Power Lunch Diaries

Power Lunch Diaries

“That’s the thing about this city…”

Dear Diary:

I know that I have been neglecting you lately, but I’ve been very busy with my new job and everything. Not to worry though, because I’ve finally gotten a break in my hectic schedule. So I’ll bring you up to date about my first week at my new job.

On my first day, I met a lot of new people, but immediately forgot most of their names. Except for one person, a young lady named Rita. She was very friendly, with an engaging personality. Plus, she didn’t ask me anything about work, where I was from, or what school I went to. The very first thing that she asked me was: Are you a Cowboys fan? I couldn’t help but laugh, and she definitely made a good first impression. After that, I just filled out a bunch of paperwork for most of the day. But my new boss Joe, said that there was no need for me to stay there all day. He said that once I had finished up with all of my paperwork, I could go home early. That was so cool, especially since the fall weather is simply lovely here in the nation’s capital. And I do believe that fall in DC might even be better than springtime in Paris, France. Then after work, I got some frozen yogurt, and just strolled around looking at all the sights till sunset. Then, just as it was getting dark, I was walking through a tree-filled city park, and a guy wearing a white Adidas warmup suit came up to me. His immaculate white warmups immediately caught my eye. The suit had unique gold-leaf stripes that perfectly matched his dazzling, and obviously expensive, gold herringbone chain necklace. And he asked me if I wanted to buy some crack. Despite his aggressive sales technique, this guy actually seemed pretty friendly. And since I’m new to DC, and I’m not familiar with all of the slang terms here, I had to ask him: What is crack? To which he replied: It’s a new kind of cocaine that you can smoke. And it’ll get you so high that you can kiss the sky. As intriguing as this illicit proposition may have sounded, I nonetheless declined the offer, and I politely told him no thanks. Maybe that stuff does make you fly high, but maybe that stuff could also hurt my brain too. And as you well know Dear Diary, all of my brain cells are not functioning properly in the first place.

On my second day, my new coworker Anna taught me how to use the office computers. Wow! Who knew that computers were such a blast! This computer works so fast, and makes hard stuff seem so easy that I can get all of my work done in no time. Now I was really in business for sure. Then the next day my coworker Rita took me out to lunch at a Chinese restaurant, right around the corner from our office. We had actually made a bet on the Dallas verses Washington game on Monday Night Football. Rita is a big Cowboys fan, but they lost to Washington 17 to 3. So the loser had to buy lunch. Even though the restaurant was a little rundown, the food was superb!! After we finished our delicious lunch, Rita got the check, since she was supposed to pay. She looked at the check for a minute or two, then she quietly confessed that she didn’t have any money. I was totally shocked by this revelation, especially since I didn’t have any money either. DC is an expensive place, and I had just moved here. Plus this was my first week on my job, and I had not gotten paid yet. So I barely had enough money to get back and forth to work. I began to panic. But then Rita said that we would just have to take our chances, and run for it, when the coast was clear. But just as we were ready to bolt for the door, our coworker Brad came in. We had told him earlier where we were going for lunch, so he came there to join us. Brad is a good looking guy from a very rich family, but he’s pretty irresponsible too. Brad’s family lives in a nice big mansion on Kalorama Road, near Rock Creek Park. His father owns a local radio station, and he had fired Brad for carelessly running up expenses, and taking way too many five hour lunches. Rita and I quietly confessed our cash flow dilemma to him. And Brad had a good laugh at our predicament, and then he promptly pulled out his ex-boss’ Diners Club Card. After that, Brad ordered three big slices of double chocolate cake for desert, and a couple of rounds of rum and Coke drinks for each of us. Then he paid for everything with his Dad’s Diners Club Card. Wow! That was the best lunch ever! We were all a little tipsy when we got back to the office.

By my fourth day, I was getting the hang of things. I had already reviewed and summarized most of the legal discovery documents that I had been assigned. So I decided to head out for lunch. Mind you, my lunch consists of a bag of Doritos, and a Snickers chocolate bar. But the weather was nice and sunny, and DC is a wonderful place to go for a walk. Even in the places that aren’t so famous, you can find some interesting discoveries, and occasionally you’ll even see some famous politician in a place that you would least expect. But before I could cross the street, in order to get to the corner drug store and buy my Spartan lunch, a big black limousine, with darkly tinted windows, suddenly pulls up right in front of me and stops. I must say, there was something foreboding about this, and I immediately felt the urge to run. But before I could make a dash for it, a big burly secret service type guy, wearing dark shades and a dark suit jumped out of the front of the limo, then grabbed me, and roughly shoves me into the back seat of the car. I shouted: What the Hell is going on?! Then the limousine door is slammed shut, and the car burned rubber, as it quickly peels off from the curb. At this point I’m confused and super anxious, and my heart is pounding in my chest. Then I take a look around at the other passengers in the back of the limo, and I am completely astonished. Indeed, I am totally flabbergasted to find myself in the company of three former presidents, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, and Jimmy Carter. The three of them were eating jelly beans, smoking reefer, and watching reruns of Miami Vice on a TV built into the car. They all seemed nonchalant about the situation, and pretty much paid me no mind.

This was just too surreal to believe. Was my mind playing tricks on me? I began to suspect that someone must have slipped some LSD into my morning coffee, and now it was kicking into full gear. Nonetheless, just to break the reefer induced introspective silence, I nervously stammer: Don Johnson is really a stud guy. Then after Nixon takes a long toke on a Jamaican-sized joint, he calmly turns to me and says: We need someone to move a kilo of Marijuana for us. Then Carter added: It should be pretty easy to sell. This is good shit, its premium top grade 100% CIA Jamaican Ganja. Then Nixon, who seemed to be the kingpin, said: We’re going to make you an offer that you can’t refuse. At this point my head was spinning, and my mind was blown. I imagined that this is what Alice must have felt like after she went ‘Through the Looking-Glass.’ Then Reagan says: Our stuff goes for $75 bucks for a gram, so a kilo should bring in $75K. So here’s the deal, you sell the stuff at our set price, and you get to keep $70K tax-free, and pay us back $5K for our handing and processing expenses. Whoa! My new job only pays me $25 thousand, and these guys were offering me a deal worth almost three times my salary?! I was totally dumbstruck. But then Nixon said: If you get caught the CIA will disavow any knowledge of this operation. Nonetheless, the deal is yours, if you choose to accept it. My head was truly reeling now. Even so, opportunity doesn’t come knocking every day. So, with a bit of trepidation, I said yes, and warily accepted their deal. Then they gave me a green backpack with a kilo of Marijuana inside it, along with an instructional pamphlet on how to bag it up, how to find wholesale buyers, and how to sell it. After they gave me the bag, Nixon said: You’re going to need a little walking around money. It takes money to make money, you know. Then he gave me $500 dollars in cash, and he gave me a white business card, with only a phone number on it. He said feel free to call them at any time, day or night, if I had any questions. Then Nixon picked up the car phone, and told the limo driver to drive up to 18th Street in Adams Morgan, and get a jumbo slice of cheese pizza. Then he said: We know that we interrupted your lunch time, so the pizza is on us. The driver procured the jumbo slice of cheese pizza, and gave it to me. It was a single slice of pizza that was big enough to feed a whole family. But, it was quite tasty, and I happily scarfed it down, as we drove through the city. Then Nixon said: And by the way, your new code name is Deep Smoke. This is the only name that you should use when you call us. After that, they drove me back to the same street corner where this mind-bending adventure began. And as I walked back to my office with $500 bucks in my pocket, and a backpack full of top grade Weed, I begin to think that this could possibly lead to really good job.