Friday Afternoon

by Steve Mast

I’m starting to tense up again, just thinking about it. “Do me a favor, hun,” she had said, last week, as if adding “hun” automatically nullified the crap she was about to dump on me. “Next week when you do that report, could ya add some graphs? Bar graphs, not pie. I’ve always hated pie graphs. They make me hungry. Some nice bar graphs. Reading all those numbers without graphs gives me a headache.”
“Sure, hun” I had answered. It was either that or Atilla, which probably would have gotten me into trouble.
Graphs? Damnit all, I wasn’t her damn secretary. I was a salesman, and it was my sales that let her buy that damn BMW she’s started driving. A bright red sporty car. Her husband had drawn flames on the side. Dark puke-green things that looked like they were drawn in crayon.
So what had started as a simple sales summary had turned into a massive company-encompassing project detailing every sales detail for the past year, and now she wanted charts! I was already going on hour six of putting this thing together and I figured I had at least a few more before I’d be done.
But fuming about the problem and wishing pain and suffering on my boss wasn’t going to get the report done. Instead I looked out the window to imagine myself going home. Good ol’ “Atilla” had gone to lunch hours ago and had never come back. She was probably at home with a beer in hand. Damn her anyway!
Never mind – I guess she wasn’t at home cause as I looked out I saw her car zooming up the street back toward work. She seemed to be going a bit fast and I wondered if it was too much car for her to handle.
Apparently it was, as she hit a bump, veered to the right, and planted her car, and herself, directly into a parked car.
Startled, I jumped up out of my seat and wondered briefly if she was all right. It was only briefly because one, or perhaps both, of the cars burst into a huge fireball.
I gasped and was flooded with questions. What should I do? Should I feel bad cause I was just thinking bad thoughts about her? Should I feel sorry that she was gone?
I sat down again and looked at my screen. The report glared back at me, menacing. I grinned back. Turning off the computer I decided it was time to go home and have that beer after all.