Whisked Away--My Sample

For Joel, there were just too many to count. His days at the office were horrifically routine. Get up before dawn, commute through painstakingly slow traffic, overpay to park downtown, just to arrive to pushy secretaries, overzealous colleagues, and a boss with a major Napoleon complex. And this was before the day officially started.

People talk about how bad things happen in groups of threes; for Joel, his days became a series of 333 bad events.

His planner was booked for the day with phone consultations and meetings, and yet today more work continued to pile up. There was no escape, no safe haven. His boss even cornered him at the urinal. In sum, this was the most brutal Monday to date, and noon had yet to arrive.

Joel had known by now that going out with his buddies for lunch on Mondays was an impossibility, unless he wanted to sleep in his office until Tuesday. Every moment counted, and his lunch hour was where he could pick up the slack. The clock read 12:00, but he was still on 10:00 paperwork.

Reaching into his mini fridge (an old relic from his dorm days at Villanova), he pulled out the bachelor special: leftovers from Mom's Sunday cooking. Looking for a spare knife to cut his meat, he reached into the top drawer of his desk and something caught his eye.

Amidst scattered staples, Post-It Notes, and stress balls, the bottle peaked its head. He usually tried not to go in there to avoid this confrontation, but it slipped his mind. Now the world had stood still, and Joel was in a face-off with his arch-nemesis: himself.

"C'mon Joel. You put me in here for a reason. You know, to get your mind off things. To de-stress yourself." He could see his reflection in the glass of the whiskey bottle, but his hands, eyes, and lips had yet to move.

"No! Get with it," Joel said to himself. "You can't go screwing this up too." Joel had only been on the job six months, and he had worked his entire life to score a position in a firm of this caliber.

"Just a little bit, Joel, that's all. It will just tide you over until you get home."

"I, I can't," Joel whispered.

"Everyone's at lunch and your office door is closed. Besides, you really think you are going to make it the rest of the day without me? You couldn't even last after you spent yesterday with your Mom. Without me, you'll be throwing yourself to the wolves this afternoon."

"Well, it is a long afternoon ahead," Joel rationalized to himself. "I suppose. . . "

Just then, his secretary buzzed in.

"Mr. Goldberg, there is a call on line 3 for you. It's your wife."

She never called him at work since they got the divorce almost a year ago. All he knew was that she was the number one reason that led him to drink himself to sleep every night. Nevertheless, He picked up the phone.

"Goldberg here," he began.

"Don't be an ass, Joel. You know it's me. I know your secretary told you. I checked the account this morning, and your child support payment isn't in there. I want that money."

"I don't know what happened. I'll call the bank."

"Don't play dumb with me. Banks don't just pick and choose who to give money to. They get it from somewhere and put it somewhere else. The money comes from you and goes to me, remember?"

"Well, technically Diane, it goes to the kids. Remember them? The ones you coerced the judge to take from me?

"Don't get lippy. GET ME THE MONEY. I have a big purchase on hold."

As the conversation deteriorated (like usual) the whiskey had reached his hand, cap still closed. "Are you buying the kids something?"

He heard his youngest, Ana, crying in the background. "It is none of your business what that money is for."

"Maybe you should get going to deal with Ana."

"I'll deal with her later. The money. Royal Caribbean is demanding our money today."

"Wow, you're taking them on a cruise!" Joel was shocked at his wife's atypical generosity.

"No, my boyfriend Bill and I are going."

His hand slid to the top of the bottle and began to twist counterclockwise. "Are you kidding. . . ."

Just then, in the background he heard the stampede of little feet. "Hiiii Daddddyyyyy," the girls yelled. "We love you and miss you!!"

"Go somewhere and play, for God's sake," Diane yelled.

Instantly, Joel put it all together. "Ok, I'll call the bank. If they say it will take longer than this afternoon to credit the account, I'll bring over the cash right now and drop it in your mailbox." As he spoke, his hand, first turning clockwise while clutching the bottle tight as ever, reached over the open drawer and released.

"What was that?" Diane asked.

"Nothing. Just got rid of some trouble. Call me tomorrow, same time, so we can discuss the dates of the trip and when you will be dropping the girls off."

"Don't forget the money," she reminded.

"Believe me, I won't." As he hung up the phone, he decided then to not even call the bank. He was paying cash.

As Joel wheeled his chair back, he pushed in the drawer to his desk, grabbed his keys and gave one last look at the garbage. There was the whiskey, but this time there his reflection was different. He was smiling.

Finally, his streak of 333 was broken.

He was on his way to make his downpayment.