Ellen's Decision

   The bus almost always came on time, but if it was late Ellen would still make it to work well before nine. She had never been late ever and was proud of that fact — eleven years of punctual, diligent, perfectly competent performance. She liked her job. It allowed her to buy decent clothes, go out with her girlfriends once in a while and take vacations to Vegas and the Bahamas. Her apartment wasn’t great, but in seven years she would own it outright. Every couple years she got a small raise.

   At work that day she prepared for a birthday party in the conference room. Darla from engineering was turning thirty and Mike from accounting would be fifty three. Ellen had doubled her card signing and present pool duties. Darla’s card had a picture of a kitten with a pointy party hat sitting in front of a birthday cake. Mike’s card featured a baseball with birthday candles sticking out of it. Inside it were tickets for an upcoming game. They weren’t great seats, but Mike was the type to enjoy a game up in the bleachers. Ellen had made sure the fridge was stocked with Mike’s favorite lite beer and diet soda for Darla, whose gift had taken more forethought and consideration. Darla was significantly overweight, but constantly raved about her favorite restaurants, cooking shows and the food at weddings and other social events she attended now and again. A gift certificate to Darla’s favorite restaurant was the obvious and eventual choice, but Ellen agonized over it until the last minute, which was yesterday.

   Ellen breezed through her morning paperwork chores, followed up on some malingering customer service emails and checked over the birthday cards. Everyone had signed except Alan, the boss, who was in his office down the hall. Ellen got up to bring the cards over to him but stopped after a few steps. Looking at the cards she saw plenty of room for his signature and a little note from him. He usually wrote things like “Keep it up!” or “Way to go!” and “Great Job!”

Alan was a stupid, boring asshole who made everyone around him feel like crap. His insipid birthday comments were always seen as cynical, incisive digs as opposed to uplifting exhortations. Further, Alan leered in the most sublime and creepy way. His eyes always held for an extra second or two on breasts, bulges and butts. He smelled like wet cigars and orange juice, even though he didn’t smoke and, from the looks of him, seldom drank anything healthy. All these thoughts whipped through Ellen’s mind as her feet filled with stultifying dread. She ran through the eventual conversation in her mind.

   “Excuse me, Alan?”

   “Yes?”

   “I was hoping you could sign birthday cards for Mike and Darla?”

   He would turn from his desk, stare directly at her pussy, then up to her breasts, back down to her feet, shift quickly to her mouth and finally meet her eyes. “Another birthday party today?”

   “It’s a twofer.”

   He would repeat the examination of her body and motion for her to bring the cards to his desk. She would cautiously tread across his stale carpet and deposit the cards in front of him, standing as far away from him as possible. He would glance up, take a whiff of her scent, soak in the size of her breasts, glance down again to her pussy, pick his nose, grab a pen and sign the cards. She would thank him, remind him when the party was going to start, tell him what gifts she had decided on and take the cards back to her desk in the bullpen with the other low and mid level bureaucrats.

   She never made it to Alan’s office and buried herself in work and party preparations. The cake was delivered and she checked to see that everything was spelled correctly. “Happy Birthday Darla and Mike!” was adequately written in bright green icing on an even sheet of white frosting. She tasked two interns to hang the streamers and balloons in the conference room and checked on their progress a couple times.

   When lunchtime came around she and her best friend Louise took their regular walk to the small pizza place down the street, loaded their salad bar plates and sat down. When the waiter came and asked if they wanted their usual iced teas Ellen uttered a clear, “No.” Louise was startled. Ellen had never diverted from their routine, ever. Ellen felt her spirit rising above the table and could see the two of them from above. She focused on herself and heard her suddenly commanding voice say, “We’ll have a bottle of sangria, two shots of tequila and two of those fancy Italian beers.” Louise smiled and they settled into their typical litany of complaints about Alan.

   At 3:58 fifteen people were crammed into the conference room. Mike and Darla stood at the head of the table, all smiles. They weren’t in on the joke, but Ellen knew they would appreciate it. An intern started lighting the candles and Darla asked with a tinge of dread, “Is Alan coming?” Another intern ran out to get him and the two of them quickly returned. Alan shot Ellen a dirty, quizzical look as he surveyed the birthdayscape.

   Once all five candles were lit everyone broke out into the birthday song, but after the first verse everyone switched the lyrics. Instead of Happy birthday to you! everyone sang Alan is an asshole, Fuck You! Alan is an asshole, Fuck You! Fuck Alan he’s a shithead! Stop staring at women’s tits! The office workers repeated the song a few times, switching the final verse to various denigrations involving Alan’s creepiness, shitty attitude and incompetence. The final round ended with We’ve all signed a complaint with HR, so we hope you get canned! Darla and Mike blew out the candles together.

   Alan stole a couple glances at the more attractive women’s breasts and slithered back to his office while the workers cracked beers and laughed.