When The Boss Is Away....

Here's a little something I wrote a couple years ago.  Found it tucked away in my Microsoft Word files.


I inadvertently set a small fire at work today.  Now, before you go jumping the gun and passing judgment, you must listen to the rest of my story.  I know many fantasize about setting small fires at their place of work but mine truly was an accident.  I swear.

    Today was my last day of work before going on a long awaited, much deserved vacation.  Not that I was going anywhere, but away from work for a week is always good enough.  The day was drag.  Literally, the day just dragged on with no end in sight as one would expect.  The boss was away so I decided to sneak out to smoke a cigarette on a non-designated-break-time.  GASP!  I know.  It’s truly a crime.  I should be locked away with my wrists and feet bound with nothing to eat but crust of bread.  I should be dragged out into the street and beaten with a stick.

    What can I say?  I was having a rough day.  And since the Designated Break Time was implemented, I’ve only cheated twice, which is saying a lot considering how often I get so frustrated at work.  On one occasion I had a serious cold.  You know the kind; you feel like you’re going to die but you’re not vomiting or running fever and there’s no one to cover for you at work.  So you say to yourself, I’m going to go to work, do just what is absolutely necessary and then go home and get drunk on some NyQuil.

    Well I started feeling more and more awful as the morning progressed so I snuck outside for a smoke.  And was seen.  Yes, I’m the one who always gets caught no matter what.  Nothing was said to me because my nose was both running and stopped up and I suppose the boss figured a bit of sympathy was in order.  I could have called in, after all, and smoke at whatever time of the day I felt like it.  “Bar keep!  I’d like another shot of NyQuil.  Ah, what the heck, how about a round for the house?”

    The second time I snuck out, I had severely burned myself.  I actually didn’t get caught but I figured that skin instantaneously peeling from my body was a valid excuse for “slacking off on company time” as it were.
    So, back to my last day.  I went around back just in case the owner’s wife came back.  As if she wouldn’t be able to both see and smell cigarette smoke coming from around the building, but at least I wouldn’t have to look her in the eye.  When I was done, I pitched my cigarette butt on the ground and it landed on an old rag.  I stomped it out, removed the butt from the rag, separating the two, stomped them both out again and promptly went back to work.

    Later, people were flittering about at the back door.  “Misty, we got a problem back here!” my coworker, Liz shouted at me.  Everyone was in a mass panic.  “Something’s burning!  The generator’s on fire!  The generator’s on fire!”

    Actually, we don’t have a generator so I had no idea what they were talking about.  I assumed they meant the air compressor that sounds like a 747 jet revving up, but that remained to be seen.  I went around back to the gate that allows access to the air compressors and breaker boxes.  I figured the air compressor was burning up and I could simply shut it off, along with its breaker and go about my merry way.  Upon reaching the back of the building, however, I did not find a burnt up air compressor.  What I found instead, was an old rag.  Smoldering.

    Ah-ha!  Now I knew exactly what had happened.  Mystery solved.  The old once-was-white rag now had a big black circle burnt into it with smoke calmly lifting up, as though that’s why it was put on this earth.  I just as calmly picked up the rag, dropped it on the concrete parking lot as another coworker frantically ran over in a panic to stomp it out her sneakers.

    I went inside where Liz was getting a bucket of water and we put out the inferno.  The crisis had been averted.  Still, to look at my coworkers, you would think their own clothes were on fire.  After things calmed down and everyone went back to dragging through the day I bumped into Liz and she about fell on the floor in a fit of laughter.

    “It’s because you sneaked out, because you were being sneaky!” she laughed.  She laughed and laughed until tears were rolling down her face.  Another coworker wandered over and asked how the fire started.  Liz, like a well programmed robot, suddenly stopped laughing and switched to a very serious demeanor.  “We don’t know!  We don’t know what happened!”

    “Probably someone was driving down the alley and pitched a cigarette out the window,” I said.  And as far as anyone knows, that is what happened.  Naturally, as though on cue, Liz began howling with laughter.