A Tragedy in C Major, Ch. 2

Chapter 2

Now that he had looked out of the window at the day where the first rays of sunlight couldn't even pierce the dark, dingy sky, and eaten his breakfast of Cheerios, Chex, and Lucky Charms marshmallows, and he had on his extra-large, luxuriously soft and squishy bright green bathrobe, he was ready to take a shower.

George Archibald Princeton Fredrick V was a creature of habit and so he always did everything at the same time, every day. He didn't know it, but that is why he hadn't had time to lay the tile himself. In fact, the only reason that it was even covering the old threadbare orange-speckled-with-green carpet was because one day his boss had made him take a day of vacation. He hadn't known what to do, so he had still gotten up and put on his bathrobe, eaten his breakfast, looked out the window, taken a shower, and put on his suit. But then he had just sat there, his rather rotund rear resting on the edge of his queen size bed that he had gotten for his birthday from his cousin that worked at a junkyard. He just sat there, staring around the room, needing to do something. So he got up and started walking around. He saw that he had some laundry that he could do, but it was friday and he always did his laundry on tuesday. He looked in the fridge and saw that he was almost out of milk, but he always went shopping on wednesday. Then he saw that stack of tiles and, by the end of the day, he had them all laid out over the floor so that he knew where he wanted each tile. Then he went back to work the next day and hadn't had time to go back and finish the floor.

His shower was one of his favorite daily rituals, as it was what he called thinking time. Believe it or not, it really doesn't take much mental effort to clean ones self, and so George Archibald Princeton Fredrick V used the extra thinking time that taking a shower provided him with to decide what exactly it was that he was going to do that day. You might be asking yourself what in the world I am talking about, as I just said that he was a creature of habit. But, you will also remember that I said that he was not aware of this fact. I may have misled you somewhat earlier when I said that "he had some laundry that he could do, but it was friday and he always did his laundry on tuesday." That is how I think about it, but I do not doubt that his thought process went something more like "I could do laundry, but I just did it on tuesday, and there isn't very much laundry to do, so I won't do that." Then, when it was once again tuesday he would think to himself, "It has been a while since I have done my laundry, and there is quite a pile of it now, I guess that I will do it." And so, every tuesday he would do his laundry, never even realizing that he was doing it every tuesday. He never did write out a schedule, and had never had a day book to help him keep track of what he was doing. All of this is evidence that he is a creature of habit. After all, he was not a man of terrific memory, or incredible mental organization, and so the way that he came up with to deal with his schedule was to always do the same thing. This did make him a very inhospitable man to visit though.

After his shower/daily planning session, he got dressed. He did not spend much time choosing his clothes, mostly because he did not have a great amount of variety of clothes to choose from. His closet was full of grey pinstripe pants with dark red speckled suspenders, along with matching suit coats and some very light cream shirts. The only really eye catching portion of his closet was his rack of ties. He had small red bow ties, big, bouncy, black bow ties. He had neck ties with wildly contrasting stripes of green and purple, and flashy oranges and reds. But at the front of his closet were two ties that stood out when compared to the rest of his collection. One was a medium width, medium length, and was a lovely, but dull, solid brown. The other was a bow tie, and it was a dark, earthy green, seeming to not be far from the grey of his pants and suit coats. Every morning during the quarter hour that he got dressed, he would pull on his suit and shirt without even thinking, and then he would thumb through his entire tie collection before picking up either the dull brown or dark green tie with a sigh and then putting it on. Although I never knew a time when he wore any tie other than one of these two, I often wonder if at some time of in his life he had a wardrobe that matched his ties in their extravagance.

On this day though, he once again picked up his brown tie. He then shrugged on one of his jackets and walked out to his car. So far, this day had been normal for the most part, except of course for it being so extremely dark, damp, and dreary because of the heavy, drizzling cloud cover. This was unfortunate because it was often dark and dreary where George Archibald Princeton Fredrick V lived, and so he did not really even notice that it was so much more dark, dreary, and damp than it usually was. To him the day was seeming quite normal, while I would hope that by now you have realized that it is not going to be a normal day. Otherwise I have wasted a bit of your time by luring you in with such a tragic title and opening paragraph.

One benefit of him being a creature of habit is that he was never really late. Of course this tuns out to be a matter of some controversy. He arrived promptly at work every day, but unfortunately he had a habit of conversing with the first thing that he saw every day when he arrived at work. The vast majority of the time it was the big tree outside of the office building. It was an ancient old oak, completely covered in a bright green robe of moss except for the very tips of its branches. George had been taught when he was a young boy that moss always grew on the northern side of the tree, and so this tree had confused him for quite some time after he had been introduced to it. Eventually he had decided that since moss always grew on the northern side of the tree then this tree must have many northern sides. That was just how he was. He would trust almost without question whatever anyone told him, and would force what he saw into those ideas. It was something that had led to many amusing incidents in his life. Like the time that his great aunt Dimity May had told him that toast always lands butter side down. He thought this was amazing, and so for years, whenever he would make toast he would drop it so that he knew which side to butter.

Anyway, he would always greet the tree when he got to work. As you can imagine the conversation was a bit drab. Usually George Archibald... well, maybe it would be better if I just transcribed here. George Archibald Princeton Fredrick V would start out, obviously, and he would usually say "Hello! Good day today isn't it?"

To which the tree would reply, "."

This usually amused George Archibald Princeton Fredrick V, and so he would let out a hearty chuckle and say "Isn't that always how it is ?" And then he would walk off chuckling to work. As you can probably tell, this was not enough to make him very late, but it was enough to make him a minute or two late every day. At first his manager was quite cross with him, as he always said that he became a manager by being on time, and so he would demand the same from his group. He tried everything he could think of to get George Archibald Princeton Fredrick V to work on time, even threatening to fire him. What he did not think of trying was giving George Archibald Princeton Fredrick V someone to talk to on the way from his car to the office. Fortunately for George, his second cousin thrice removed, Cousin Lemits Raphetious, was an upper level manager in the office, and so he was not fired. George's manager would still threaten, but they both knew that all of his threats were no more than words. Eventually it got to the point were the conversation took a rather absurd turn. Usually George would walk in to work a minute or so late, and his manager would be waiting at the door, taping his watch. He would then say "If you can't be here on time, don't bother coming!"

To which George would reply "I'm sorry, I must have gotten delayed somewhere." Eventually though George thought that he would play a little joke on his manager, which was something most unlike him. He decided that he would be the first person to say something when he came through the door, but he had the hardest time deciding what it was that he wanted to say. He thought about it for a few weeks, devoting large portions of his thinking time in the shower to the idea. Eventually he came up with what he thought was the most brilliant idea of his life. He was going to say the same thing that his manager said to him everyday. The next day as he was about to open the door he prepared himself to say it, but he couldn't remember what "it" was! He thought that he could piece it together though, and so through the door he went, and then loudly said "If you can't get her, don't bother!" This did not have quite the effect that he was hoping, as you might expect. Instead of being annoyed at George's supposed quirkiness, he was shocked silent. Whether it was the shear absurdity of George's comment or some other source of shock I don't know, but that day he wasn't able to say anything to George before George reached his office, and so, as he was so fond of saying, "If you can't be here on time, don't bother coming!" From then on he had decidedly ignored George's first comment, as George also ignored his managers comment.

George's work was nothing of interest really. In fact, he didn't really do anything. He went to work every day, greeted the jolly green oak tree outside, was berated by his manager, went to his small office, and just worked until 4:15 everyday with an hour lunch at about 11:15. Well, I suppose it isn't really fair to say that he didn't do anything. It would be far more correct to say that he didn't do anything that needed to be done, or that was important. He was the General Office Assistant of Institutional Correctness. You can even tell from his title that he didn't do anything really. After all, all of the important jobs had short titles, with the shortest titles going to those with the more important jobs, such as president or manager. Once you got past two or three words in a title, you know that you are a background player, and George Archibald Princeton Fredrick V's title was at least five words long, and was fair game to be counted as six on a bad day. He was supposed to make sure that the company was doing what it was supposed to be doing basically. Since the company only did one thing, and that was make clock pendulums, George really didn't do anything. Oh sure, there was the great pendulum crisis a few years ago where about ten pendulums came out upside down. The company didn't have a customer support area as it was not often that someone complained about a clock pendulum not working, and so when one of the customers called to complain they were transferred from area to area until they arrived at George's area. He was, and still is, the only General Office Assistant of Institutional Correctness, and he figured that if someone got some upside down pendulums then the company was not doing what it was supposed to, so he took it upon himself to fix the situation. He called his manager and arranged for the customer to exchange the pendulums. It took about 15 minutes.

But the job was not a bad one. He had plenty to do after all. He made sure that the company was spending money on pendulums, and he made sure that the employees were working on pendulums, and he even had to make sure that he was checking to make sure that the company was making pendulums. It was an exhausting job!

Today was no different either, besides that it was a horrible day that is. But George didn't know that yet, and so you can forget it for a while longer if you would like. I wouldn't blame you in the least. After all, who wants to be reminded of a horrible day, even if it wasn't your horrible day?

Anyway, today was no different. George came into the office late again, prompting a near instinctive response from his manager, "If you can't be here on time, don't bother coming!" George just ignored it and walked into his office, and sat down at his worn desk heavily stacked with familiar paper work. He was a little behind on his reviewal of the companies ordering records, but when wasn't he? After all, he did work for the largest single producer of clock pendulums in the world. At least that is what he told himself every day. It made him feel better about his work. So he sat down, and started going through them. He always liked this part of his job. He enjoyed reading the long lists of supplies that his company was ordering, seeing how the prices had changed, and what metals were in style at the moment. He fancied that with his sharp mind it told him a great deal about the world.

Today he was looking through the lists, seeing gold, brass, tin, steel, along with various tools. None of this was a surprise yet though. He had worked as the General Office Assistant of Institutional Correctness for long enough that he knew the name of everything that was involved in making pendulums. And then he saw it. Something that he had never seen before. A knob shaper! What in the world was that, and what was it doing on his list? George knew that it was not only his job to report this obvious breach in the correctness of the institution, but it was his duty! He was solely responsible to make sure that the company was doing what it was supposed to, and he could see no way that the company could survive without being true to itself. And so he grabbed the paper and headed to his managers office. On his way there he, wait a minute. You think that this is where his day begins to go bad don't you? Why is it that anytime anything unexpected happens people expect the worst? Shame on you, you pessimist! However, you are right this time. Lucky you.

It was on the way to his managers office that he first smelled it. A sour sort of stench, but so diluted so that it was just noticeable enough to cause a small cringe and a distinct feeling of distaste, but not strong enough to merit an all out verbal or physical response to the smell. He looked around him, but could not find the whatever it was that was giving off the awful scent. He turned on the spot, looking all around him and doing what his Uncle Dephan called the "only real act of human stupidity." He sniffed the air. Repeatedly. I don't know if I agree with George's uncle about it being the only act of human stupidity, but it certainly is stupid. After all, how rational is it to stop and go to great lengths to determine what a smell is that we don't like? Remember that the next time your Great Aunt leaves some of her socks to rot under the sofa. Don't just sit there and sniff to try and figure out what the smell is, just get rid of it!

Even after sniffing the air repeatedly, he could not find the source of the smell. He looked around him again, but all that he could see were large wooden desks in small, padded cubicles. Then he looked at the paper that he was holding and tried to remember what it was that he was doing out there instead of in his office. He started to read the purchase list again, and there it was! The knob shaper! Once again reminded of his noble quest, he set off again to his managers office.