Well, there are certain things that every administrative assistant learns to hate real quick. New employees and their paperwork. Ordering food for meetings. And the office fridge and its terrible, terrible smell. I returned to work 4 months ago to a fridge you could smell clear across the office. I stood my ground for 4 long months, refusing to offer to clean it. Then, one fateful day, when I had changed my face so that I was agreeable, I took up someone’s suggestion to clean the fridge on my last day of work before the long weekend. And this is how it went.<\/i><\/p>\n
It was a cloudy, wet November day
\nThe day we threw the food away
\n– Well, food is a rather generous term
\nAs most of it was bacteria and germ –
\nWe gathered four-strong in the stinky room
\nHuddled close like babes in a mother’s womb
\nOne of us opened the great, white door
\nAnd the rest of us fell to the floor.<\/p>\n
chorus<\/b>
\nThere comes a time in a woman’s life
\nWhen she must bow to external strife,
\nMust behave like someone’s stepford wife
\nAnd do the things she’s told to
\nSomeone must pay if we want to play<\/i>
\nThat’s what I said to myself that day.
\nI took a bullet and it wasn’t a stray
\nAnd I didn’t have a medic to crawl to.<\/p>\n
With a noseful of the noxious fumes
\nWe all tried humming jaunty tunes
\nBut it was useless – we were thwarted
\nBy the stank the fridge exhorted.
\nSalad dressing, mouldy fruit,
\nPickles, salmon, holy shoot!
\nWatch out, those baggies look real soggy,
\nI think that food used to be froggy. Or doggy. <\/p>\n
Either way.<\/p>\n
At the end, we scrubbed the racks,
\nScraped off soy sauce and faced the facts:
\nOffice folk are filthy pigs
\nWho don’t deserve their swanky digs
\nAnd if we four could have our way
\nWe’d force others to smell what we smelled this day.<\/p>\n
There comes a time in a woman’s life
\nWhen she must bow to external strife,
\nMust behave like someone’s stepford wife
\nAnd do the things she’s told to
\nSomeone must pay if we want to play<\/i>
\nThat’s what I said to myself that day.
\nI took a bullet and it wasn’t a stray
\nAnd I didn’t have a medic to crawl to.<\/p>\n
But virtue always goes rewarded
\n(and that’s sarcasm because I’m guarded)
\nBack at my desk I was cornered by
\nA crazy biddy who started to cry
\nYou tossed my salad dressing!<\/i> she said
\nAs I stared, waiting, at her head
\nYou saw my email,<\/i> I had to say,
\nI heard you shouting earlier today<\/i>
\nBut it was fresh and good <\/i> she whined
\nI don’t remember it,<\/i> I replied
\nBut next time label it with your name
\nAnd add the date, else it’s all the same.<\/i>
\nShe shook her fist and evil-eyed me
\nShe moved in close and stood beside me
\nYOU TOSSED MY DRESSING AND YOU MUST PAY<\/i>
\nI’M SORRY,<\/i> I replied, NOW PLEASE GO AWAY.<\/i><\/p>\n
That’s how it came to be 4:02
\nAnd how I came to be laughing, too
\nAs I walked out of my office jail
\nOut through the door that always fails
\nPast the elevator – usually broken
\nAnd past several colleagues – no word spoken.
\nI popped in a piece of mint bubblegum
\nAnd flexed my feet to prepare to run.<\/p>\n
She didn’t follow – they never do –
\nthe crazies just want to bitch at you.
\nAnd bitch. And bitch. And bitch. And then
\nWhen you think they’re done? They bitch again!
\nI thought of her salads on my journey home
\nAnd how they will suck from now on
\nWithout the wonderful dressings there
\nAnd I realized how much I really don’t care.
\nI cleaned your fridge that I don’t even use,
\nI emptied it of your forgotten refuse,
\nIf your salad dressing had been so loved
\nYou’d have come to rescue it – and I’d have lent you gloves.<\/p>\n
There comes a time in a woman’s life
\nWhen she must bow to external strife.
\nMust behave like someone’s stepford wife
\nAnd do the things she’s told to.
\nSomeone must pay if we want to play<\/i>
\nThat’s what I said to myself – and hey,
\nI cleaned your fridge and I called it a day
\n’cause I’ve got better things to come home to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Well, there are certain things that every administrative assistant learns to hate real quick. New employees and their paperwork. Ordering food for meetings. And the office fridge and its terrible, terrible smell. I returned to work 4 months ago to … Continue reading