Electric Chair

"You wouldn't talk to me that way if I wasn't in this chair, Jane."
"But you are in the chair, Blanche. You are in the chair!"
--Joan Crawford (Blanche), and Bette Davis (Jane) from Whatever Happened To Baby Jane, 1962

First, I want to thank everyone who shared their thoughts and feelings with me in the comments of my last post. It gave me a lot to think about, as well as some much needed perspective. I mulled it all over the weekend, and went to work this morning determined that I was simply going to take my breaks and lunch with the other group of billers. I knew that Teeth would notice instantly and not be able to keep herself from commenting, but in order to better enjoy my time at work, I felt this was the most mature and positive step.

The new group is lots of fun, decidedly more mature emotionally, and none of them are on any kind of disturbing power trip. The funniest thing about this group of about seven women is that when they congregate in the staff room, at least four of them immediately start texting or surfing the net on their phones. They still manage to carry on conversations with the rest of us, though, so I just shake my head, laugh and eat my fibre bar.

(By the way, I may have to give up eating Indian food that is prepared commercially. We had Indian buffet at a local establishment last night and by the time I got home, I had Delhi Belly so badly I was afraid I would rocket right off the toilet. And it went on ALL NIGHT. Holy sufferin' Sarasvati.)

Anyway, the morning break went by without comment, but Teeth was pretty busy, training the new biller, who is ostensibly Mrs. Orange's replacement. Lunch time came, and when I got back, Teeth and the rest of the gang were preparing to go.

"So," Teeth said, "we're not good enough for you anymore?"

"That's pretty much it, yeah," I replied.

"Fine," she replied, and huffed off.

And, no--perhaps my response was not the most mature, and a titch confrontational. But fuck her and her passive aggression. If you are honestly interested in knowing why I don't take my breaks with you anymore, fucking ASK ME. Don't do that junior high school bullshit that you just pulled.

But I've decided that Teeth isn't actually interested in knowing why I won't join them anymore. I suspect she knows damn well. She brought it up in order to demonstrate to me that she has noticed and does Not Approve. To which my response was: Big Fuckin' Deal. If I cared, I'd be joining you in the lunch room.

Yanno who had the most honest approach? Wolf Woman. (Sylvester just doesn't care to get involved and spends most of the break smoking anyway). Later, when we were alone, Wolf Woman wanted to know if she was the reason I had more or less defected to the other group.

"No," I said honestly. "It's not you." And I went on to explain to her how I felt about watching Teeth bully her daughter out of the chair on Friday afternoon and how I just didn't want to watch that kind of social drama anymore. She said she hadn't noticed what was going on (which I'm not buying, but okay), that she understood and that was that. We're just fine and I'm glad for that.

The most amazing part of all? Moments after my interaction with Teeth, the Princess of Wales in the pod closest to the staff room emailed me to tell me she had just overheard Teeth telling the new biller which chair belonged to whom. And she was using a baby voice to do it.

Crazy shit.

And just as an aside, Wolf Woman and her daughter were talking to the Princess of Wales on Friday just before we left for the weekend. Because the Princess of Wales doesn't have an accent, they were skeptical that she is a landed immigrant. (Actually, I think the words they used were "illegal alien".) The Cub even went so far as to ask, "Where's Wales?" which made me want to hit her with a fucking atlas.

Anyway, in order to convince them, the PoW pulled out her landed immigrant document, which is written in Welsh Gaelic.

"I don't get it," said the Cub.

"Yeah," said Wolf Woman. "Is this written in Wale-ish?"

Wow. Just wow.