Choose Your Own Adventure®
My duty section leader gave me the creeps for the longest time. As his assistant, he had me doing all of the work (this isn’t one of those I-do-everything-around-here deals, he told me to do all of the work and I did), and he had the uncomfortable habits of standing very close behind me and whispering in my ear, touching me on the arm with his fingers and wigging them around in a creepy sort of way, and walking by me and saying very loudly so that everyone could hear, “For the last time, I will not go out with you. I’m married.”
I tired of his laziness, unprofessional behavior, and complete disinterest in the welfare of his troops to the point that I was embarrassed to be a member of his team. So when the Senior Chief next door walked into the engineering shop, noticed me working on the duty watch bill, and asked about it, I complained my story. He countered by inflating his chest with enough breath to convince me that it was not in my best interest to be taking on the responsibilities of the duty section leader and that if I didn’t fix the situation he would.
I fixed it. And with the most amazing side-effect: the touching, the soft-talking, and the frustrating jokes stopped. It was wonderful.
Until this morning when out of nowhere came a long and lingering finger-wiggle-touch on the arm with a low and raspy, “Good morning, sunshine.”
I am not his sunshine. Nor do I ever want to be his sunshine. What I’d like to do is give him a boot where the sun doesn’t shine.
It’s like he’s living a Choose Your Own Adventure® book and he got to a part that wasn’t so cool so he flipped back a few pages to pick it up at the last interesting place with the hope that he could engineer a more satisfying outcome.
I’m not sure what is difficult about mimicking his behavior: walking by him while stating very loudly so that everyone can hear, “For the last time stop touching me you fucking perv.” But I don’t have it in me. I always convince myself that it's not really that big of a deal and I hold on to the hope that maybe that was the last time.
I tired of his laziness, unprofessional behavior, and complete disinterest in the welfare of his troops to the point that I was embarrassed to be a member of his team. So when the Senior Chief next door walked into the engineering shop, noticed me working on the duty watch bill, and asked about it, I complained my story. He countered by inflating his chest with enough breath to convince me that it was not in my best interest to be taking on the responsibilities of the duty section leader and that if I didn’t fix the situation he would.
I fixed it. And with the most amazing side-effect: the touching, the soft-talking, and the frustrating jokes stopped. It was wonderful.
Until this morning when out of nowhere came a long and lingering finger-wiggle-touch on the arm with a low and raspy, “Good morning, sunshine.”
I am not his sunshine. Nor do I ever want to be his sunshine. What I’d like to do is give him a boot where the sun doesn’t shine.
It’s like he’s living a Choose Your Own Adventure® book and he got to a part that wasn’t so cool so he flipped back a few pages to pick it up at the last interesting place with the hope that he could engineer a more satisfying outcome.
I’m not sure what is difficult about mimicking his behavior: walking by him while stating very loudly so that everyone can hear, “For the last time stop touching me you fucking perv.” But I don’t have it in me. I always convince myself that it's not really that big of a deal and I hold on to the hope that maybe that was the last time.
posted by Jessica at 21:05
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