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2024.04.05.21:00-2024.04.06.12:46
Earth.USA.Oklahoma.Tulsa.Tulsa.ZarrowLibrary.AIRC
by Redforkian
(ca. 1800 words)
based on true events (names/locations
changed)
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"Red."
"Go away," I stated plainly and sleepily from my office. I had my feet kicked up and was taking a power nap during lunch. Or was it not lunch? Maybe brunch. I forget. Regardless, my boss wanted something from me. He began tapping on the door jam with his abnormally long fingernails. Well, I suppose for him, they were normal since they were painted all colors of the rainbow.
"Red. Wake up."
"What, dammit." I opened one eye and looked to the door of my office. There he was, standing there in his super gay, pink turtleneck.
"Why do you wear that shit in the summer, you weirdo? Does your husband set your clothes out for you in the morning or something?"
In ultra-gay, boss voice, "Red, I need you to do something for me."
"I'm sure you'd like that, freak."
My boss stood tall at about 6 feet 4 inches. He was feigning hurt feelings by getting a shocked look on his face and placing his hand on his chest.
"HMMPF!!! Why are you sleeping?"
"I'm not, I'm letting this script run its course to see if it will import those records you wanted in the database. It's taking longer than I thought. What the hell do you want?"
"I need you to organize a project to install a hot water heater for our little wash basin here outside the office in the parking bay."
"Doesn't John usually do stuff like that? Do you mean like a hot water heater or something? I know it just has cold water right now."
"Yes, figure out what size we need, how to install it, etc. Get me a quote before you head home. I'll have you and Benjamin do the work, ok?"
"Dammit, bossman, I'm a database administrator, not a plumber."
"I understand, but you used to be and John is off this week, and I need this done by Friday."
"Fine, but it'll cost you 4 Fridays' worth of lunches."
"Deal!!"
Bossman was a good guy. He was smart, competent, and he definitely knew how to delegate to get shit done. He'd use the available resources, and he chose me. So, being the obedient little worker bee I am (and he also happened to be one of my best friends) I set my little program to working on the next stage of import and set about planning this little water heater project he needed done before Friday.
After inspecting the area where this little water heater would go, I determined it wouldn't need to be very large. After a call to our building maintenance supervisor, he recommended a 2 gallon electric water heater. We already had power in place nearby, so all we'd have to do is mount it, get water to it, run plumbing and plug it into a new outlet I'd have an electrician install. Voila.
The supervisor happened to have the vendor's name that sold these, so I called him for a price which was in budget so I asked him to deliver it as soon as possible. The guy delivered within an hour, which was really impressive, so I put a star by his name in my notes to remember him for any future projects we had that might require his services.
The small water heater would be mounted to a cinder block wall, which would require anchor bolts. I went and talked to Benjamin and asked him to look over the area to see if I missed anything and to make suggestions. We decided to power the wash the area as we'd have to move a lot of stuff out of the way to install the heater and it'd be a good time to wash and paint it. We added paint to the list. Benjamin made arrangements to borrow a power washer from another department nearby.
We gathered all the parts and tools together and decided to wait until the next day to start the work.
The next morning, Benjamin and I moved everything away from the cinderblock wall. He powerwashed it down and we painted it back to the off-white color is was originally. Then it all came down to the smaller steps of installing the small water heater. One of these steps was having an electrictian tap into a conduit and build us an electrical outlet to plug the water heater into.
I arranged the electrician, and while we were waiting, Benjamin turns to me.
"You know, Red, we have a good opportunity here."
"Oh yeah, what would that be?"
"Oh you know. Electricity. Water. Electrician. Live wires, and what not."
"Aaaaaand...." I prodded him to continue.
"Well, I'm normally not one to pull pranks on coworkers while on the clock, but that prank you and John pulled on Christine a few weeks ago with the ice machine was pretty hilarious."
A wide smile spread across my face. A knowing smile.
"What do you propose, Benjamin?"
Benjamin must have been plotting this prank for a while, because he had it down to specific steps. I thought for a minute and decided it was a good plan. We opted to execute the plan shortly after our electrician did his work.
"Ben, I never knew you had in you, man."
"I get that sometimes. lol"
Benjamin was a man of shorter stature, stocky, mid 50s. He had dark, shortly cut hair and seemed like he had a bit of hispanic in him. He brought his wife and grown kids to every holiday dinner we did for employees. He had a beautiful family. His wife made enchiladas to die for. I never gauged him to be the pranking type, but boy was I wrong. He told me some whoppers of stories about how he and his wife would constantly prank each other, and each prank would escalate into the realm of obscene, as in "holy shit, you really did that?" territory.
So our electrician did his work and went along his way. The plan that Ben had conjured up was ready to begin. The simplicity was beautiful. There was a paper towel dispenser next to the sink made out of metal. If you slapped on this metal enclosure it made a loud popping sound. I think Ben's idea was to simulate an electrical arc or shock or sorts. The noise, that is. Then the rest would follow.
We waited until Christine was in her office, which was next to the sink on the outside. We had also notified Bossman beforehand so he would know what was going on. He fully endorsed the idea and had a video camera on the sly and at the ready. lol
Ben and I were standing outside by the sink. The time had come. I winked and nodded at him to begin our little prank.
I whacked the shit out of the paper towel dispenser and screamed as loud as I could, "OH SHIT!!!! FUCK! NO, OH MY GOD!" The whole purpose of the beginning of this charade was to make it seem as if there were a problem with the new electrical equipment and that one of us had been shocked real bad. Ben played the part of the 'shockee'.
Ben was very good at this. He tumbled to the concrete floor as if he had been shocked. He even foamed at the mouth and started twitching a little to feign some kind of seizure or something. I was stifling laughter as this whole pretending to be shocked thing was turning out to be very convincing but also extremely amusing.
"CHRISTINE!!! COME HERE, OH MY GOD. CHRISTINE, HELP ME!!" I shouted in a frantic shrill knowing that Christine would hear me and come out in a complete and utter panic.
"Red, oh my God, what happened. Oh no! What's happened to Ben? Ben, are you ok? Red, what's going on??"
I was acting like I was feeling Ben's pulse and somehow managed to get the blood to withdraw from my face so I looked ashen.
"Christine," I said, "I need your help, tilt his head up. I need to give him chest compressions. His heart has stopped."
She kneeled down by Ben and cautiously lifted his head off the ground. I could see tears starting to well up in her eyes.
I remember thinking to myself, "Oh shit, she is so going to kick our asses when she finds out this isn't real." lol.
"1... 2... 3..." I counted as I gave Benjamin mock chest compressions.
Then I had a brilliant idea. I slapped Ben across the face a few times. I saw a smile flash on his face.
"Ben!! It's time to wake up, Ben!! Jesus H. Christ, man, come on!!
Ben mumbled something.
"Christine, did you hear that?? He said something! Ben, are you ok?"
Christine leaned over as if to try and hear him better.
"Christiiiiinee..." Ben moaned in a strained voice.
Christine reacted, "Oh my gosh, Ben, are you ok, Ben??"
Ben suddenly opened his eyes and had a serious look on his face. He abruptly sat up, looked Christine right in the face and said, "Christine, my wife makes the best damn enchiladas on earth."
She looked stunned and didn't know what to say. Dumbfounded might have been another word to describe Christine's reaction to this development.
"Ben," I asked, "are you ok, man. Where did you go there? You got shocked, dude. We thought you were a goner."
"Oh, I'm fine, Red. Sure was funny seeing Christine react in the way that she did, though."
I stifled a laugh, while Ben burst out laughing.
Suddenly Christine started hitting Ben in the shoulder and pointed directly at my face, "YOU!!"
"YOU!!" She was clamoring for words.
By this time, Ben and I both were howling in laughter and bossman joined us outside with a giant grin on his face and said, "We love you, Christine, dear."
Her eyes widened.
"AND YOU?! YOU KNEW ABOUT THIS??!!
"Of course, dearie." Bossman looked very proud of himself.
Christine just kind of slumped inward mumbling to herself.
"All of you!! All of you owe me lunch for the rest of my career in this God-forsaken job!! Never again will I trust any of you."
We all whooped and hollered, Christine included. We then proceeded to relive the moments second by second. Yes, she had heard the loud "pop" which was us slapping the paper towel dispenser. She heard me yelling her name and got scared, because she thought one of us had gotten hurt. Yes, she thought Benjamin had gotten shocked by electricity from the new water heater. Yes, she was afraid to hold his head up. Yes, yes, yes. And a brilliant plan came together. :)
Needless to say, we DID take her to lunch, and that poor soul never ever paid for her lunch ever ever ever again. Heart of gold, that Christine, to put up with us. <3
At the end of the day as we were going home, Ben caught up with me.
"Dude, did you really have to slap me so hard?"
I laughed out loud, "I think you, AND WE, deserved it, don't you?"
"Yes, indeed. Indeed, we did, Red."
/fin
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Redforkian by Red Forkian is licensed under Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Made with Kate
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