Office is slow again today. We’ve run outta things for Idiot Gnome to do…so WHS Pimp has launched her on the outter yard to pick up scraps and clear nails.
…Meanwhile, we sit in the lobby having totally inappropriate office conversations in between incoming phone calls.
…Idiot Gnome has only been doing this for about 40 minutes, and has already been in here four times to amend her homemade “hazmat suit,” guarding her against the evils of dirt and stuff.
It begins with a 90 lb 5’2″ person, layered in three hoodies, a puffy snow coat, blue rubber gloves (inside) of shop gloves, tennies, and optioned goggles…(Which we keep on hand for welding projects.)
…She now weighs in at approximately 125 pounds, and is clearly having issues with the bulk, waddling around like that kid from “A Christmas Story” movie, whose so puffed out, he can’t put his arms down.
From time to time, we clock her through the lobby windows.
Her return trips of outfit amendments are mostly based on the fact that her body is too small to fill the capacity of our average-sized protection aids.
…The rubber gloves (identical to the ones your Dentist uses) are baggy and at least two sizes too big…so her fingers have around an inch of excess rubber, unfilled and floating at each end. These, she’s tried to cram into the work gloves, to help fill THEM with some sort of grip-traction…(as they were made for a small man), which means she might as well be wearing oven mitts for all the function help they give her.
…Watching her trying to pick up a nail off the gravel (for instance), is sort of amusing.
…So is the clearing out of the back of WHS Pimp’s truck bed.
Full of cast-off scrap wood from our latest large build, he has her categorizing the contents into separate piles for shimmy and leveling use.
…Occasionally, a larger piece of siding becomes excavated, as just a moment ago, which he’s been watching off and on out the window, as I deal with several emails.
Eventually, he begins to chuckle.
Me: (From my office.) What’s up?
WHS Pimp: She’s just found an OSB sheet.
Me: Yeah?
WHS Pimp: She’s trying to figure out how to get it out of the truck.
(He giggles again.)
WHS Pimp: She’s sorta trying to bench press one end up, and grip it at an angle.
Me: Like she’s trying for over-the-head?
WHS Pimp: God, I hope not. First off, she can’t see anything. All those hoodie layers have like fused her neck range-of-motion to less than a Batman cowl. Second, if that thing gets any wind, it’ll catch lift, and whip her right up…like Mary Poppins…
(I start to chuckle.)
WHS Pimp: …Only a LOT more violent…
(I start to laugh.)
WHS Pimp: …Just a tiny rag doll, flung in the wind…
(I laugh harder.)
WHS Pimp: …Course she wouldn’t be prepared for it, either. And those gloves are EASILY ten or twelve sizes too big…so we know there’s like zero grip there…
(I contract my belly, hunching over.)
WHS Pimp: …Which, with the wind-shift against the wood weight, will flick the gloves right off of her, somewhere mid-lift, but her body inertia will just keep going…
(I start to cry)
WHS Pimp: …And she’ll have about three good seconds of total air, like a tiny flying Michelin Man float, cut adrift…
(I’m gasping for air.)
WHS Pimp: …And, where with other people that time would be filled with their life flashing before their eyes, thinking, “OH HOLY SHIT, I’M GONNA DIE!”…?
(Still Gasping.)
WHS Pimp: …She, instead, would have this totally amazing moment of complete innocent wonder. Then at some point: fall.
(Gasp. Cry. Gasp.)
WHS Pimp: …And we’ll run out there, and have to wake her up, making sure she isn’t dead or something. And you know what will be the first thing she’ll say?
Me: (Ugly-cry-laughing.) “You guys! I can fly!”
WHS Pimp: Exactly.
~D
