The office war

So yesterday a colleague in my office, lets call him G, sends me an email forward which goes like this:

"Send this warning to everyone on your e-mail list!
If someone comes to your front door saying they are conducting a
survey on deer ticks and asks you to take your clothes off and dance around
to shake off the ticks, do not do it!
IT IS A SCAM.
They only want to see you naked.
I wish I'd gotten this yesterday. I feel so stupid."

Now, G is a Republican, a decent enough Republican in that he does not kill and eat kittens, probably just maims them for life. I remember during the election insanity, we were once drinking in an Irish pub, watching the second Presidential debate, and under the influence of Democratic enthusiasm as well as Guinness-induced inebriation, when G W Bush started to speak, I stood up and started yelling indiscriminately at the television screen, and G gently reminded me to cool down saying yes, he could understand my pain, but really, was it the tv's fault?

So, because of G's Republicanism and my own khujli, I reply to his email thusly : "Don’t feel bad, I’m sure it got rid of the ticks too"

To which G replies back : "I hope you get bitten by a rabid dog."

Then, back from me : "Well come on over, I’m in my cubicle."

G replies back : "You mean the one without a window?"

Well, my cubicle doesn't have a window while his does. It is probably all for the best, since it keeps me from escaping, but it is still a sore point with me.

Now here, I should remind you that this email exchange was also being sent to a couple more people, seeing as it was a forward. Here's where J joined the fray. Now J is the kind of person, who, if he had been there in biblical times during the David-Goliath slugfest, if he had thought David and Goliath were on the verge of making peace, he would have thrown a tomato or something at Goliath, whistled, looked away and insinuated that it was David, just to keep the fight going.

So, J chimes in with : "Aww....Man that was Low!!!!"

Nevertheless, I reply back to G : "Ah so that’s where the ticks came from, your window."

J, the flamemaker replies : "Good come back!!!"

G then says : "No, probably from the Indian place last Friday."

J, probably anticipating that the fight is winding down, in a last-ditch effort to keep it alive, chips in with : "Ouch...And G pulls out the Race Card!!!"

Unfazed, I reply : "Well who asked you to order deer?"

G, shifting his attention to J, says : "Listen Sir Limp a lot, keep your mouth shut over there."

J currently has a cast on his leg, from a bike accident a while ago. Correctly recognizing that G's wrath has shifted from me to him, and like all tomato-throwing, fire-igniting bystanders, he tries to quell it before it breaks out in a full-fledged inferno.

He says: "Hey you just remember who provides the magazines for your 10:00 a.m 'Break'"

This is where the conversation ends, probably because we all run out of things to say.

Then, later at lunchtime, as I am placing an order in the neighbourhood Subway restaurant, I look around and there's G, along with J, sitting at a table. Assuming a fighting stance, I say with barely disguised hostility: "Did you follow me here? You looking for a fight?"

G, no doubt feeling intimidated by my footlong sub, replies mildly and with a tinge of sorrow, "So is this the end of our friendship?"

Now feeling bad about all the animosity that passed between us, I try to put it all behind me, saying "No man of course not, all water under the bridge. Till tomorrow, of course.", I add, not wanting to get too sentimental.

Fighting back tears over this emotional reunion, we go back to the office.