balding angrily

I work with a guy that I hate for no other reason than I don’t like the way he walks and talks. When we pass each other as I’m going back to my cube after taking a leak and he’s going to get some coffee, in my head I see in his head that he thinks he’s better than me. This could be because he looks right through me while I try to give the obligatory one-sided smile/smirk that says, “I acknowledge that we work in the same office while not actually working together…and I know nothing about you…please let’s keep it that way.”

Today, as I was working on a floor plan that took about thirty percent of my conscious mind, I imagined getting into a fight with him and calling him an asshole, then getting fired. I would say loud enough, “Good! This project is shit! I’ve been wasting away my time on it for too long. This is exactly the kind of kick-in-the-butt I needed to get to doing what I really want to be doing.” (That thing that “I really want to be doing” is of course a mystery.) I imagined punching the dismissive asshole in the nose, making it bleed and stain his blue shirt and tie. I imagined grabbing every guy in the office that I think is good-looking in the crotch and kissing them full on the lips.

I think this is the same kind of fantasy I used to have about purposefully yanking the steering wheel to the left to crash into the living room of an innocent house in my driving instructor’s neighborhood. I pictured me sitting in his car in the living room, the wall of the house coming down around me like I was Jack Tripper and some blonde, feathered, roller-skate-wearing bimbo was giving me a blowjob. There’s a name for this kind of fantasy (not the blowjob part…the self-destructive part) in a psychology textbook. If you know it, please let me know.

About four or five times over the past month my mind has wandered with less violent images. I would be driving to work and notice that I missed the last minute of the podcast I was listening to. Last night it happened while watching a movie. It’s kind of scary because I’m usually a very conscientious driver/movie-watcher. I get on Jerry’s case all the time because he looks at the pretty birdies while he should be watching the road. Yesterday, my dad told me that, as opposed to when he was younger, he comes out of a movie knowing whether he liked it or not, but not being able to recall what the movie was about. I really hope I’m not getting senile early.