One of my coworkers is a bit on the quirky side. She’s a single older woman who considers her two dogs to be her children, and while I’m all for loving your pets like family, she takes it to a level of alarming obsession. Even that would be fine, however, if it weren’t for her mistaken impression that I am interested in graphic updates on the health of her pets. I can deal with hearing about her trips to the canine cardiologist or learning that her dog has a food allergy, but when she catches me off guard with a particularly disgusting story, I draw the line.
Example 1: Walking Down The Hallway To The Office, Eating My Breakfast.
Me: “Good morning. How are you?”
Her: “Well, I’m okay, but Dog #1 isn’t doing so well. He hasn’t really been eating, and although his first poop today was okay, the second one was a complete mess. It was all over the place.”
Me: “Oh. What a shame.” [Promptly discards breakfast.]
Example 2: Preparing My Lunch In The Office Kitchen.
Me: “How was your weekend?”
Her: “It was great. I found out why Dog #1 has been sick and now he’s on medication and doing much better. The diarrhea has completely stopped!”
Me: “Oh. How wonderful.” [Permanently loses desire to eat.]
I have decided that the next time she is sitting down to lunch, I am going to wander into her office and begin to discuss my recent issues with an improperly chewed bag of microwave popcorn. With my luck, though, she’ll take that as an invitation to step our relationship up to the next level, and I’ll start hearing details about the medical foibles of a woman in her late sixties. And nothing makes me hungrier than corns and colonoscopies.
At least her dog doesn’t bark incessently in the back ground when she calls you from home. Or does he?