Another typical day...

Twice a week our warehouse vendor, Iron Mountain, delivers the millions of boxes that I request for storage, review, whatever. Today there were 2 pallets (that’s 80+ boxes). The driver, Billy, pulls up in a giant truck with a hydraulic lift and parks it at our ‘loading dock’. Note: It really isn’t a loading dock, just an inclined bit of sidewalk. Today, Billy is alone. Usually he has another person to help him unload when he has a large order, but not today. It takes time for one man to unload 85 boxes. He unloads, we chat.

Enter the Jaime Foxx look alike.

A guy drives up in a van from Color Press. He walks up to us rather huffy and says he needs to be able to back up and park exactly where we are. He looks almost exactly like Jamie Foxx with glasses but weirder. Now, our truck is bigger than his, our load is larger than his and he wants us to move. There is a rule amongst drivers and loading docks around the world – first come, first serve. This guy was not happy about it. He gets on his cell phone and very loudly tells the party on the other end that he will be here a minute because “a gentleman has taken over the loading dock”.

At one point he offers to help to “expedite the delay” (can you use those words in a sentence together?). Billy refuses because the documents in the boxes are confidential and only he and I can touch the boxes. Jaime Foxx seems offended by this and apparently has no shame as he threw a tantrum. I went back inside to find the Copy Center folk who he is delivering to. I tell them that the drivers are outside playing ro-sham-bo for the dock. They come outside with me and laugh at the guy, too and tell him to wait, so I don’t feel so bad. We suggest he moves his van somewhere else, but now he decides to wait.

Then he wants to chat. Suddenly I am in the midst of a frightening political speech that starts out with the “70,000 people being killed in Iraq” and goes through everything from “6 million a month for the war” to “have you seen the levees in West Sac?” This is an angry guy. I couldn’t even really comment on anything other than to just nod and smile when appropriate. Billy was trying to keep up with the conversation and directed it back to home soil and then he started on a tirade about the people dying just here in Sacramento. It was a little heavy for this early in the morning. Maybe I just need another cup of coffee.

To make things worse, (or better?) Jonathan H. is back at work as of yesterday. This isn’t necessarily bad because he is my friend and all, but he is doing his best to torture me to make up for the two months that he hasn’t.

Example:
[him]: Stop yawning. You’re making me yawn. It’s contagious.
(I don’t think I was yawning.)
[me]: I’m not. And I could stare at you while you yawn and it won’t make me yawn.
(I stare. He yawns the longest yawn ever. There is no way it could be real. Damn it! He wins and I have to look away…but not quite in time.)
[me] while yawning: I hate you.
He then proceeds to do stupid human tricks like…twisting his arm grotesquely and giving himself some sort of lockjaw with his overbite. He freaks me out. I shoot him with a rubber band but he still won’t leave. Finally I bust out the can of compressed air and aim for his face. Ha ha, who wins now?

By the way, nice to have you back Jonathan! Let’s play a round of speed tic-tac-toe soon.