An Office Visit

Once in the office, she had to print and fill out her own U-Haul form, as the man did not have the patience, ability or interest in doing it himself. He grunted and pointed with a half-eaten sandwich at the computer balanced on top of a file cabinet on the other side of the room. She made her way across the floor littered with bottle caps, unopened mail and mummified food remnants, and was forced to stand as she wiggled the mouse back and forth, trying to get the computer screen to pop to life.

'otta turnip awm' She heard him say to her back. She looked up at him for a moment, confused. She wiggled the mouse some more.

'AWM!' he said again, and began to illustrate this statement with the sandwich, he was thrusting it forward in his right hand as if it were a sword and he was trying to dispatch an imaginary foe. 'Gotta' turnip AWM!!' Her confusion began to turn to fear as this charade became more violent, faster. Bits of lettuce and meat began to fly out of the end of the lazy, flapping bread and fall on the floor in front of his desk, limp and moist, like so many hopeless stockbrokers on Wall Street.

The man stopped stabbing the air with the sandwich and instead glared at her for a moment in full slack jawed disbelief before he slowly began chewing again in a bovine manner, and then swallowed whatever food was in his mouth.

After wiping a vibrant yellow smear of mustard across his sleeve from his mustache he said : 'ON. You've got to turn It ON. The button on front. The GREEN BUTTON on the .. the.. BOX there. PUSH IT.' He was able to communicate clearly now his mouth was more or less free of his bolus. She still stared at him blankly for a moment, just now comprehending, and he tore at the space between them one last time with his lunch in order to set her again in motion.