The Beginning | Facts About Myself | Don't Mess With An English Major | The Bake SaleThe Favor | The Rescue | The Brothel | The Number | The Wrist, Part One | The Wrist, Part TwoThe Sighting | The Question | The Concern | The Explanation
Christmas passed by quietly and far too quickly and on Tuesday morning I was preparing myself to head back into a very dead office. Because that's what happens when you don't have leave...you go to work when everyone else is home spending time with their families.
With my section of the office reminiscent of a ghost town, I wandered over to Office Boy's cubicle to see what he was up to. We did the typical, "How was your Christmas?" small talk and the conversation eventually, somehow, shifted to the topic of Star Wars.
"It's not a six-movie saga," I said. "It's two separate trilogies. Besides, the new ones sucked. The Phantom Menace was okay, but once Hayden Christensen came in, it all just died. He can't act his way out of a paper bag.""You thought The Phantom Menace was good? It was so awful!""Well, it was better than the other two. I'm sorry...Hayden Christensen just killed it.""Fine," he said. "But it's still a six-movie saga, if you discount the 20 years between the two trilogies.""But you can't discount 20 years. Plus, the three new ones sucked."
He pulled up a Wikipedia page on the series, to look up some topic which escapes my memory. While he answered a couple of emails, I read over the introductory paragraph that ended with the little tidbit of information that The Phantom Menace was released in theatres in 1999.
"I don't think it was quite 20 years though," he said. "Because Return of the Jedi came out in 1983 and The Phantom of the Menace came out in 1996.""The Phantom Menace came out in 1999, and it still doesn't make a difference.""No, I'm pretty sure it came out in 1996.""No," I said. "It came out in 1999. Trust me.""I bet you..." he said and suddenly his eyes lit up. "I bet you lunch that it came out in 1996.""Alright," I said, smiling slyly.
He typed The Phantom Menace into a Google search bar and the first result that popped up was the IMDB page for the movie, which proudly declared that The Phantom Menace came out in 1999, not 1996.
He glared at me and I just grinned.
"I told you. I know my Star Wars pretty well."
"Apparently."
"I watched all three original episodes and what ended up being a 2 1/2 hour documentary with a friend of mine on May the Fourth."
"Hah. May the Fourth. Nerds...you gotta love them."
"Yea. And he was a major Star Wars nerd.
"He? Did you like this guy?"
"At the time," I said. "But he turned out to be a jerk."
"Ahh. I'm sorry. But I figured...most girls wouldn't watch that much Star Wars."
"I love the movies. My mom was a huge advocate for them when I was a kid. She's the one who pushed Star Wars and Legos."
"That's awesome."
The rest of the work day passed without further craziness. As 4:30 drew nearer, I became increasingly nervous as I was driving straight from work to meet The Boy Who Shattered My Heart and tell him that we could no longer be friends. Ever.
Around 3:45, Office Boy stopped by my cubicle to tell me that he was going to the gym but he would probably be done by 4:30, which translates to, "I want to walk out to our cars together."
4:30 rolled around and there was no sign of Office Boy and I had a meeting to get to, one that I couldn't avoid, as much as I might want to. I walked out to my car and began the drive. Traffic was crazy and I had to repeatedly tell myself that it would be fine in order to prevent myself from crying or shaking uncontrollably.
I somehow made it in and out of the conversation relatively unscathed and after sobbing in the car for a few minutes, I answered all the texts I had received and then moved onto phone calls.
I had one missed call. From Office Boy.
