Intern Boy seems satisfied with his
data.
“Niiiiiiice,” he hisses.
I don't even have to turn around.
He is talking to his monitor again.
If I hadn't been working on a lifetime of aloofness, I would have
a hard time ignoring this.
“Yessssssss,” he whispers. Roughly back-to-back in a
double-wide cubicle, I turn in time to see him clap softly, his damp hands
making soft, happy sounds.
I turn away. Mildly dissatisfied with life, in
general, and my life, specifically, I want to tweak him, want to mess with his
large, moist brain.
He begins to click the top of his pen: in, out. In,
out.
I lean back in my chair, close my eyes. I think about subsistence farming, about potatoes and goats and their funny eyes.
“Niiiiiiice,” he whispers.
We do not sit close enough that I can just smack him
across the back of the ol’ brain pan, but he most certainly is close enough for
me to accurately toss any number of desk implements; and so I look around. I
have a stapler, a magnetic paperclip holder, a telephone, and a rather large
soup spoon I keep meaning to take back to the kitchen.
I lift the soup spoon.
He turns to face me, and I casually drop the spoon among the piles of clamoring files on my desk.
"Don't you love when everything works out," he asks, beaming. "I've been working on this for days."
Intern Boy is young, erstwhile, and to be forgiven his silly and too often verbally related excitement regarding screens full of algorithmic script.
I smile back at him. I remember being like that.
And it was niiiiiiiiice.