At least one-third of my day is spent at work. I write about my day. I would find it impossible to not write about work. Perhaps if everything was sunshine and light it would be a pleasurable read, but it isn’t.

Even when I thought things were OK, and writing about minuscule items that weren’t so OK it got me in trouble and cost me a job, and maybe contributed to the shuttering of Maxwell’s. The last straw and it broke the camel’s back.

Then again the guy who fired me didn’t really like me much and I guess gave me the job for some reason that is unbeknownst to me. He did allow Bill and I to have a party celebrating our civil union and for that, I am forever grateful as it was a splendid time for all that attended.

Today Raoul asked me for a quick minute to talk. I was in no position to say no. I thought maybe he, or ‘they’ caught on to this here blog. But Raoul was going to ask me if I wanted to help with some thing or another. Then he realized that it was not going to happen.

I suppose my dispirited spirit filled the conference room and I expressed my displeasure at this situation. I had suspected that it was all settled and la matrone enfermée dans le placard was getting off the hook once more with a direction to avoid me.

I am stationary and la matrone enfermée dans le placard floats about the office grunting throughout the day. It proves to be a difficult task. But Raoul suggested that this was not the case. Things are still underway and being enacted and it does not look good for la matrone enfermée dans le placard.

Then he mentioned something ‘off the record’. He suggested that I sue the company. I replied that it would not be so easy, me being just one man, without a lawyer, going up against a law firm.

He said I could find a lawyer who would work on my behalf depending on a contingency. I mentioned ‘pro bono’ lawyers and he said that was a possibility. I explained that this situation was affecting me physically. I wake up with my heart racing, depressed, and dreading the thought of going to a job that I had once enjoyed going to.

He claimed to understand. I told him about yesterday seeing the attendance list and spotting la matrone enfermée dans le placard as absent for the day, then the shock of seeing that roly-poly body coming towards me with a cart filled with kitchen supplies.

As we left the conference room, the whole thing took about five minutes, I told him that I had been working for almost 50 years. In all those years of working, no one has ever threatened me with physical violence. Then he said something that shocked me.

Raoul told me that he HAD been threatened at the job, twice. And one of those threats came from la matrone enfermée dans le placard herself. This beast has been at it for years and come off unscathed as far as I can tell.

And now I am supposed to believe something will be done. I do remain incredulous at that thought. Despite the doubt, I went ahead and had a decent day.

I remembered Schlomo the DKB, writing in a review of my work, that I stretch out my tasks for the day so I resolved to get my work done as soon as possible leaving me with large chunks of nothing to do, just sitting and waiting for something to cross my path which eventually happens.

Hey, I’m not stretching my work.

Today was the day Schlomo the DKB came back from vacation and I asked him if he heard about la matrone enfermée dans le placard’s threat and he said he heard a little something about it. He lies. A lot. And I do not like thee Schlomo the DKB.

I woke up this morning with Bill over me, softly asking if I was going to work. For a split second, I thought I had overslept but I hadn’t. Then he told me of a water main break when a couple of blocks away which meant for low water pressure if there was any water at all.

I shuffled through the apartment, doing what it is that I do. Jumped in the shower and there was water, normal pressure. Everything seemed fine even with helicopters overhead reporting on the morning shows.

These hundred year old pipes underground just keep breaking and no one can figure out why. I say this because once a year they seem to tear up the street in front of our building to replace something or install something that is more recent than one hundred years.

Today is Tuesday. It was almost a good day. I get an attendance list every morning and the report this morning was Verschlossene Matrone being out. It meant that the day would be easy going, no need to fear about getting stabbed or shot by der Putz mit Salmonellen.

La légumineuse didn’t seem to be around either. But she sometimes does that. It’s good to be Queen and I should know about that, shouldn’t I? Verschlossene Matrone did appear, much like eczema. The knot in my stomach appeared along with a sense of dread.

A lawyer and I had a nice conversation about how Verschlossene Matrone has so much to lose. So much to lose to perhaps test the boundaries. “Can I really call someone ‘bullshit’ and challenge them to a fight? And loudly yell it out so nearby workers can hear?”

Apparently it can.

Despite it’s progeny attending a quite expensive school would it be worth risking it all because someone you don’t like, exists? Der Verschlossene Matrone can do just that AND get away with it with absolutely no repercussions. It must be nice to be such a vile, evil queen. Intentional lowercase at that!

Dwell dwell dwell, I know but it is foremost in my mind and the potential threat is sometimes in front of me or hovering around my desk.

In all my years of working, almost 50 years, there has never been an occasion where a coworker threatened to fight me.

I did engage with some of the clients today. One gent, named Tommy Mazzola was a lot of fun. Eight years older and probably a right winger, still we connected. Mainly about the problems with today’s society, i.e. young people. He has kids and I don’t and he really unloaded on his daughter-in-law that he cannot stand.

He realized that it’s not his life and stands aside, biting his tongue. It was a fun chat though he was anxious to get out of there and I could certainly relate to that. Then there was Sheila and Allen. A couple from Brooklyn who were a little bit older than me but I can never really tell these days.

They weren’t as forthcoming as Tommy Mazzola but still, there was a connection that drew raised eyebrows when I replied to them coming from Brooklyn as coming from Long Island. I was busy engaging them and my break time approached but I was not going to leave them in the lurch.

Nothing would be lost if I left for my break a few minutes later and that was appreciated by one of the higher ups in this fine, fine organization.

That was typed with tongue firmly in cheek and middle fingers hunting and pecking on a keyboard, or la langue fermement dans la joue et les doigts du milieu chassent et picorent sur un clavier.