The Summoning
Dr. Catherine D'Great finally opened the door.
"Sorry to make you wait, Mr. Crachit. I'm running a little late today."
Robbie took in the elaborate furnishings of her office: A desk made of pure petrified wood, a wide consulting couch that appeared to be sleep number adjustable, and two lava lamps mounted on opposite walls. Above him loomed a chandelier made of glass tubing that rose like a flower before plummeting downward on all sides, like a fountain of liquid light overflowing its containment. This last marvel of modern photoelectronics resembled nothing so much as a giant luminiferous jellyfish that would sting and slay all trespassers. Such a fountain should be surrounded by the marbleized statues of those foolish enough to peek at such Medusan beauty, Robbie thought.
He was shamed when he compared this grand office to the squalor of the main floor cubicle which served as his own humble abode and prison.
"Please do come in and sit down, Mr. Crachit," said the distinguished Dr. D'Great. Robbie obediently, but with considerable trepidation, entered her realm and sat down in one of the chairs facing her magnificent desk.
"Do you know who I am?" asked the great Dr. D'Great, as she plopped down on the soft leather of her Eames Executive Chair, which came complete with hydraulic lift, automatic tushie and lumbar massagers, and tricked out with a specially-installed state-of-the-art random-interval clit squeezer, manufactured by HydroTweak, your leader in electronic erotic office furniture.
"Some people call you the terminator," Robbie said. "They say that lots of people who walk through the door to your office are never seen again. Or at least they quit after a few weeks."
"Do you think that your work is sufficiently poor to merit termination?"
"Nnnn-no, Dr. Great," Robbie muttered, shaking his head from side to side.
"There are no formalities here, Mr. Crachit. Just call me Catherine or Tina if you prefer. And may I call you Bob?"
"No please don't, Dr. D'Great. You don't know how many Dickensian jokes I have suffered through all my life ever since the movie 'Scrooged' was released."
Catherine smiled beatifically at her frequently-lampooned underling, "OK, 'Robbie' it is then. Do you know why you are here, Robbie?"
He shook his head in sorrow and fear.
"Do you remember telling Sophia Linguini that you liked her new dress? Let see, this occurred at precisely 9:43 AM on September third in the copy room."
"No, nnnn-not really," he whispered, his head bowed in fear.
"While let me refresh your memory, Robbie," she snapped and punched one of the buttons on the clicker for her 65-inch plasma TV.
The Redundant Taping of Nasal Malfeasance
"You need to remember that you're living in the 21st century, Robbie. There are cameras and monitors tracking your every move and key stroke, including your cell phone and your computer. None of us is free from this. To illustrate, let me call up a video shot by your own computer camera last Friday."
The 65-inch plasma screen now displayed a high definition close-up of Robbie's face. God, he should have been more ruthless with that zit.
The camera now zoomed in on Robbie's nose. Maybe he should pick up a nose-hair clipper on the way home, Robbie thought.
But what was this? Arise, fair index finger, and kill the devious snot. The giant plasma screen was now filled with Robbie's proboscis and daring digit. The fate of the latter was already sealed as it ascended into Robbie's nostril. It wriggled around like a hapless eel being hauled in by a sniggler's hook. No detail went unrevealed as said pointer finger withdrew its quarry from Robbie's nostril, a nine-inch goober festively colored in green and crimson. Robbie watched helplessly as his former self attempted to shake the dastardly wanna-be hawker directly into the wastebasket. But a tenacious booger will cleave to thy digit more tightly than velcro and cling wrap (someone really should patent this adhesion property of nasal secretions, Robbie thought). It was as if Robbie's fingers were trapped in a Chinese finger trap.
There was only one solution, Robbie's former self knew. He had to get to the men's room, without anybody catching a glimpse of the offending would-be loogie dangling from his finger. The cameras picked him up as he arose from his cubicle chair and hightailed it to the plumbing facilities, looking like a Harlem Globetrotter dribbling a basketball of pure mucus. Only about 10% of the drudging drones looked up from their digital instruments of torture to see Robbie's faux cager performance as he maneuvered his way past their cubicles, but 10% was a lot. Future Robbie's face now matched the crimson shade of past Robbie's countenance.
Nefarious Activity in the Restroom
The cameras tracked him all the way into the men's room. "Hey, Crachit, what's up with the ten pound hawker dangling from your hand," the always observant Jake Marley asked with a leering smile.
"Fucking new office product. Computer screen cleaning fluid. It sucks, don't try it." Robbie went into one of the shitter stalls for privacy. He could hear the massive farts of Jimmy Breezemaker in the other stall, which exuded a sulfur stench even the Devil would balk as inhaling. These gaseous eruptions were followed by an explosion that would make even the Enola Gay envious. The resulting high-speed shrapnel of fecal matter was audible even on this surveillance tape.
The plasma screen switched to an overhead of Robbie's stall. It displayed a high-definition picture of the bowel carnage left behind by one of the previous occupants, which included a catastrophically soiled extra-large pair of Haynes underwear. Probably an earlier deposit by the still-defecating Breezemaker, Robbie thought. He hastily wiped the offending booger off his own hand with toilet paper, which he then threw on top of the excremental Jackson Pollock presumably left by Jimmy Breezemaker.
Robbie's mother had always taught him to flush a toilet after doing his business. The earlier Robbie had mulled over this advice. The thought occurred to him that Breezemaker may have already tried this maneuver with unfavorable results. But even so, Robbie felt compelled to flush. His family honor was at stake here. He reached down and pushed the flush button.
Two hundred milliseconds later, Robbie Crachit's face, shirt, trousers and hair were festooned with so many brown polka dots that he looked like Lucy Ricardo at the chocolate factory. The spraying water seemly had concentrated its effort on his crotch. This was not good, the earlier Robbie had thought, and he pondered his options. He figured he could ambush the next cleaner or maybe ask the next unfamiliar person to enter the restroom for help. He knew he could always depend on the kindness of strangers.
The Recounting of Humiliations Past
After a few moments of silence to allow Robbie to regain his composure, Dr. D'Great said, "So you need to come into the 21st century, Robbie. Every movement you make, including the explosive one we have just witnessed as well as every booger you pick is captured on camera. None of us is exempt from this. We are all under constant video and computerized surveillance. That is why we all must take measures to maintain our dignity and privacy.
"I'm here to help you, Robbie. We can't just fire every nostril-raping file clerk we run across. It is much cheaper, and much more humane, to offer such employees counseling and neurological reprogramming and realignment. "
She smiled sympathetically and whispered, "I am not the terminator, Robbie. I'm only a humble human relationships counselor, almost as far down the hierarchy as you are, if such a thing is even possible."
Robbie looked around at the desk made of petrified wood and the cascading hair of the fiber optic chandelier, and raised an eyebrow.
