There’s Always Time for Temptation

There’s Always Time for Temptation

We have plenty of time.

And I have plenty of work to do.

Then we have plenty of time.

There’s no “we” here.

Fine, “I” have plenty of time.

Deep breath. Ignore it.

I’m in your purse.

Shut up.

I’m right here, right up here in the cabinet.

Leave me alone. I’m working.

It’ll only take a second. You know you want to.

I’m ignoring you.

No, you’re not.

Inbox: 121 Unread Emails

Overnight.

Corporate Email Hell. In a six hospital health care system with an email addiction, everyone is cranking out emails twenty-four hours a day, weekends, holidays, natural disasters. People read and send emails on their phones while eating, walking, driving, and even peeing.

Sadly, checking email the first thing I do when I sit down with my coffee at 5am, and the last thing I look at on my nightstand.

Clear the Inbox. Focus. Ignore everything else.

Delete, delete, create rule to send to Deleted Items Folder, delete.

Forward, “Laura, would you be so kind as to follow up with Marissa? Thanks.”

Delete, swear and delete, star for later, flip off the monitor and delete.

Reply to All “Let me ask Amy and get back to you. Thanks,” add to the To Do List, delete.

Reply “I’m happy to assist. When do you need this completed? Thanks,” add to list, delete….

I’m still here.

I’m stronger than this.

Heellloooo?

I can’t hear you.

Yes, you can.

I am not weak. I am not weak.

It’s sooo good. You know you want to.

God, I want to. I so want to.

I told you so.

Fuck you. I am not weak. I am not weak.

You want—

Time to walk away. Bathroom break is a good excuse. I slide my pantyhose strangled feet around my glorious comfort gel mat—a necessity for the standing desk ergonomic trend, because apparently “sitting is the new smoking.” Personally, I like sitting—and bootcut jeans, t-shirts, and bare feet. Not a popular look in the Organizational Effectiveness Uppity Brand New Office. I find my shoes under my desk in my cubicle prison. I escape from it and the voice in my head. If only temporarily.

“Morning, Jacob,” I call out as I walk by the breakroom, smelling his coffee dispensing from the Keurig. His cheerful reply is drowned out by the rumble in the fancy stainless steel water and ice dispenser.

I nod and smile to Jami and Sarah, who are meeting in the restaurant-style booth by the window—our ambitious leader’s attempt to make the new office as innovative and obscenely expensive as possible to create the coveted Google-esque vibe.

I stop to add a few words to the Scrabble board on the “Brain Break” counter. I admit, I cheat, pulling whatever tiles I need to make funny, insulting, and vaguely obscene additions; I have to keep myself amused so I don’t end up on a water tower with a high-powered rifle. The weak play of “An” becomes “Insanity.” The unimaginative “Go” becomes Egotistical. “Point” becomes “Pointlessness.” I connect “Egotistical” with “Pointless” to make “Tyrant.” There. That’s satisfying.

Constance is working on a five hundred piece puzzle of a rustic covered bridge surrounded by peak season fall foliage, her favorite “let me walk away from my computer for a few minutes” activity. She looks up and smiles.

“Good morning, Lizzie.”

I hate that she calls me that. Lizzie was my white German shepherd who died in my arms on my birthday. I’m Elizabeth. Always have been—since I informed my parents in second grade that I preferred Elizabeth because it was more formal than nicknames. Only my parents get to call me Beth. No one else calls me Lizzie. I ignore it, as usual, and return her smile. “Good morning. How are you today?” Not that I care; it’s one of those annoying non-optional social conventions. I’m the Official Office Bitch—fine with me—but I do conform reluctantly to the bullshit of pretending to care how people are, how their weekend was, blah blah blah, stupid.

“I am well,” she replies with her perfect, formal enunciation, orthodontically enhanced annoyingly perfect teeth. “Hope you are.”

I force a smile. I have never been “well” mentally or physically in my entire life, so I refuse to say that I am well. “I’m good.” I am good—at many, many things, so I can say that truthfully. “How’s the puzzle going?”

She snaps four pieces into place while I hold one trying to see where it fits; I look at colors, turn the piece around in my hand and surrender to my complete lack of spatial intelligence. I got extra sarcasm, profanity, bitchiness, and verbal annihilation skills instead. “Bio Break,” I announce as I put the puzzling cardboard scrap down; she ignores me, which works for me.

The bathroom, complete with automatic sensors on everything, is populated by women I have to make small talk with while peeing and washing my hands. The men’s bathroom—being that so few men work in healthcare—is a single locked room. Privacy versus poorly aimed piss. Oh, to have both.

Back at my desk in my corporate cell, I ask myself aloud, “Ok, where was I?” Twenty new emails since I left to pee. Fucking technology. Delete, delete, delete….

I’m still here.

I clench my jaws together, which somehow keeps me from replying in my head.

Just take one.

Not now.

You’ll feel better.

I’m fine. I’ll tough it out.

You know you want to.

God, I so want to. I can’t. I can’t.

Just one.

I look at my calendar. Shit. I’ve got that leader intake call with Tracey in the ER in half an hour. An Organizational Effectiveness services orientation with Chris Z-something, new leader of some weird finance sub-team, who always smiles and talks to me like we’re old college friends. Then that 360 debrief with Mark from Radiology at 4. Crap.

It’ll be more fun if you take one.

I can’t. I want to. I’m stronger than this. No, I’m not.

See?

Screw you. I’m not doing this. I’m working.

You won’t be able to with me here.

Then I’m leaving you here.

I grab my laptop and my color-coded, neatly label-maker-labelled file folders. Abandoning my shoes under my desk, I stalk off to the open office at the end of the hall—the small one that’s always too hot-- and close the door harder than I meant to. Shit. Setting up, turning my back to the doorway and the insidious cubicle cabinet, I review my notes and handouts. I double check my phone to make sure I have the alarm set so I make the call on time.

After the call, which was frustrating—people are stupid—I have to return to my cubicle cell so Anita can use the office for her Zoom meeting.

I drop my things on my desk and pad on stockinged feet to the refrigerator for a cold drink—hoping the big boss won’t snark at me for it: “Elizabeth, I sure hope you don’t hurt yourself because you’re not wearing any shoes. I don’t want a Worker’s Comp Claim in my Inbox.” Bitch. I hope you fall off your ivory pedestal and break a hip.

Which part of this job do I actually like? It seems to have escaped me. I set my Diet Mountain Dew down hard on my desk, filling it with carbonated bubbles—another potential time bomb.

You know what would make your job more fun.

Well, shit. I walked right into that one.

It chills you out, you don’t care as much about all the bullshit.

I don’t need it.

Just for fun.

.

No, no, no.

I grip my grey Formica desk, close my eyes, and try to breathe through it. Breathe. Get through this moment. The next moment. Breathe. I am strong. I can do this.

Silence.

Victory.

I am strong. I can do this.

I open my eyes, redirecting myself to destroying the Enemy Emails—like the Angry Birds other people seem to play often. I’m strong and focused.

I stare at the screen until my vision blurs. I shake my head, but nothing clears—not my vision, not my thoughts.

Fuck it. I unlock the cabinet, grab the orange bottle from my purse, tip four large white 750mg Percocets into my hand, and dry swallow them with all too practiced ease. I snap the top on and lock it back in the cabinet. I’m weak, I’m weak, I’m weak.

See?

You can shut up now.

But you know I won’t.

Fuck you.

I’ll be back in a couple of hours.

Shut up.

Maybe sooner.

Shut the fuck up!

You know, we could add some antipsychotics. More pills, more fun.

No.

We could—

There is no “we.”

That’s fine.

No, it’s not. Shut up.

We’ve got plenty of time.