Oh wow...yeah, speaking of back pain, mine has been killing me like crazy these days. But that’s due to a 10 degree curvature in my spine. And that’s because one of my legs is a centimeter shorter than the other, but you really can’t tell. But seriously, I was nearly brought to tears yesterday because it got so bad. But, I don’t know about disability for me. That would be weird. I’m still too young.” “Well, mine was due to an injury. We were out behind, you know those big trucks that have those tongues that come down the back?” he demonstrates with hand motions. “Oh yeah.” “Well, another guy and I were holding that up, and he let go. Six hundred pounds and it just…my body was twisted you know, so it just pulled,” he demonstrated again with a torso twisting movement. “yeeeesh,” I said crunching my face with a shiver. “I went to physical therapy for about six months.” “So what do you do now that it still gives you problems?” “Well, I do my stretches and exercises every day, and that helps a lot.” “Really? Wow, I think that’s a word to me straight from Above. I should really start doing that too…So no more military huh.” “Well, it just wasn’t fun anymore. Once I reached higher ranks and realized that nothing really changed, it just got boring. You can have all the motivation to try to change things, but I learned that it just wasn’t gonna happen there.” “So how about now? Is this job boring?” “I enjoy what I’m doing now.” “Hm.” “Well, I like working with computers. That’s actually what I went to school for.” “Man, but they are nothing like what they were.” “No. Not at all. But, I’m that guy that enjoys reading all those manuals.” “Well, that’s good then. Shoot. Not me.” My cream of wheat, not quite so clumpy anymore, he and I both walk out the door to our stations for the day.

a ture story