Me and My Black Heart

On Tuesday, I had a traumatic experience. I was leaving work with my friend Nicole (yes, the very same Nicole from the famous food smuggling incident), heading down to our company's Trunk or Treat (having been volunteered to run it as the only single people assumed to have no prior obligations on Halloween Night) when we happened upon a sad site.

A giant bird (probably not an eagle) had flown into the side of our glass building, and was laying on the sidewalk in a puddle of blood. We both just stood there, watching as the poor bird twitched, both with tears in our eyes. We didn't know what to do - what could we do? - so we just left it.

When I came in to work Wednesday morning, the accountant told me about how he and one of the VP's (yes, the very same VP from the famous communicator incident and the famous carrot incident) had found a mouse in the break room yesterday. I think that the phrase "found a mouse" is a little non-descript, considering that the accountant kicked the mouse into the wall, knocking it unconscious, before taking it outside and dropping a large rock on it. "To put it out of its misery," they said.

I don't think the cheese stands alone on this when I say that it seemed a bit excessive for a poor little mouse. It really pricked the cockles of my heart to think about the accountant drop kicking a little field mouse and then bludgeoning it. Of course, all the superindentents got a kick out of this and spent the next twenty minutes telling me their individual tales of mouse bludgeoning - all too graphic to be relayed here.

And their justification was always the same. "They're rodents."

I just stood there with my jaw hanging open, listening to their ghastly stories of torture. My only response was an attempt to wrangle some shred of humanity out of these guys. With more tears in my eyes, I told these supers the tale of the poor bird from yesterday afternoon. I expected them to have some pity and feel sorry for the thing. Instead, I became labeled a compassionless murderer - apparently I should have stomped on the bird's head to put it out of its misery. By leaving it there, I was only prolonging its suffering, and ignoring its cries for help.

The rest of my work day was a free-for-all against me, The Bird Murderer. I couldn't walk past a super without him sqwaking, "Help me! Help me!" in a tiny bird voice. I also found this little gem written on my calendar:

But it didn't stop there. When I walked into the copy room, I was pleasantly surprised to see the following cartoon depiction posted on the Company Information Bulletin Board:

I don't even have time to count all the things wrong with this picture. For starters, I'm seven inches shorter than Nicole. (No, I'm not a midget, she's just incredibly tall.) When I pointed this out to the artist (none other than Jim, the super from the famous carrot incident) he said, "But I gave you high heels! Oh wait, I guess I mixed that up."

Yes, Jim. You also mixed me up with a heartless bird torturer, but hey, who's counting. Oh, wait. I'm counting, Jim. Have fun using your keyboard tomorrow.