Just Say 'yes'

A friend of mine once encouraged me to "just say yes" for an entire day. Regardless of what I was being asked, I had to agree to it. She said that it would make me a better person. The very fact that she felt it necessary to persuade me to be a better human being reveals to you a little bit about my character. "Where'd you get this idea?" I was curious, naturally. "This seminar last night, a guy called Terrence Bundley is the man behind it. He's extraordinary." Anyway, she told me more and it intrigued me. 

Monday

After an early morning coffee, I headed out to work. On my way to the train station, I noticed a homeless lady laying a few feet from the entrance. She was wearing an oversized sweater with yellow jeans, and one of those stripy, black and white winter hats to complete the look. Beside her was a suitcase with papers seeping out, and a sign saying 'Evicted. Need money. Plz help!'. Her eyes were closed, so I assumed she was sleeping. Either that or she was unconscious as a result of the hardships that flow from homelessness. There was no sign of a cup or an inverted hat that I could make my donation in, and there was no way I was going to just drop money in front of her, only for some other tramp to steal it. Starting homeless-gang wars was not on my to-do list that day. Touching her certainly wasn't an option either. Improvisation was needed. I made that noise people make when they want attention. 

Ehem. 

Eehhemm. 

Still nothing. 

"Excuse me, ma'am." 

I was at this stage giving increasing likelihood to her having given up the ghost. Poor soul just laying there - lifeless- for weeks, no one batting an eyelid because they thought that's what she always smelt like. Thankfully that wasn't true. Her eyes sprang open, as if she had heard a noise from downstairs in the middle of the night.

"Um, hello. I'm sorry to wake you, but could you ask me to give you some money?" 

She started at me as if I had lost my mind.

"You woke me up to ask me that?"

"No, no, you see, I have this agreement with my friend, she told me to say yes to everyone, so I couldn't just put money down. I need you to ask me so I can say yes and then give you the money". 

... "The hell you talkin' 'bout? Crazy fool."

As I walked away I admitted that I was in fact a fool as it was I whose permanent residence was '"THE PAVEMENT BY THE TRAIN STATION, YOU UNGRATEFUL WITCH".

I got off the train and walked to the office, ready for an exhilarating day of yeses.

Thankfully no one asked anything of me for the first few hours at the office. It was 12:55 and only 5 minutes until I could go on my lunch break. I sipped the last of my mud and hot water mix. There was this little cafe a few streets down which made these great BLTs. I'd built up an appetite from all the work I hadn't done.

"Salutations! Couldn't run these files over to Hugh could ya'?". 

That's my boss, Max. It wasn't short for Maxwell, and he wasn't eastern-european, so that rules out Maxsym. It was actually Maximilian. His parents must have been desperate for him to become a botanist. Nevertheless, he's the type of boss who treats his employees like his friends. I see him as the professional equivalent of a school teacher who wears clothes 20 years too late for him, in a desperate attempt to be down with the kids, as they say. Max's rake thin physique coupled with his prepubescent tone made me respect him even less. To make matters worse, his office was parallel to mine, which made it nigh on impossible to sneak out without him noticing. Anyway, although I was contractually obliged to do as he asked, I didn't feel like it, especially so close to lunch. That said, I preferred not to be fired that day. I worked on the 5th floor, so it would take at least 10 minutes to deliver the files, make it all the way down, then get the hell out of there. Trouble was, Hugh loved to chat, and his chatting would be more at you than with you. A few of the guys and I used to call this the 'Hugh treatment'. As for anyone who was unfortunate enough to receive it, well, they were said to have been 'Hughed'. Where's Rob, I've been looking all over for him? He's been getting Hughed in the ass for the past 20 minutes. That kind of thing.  

I took the elevator up there and headed straight for his office. Usually I'd kill some time by doing the old stop and chat routine with every familiar face, but on that day my goal was to save time, not waste it.

"Hey Marie, is Hugh in?" 

"You just missed him, he's gone to lunch, I can page him if y-" 

"That's fine, I'll just leave the files on his desk" I said with a smile. First, to cloak my hatred of the idea, and second, to make sure that she couldn't unknowingly force me into saying yes. 

"Sure" she said, with that angelic smile of hers. Joan Holloway always sprang to mind when I saw Marie. She was sophisticated, smart, and incredibly strong-willed. Hell, she had to be, dealing with that pig everyday. If I wasn't so hungry I would have spent my time trying (and likely failing ) to persuade her to have dinner with me, but, alas, I had more urgent needs. 

I went into Hugh's office and dropped the bundle of papers on his desk. His office was surprisingly clean for a man as rough-looking as Richard Lewis' festoons. Then I heard a husky voice shout "Hands where I can see 'em!". He was crouching down by the door, gesturing as if to shoot me. He may as well have had the real thing and unloaded the entire cylinder on my face. I felt like I was in a low-budget remake of a John Wayne film. I also felt the hunger eating away at my organs. 

"Heyyy, Hugh. Marie told me that you'd gone out for lunch". 

"She was right, kid. I made it outside then I realised I forgot my fucking wallet. Can you believe it? Unbelievable kid". 

Hugh, further to my description of him, was a very filthy man. He hangs in the air at no more than 5"5, and has a profound rotundness to him. In fact, he'd be the same height even if he didn't have legs. In all seriousness, Hugh was around 90% stomach and 10% everything else. He wasn't quite bald, he still had the little bits of hair dangling from the sides. A thick moustache covered his upper lip. I was never sure what look he was going for exactly.  Inappropriate jokes were his area of expertise. He'd freely curse during discourse. His sex life was usually the first topic of conversation. Worst of all, it was very difficult to escape him. He just wouldn't let you leave until he was done with you. Over time I had become savvy to this and was, to my knowledge, the only person who knew how to escape, though I will admit to being one of his social prisoners at the start. Perhaps his male pattern baldness was to blame for his self-loathing, I don't know.

"Listen, kid. Do you want t-"

Do NOT let him finish that sentence.

"Ooooh I've got to get going, actually. I have a...thing"

"Just listen a sec. It's abo-"

"Hugh, I really do have to get go-"

I moved closer to the door and made my I'm so sorry face, but he was still standing in front of it. 

Stubborn bastard.

"Kid. Shut your mouth, alright? Now will you just listen to this, it'll take a minute?"

Shit.

"Yes".

Hugh spent the next 45 minutes telling me about how he had sex with an escort who turned out to be a man, and how his wife found them in bed together after returning home early to celebrate their 20th anniversary. 

"It was really unfortunate, kid. You can just never tell these days."

"Yeah I know how you feel."

"Really, how?"

"Well, you just told me."

I just about made it out alive. My stomach was minutes away from eating itself by the time he'd finished. It made me curious as to whether it would be within the realms of possibility to make a sandwich from what consisted in that room. Hugh's flesh would certainly make the meaty body. The plant in the corner would make a good garnish. Then I could use the blood flowing from my ears as some sort of iron-rich sauce. The perfect BLT alternative for desperate situations. I guess that was the stage at which I felt sympathetic toward the homeless train woman. 

Back at my desk, following some good time spent wishing both Max and Hugh a horrific death at the hands of a murderer, I decided to send my friend a message.

*Thanks for your 'say yes to everything' suggestion. Going really well so far!!!*

I didn't expect a reply. She was probably too busy doing something she'd said yes to. 

"How's that report coming along, mate?"

Oh fuck off, Max.

"Nicely. I'll have it on your desk before 5".

"Excellent. I have a meeting scheduled for ten past, so the sooner the better, okay? Cool -

Oh, by the way, did you send the Keith-Burton cheque over to HR?"

"You told me you'd do it yourself."

"Oops. Silly me."

He took out his chequebook from his inside jacket pocket and wrote it out on my desk.

"Here, have this sent over ASAP."

I felt my body losing weight with every minute that passed. My stomach was making noises I didn't know it was capable of. I had to get that meaningless report finished by the end of the day. My problem was that It was nowhere near ready. I wasn't functioning properly. I couldn't take it anymore, I needed to eat. Max headed down the corridor after our chat, so I slipped out right after him and made for the stairs. He'd left his chequebook on my desk by accident, but I was in too much agony to care. There was one of those hotdog stands by the side of the road. All I saw was my own personal haven for sustenance. That's when my phone rang.

"Y'hello"

"I sensed some irony in your message, you better not have broken the rule."

"Of course not, In fact I've subjected myself all day to what some would consider light torture."

"How's that?"

I continued speaking to her as I paid for my hotdog. It was doused with ketchup and mustard and had diced onions buried underneath. 

It really was heavenly, or at least that's how it felt initially.

As I made my way back, I felt a sharp pain in my abdomen. Probably nothing, I thought. It'll pass. 

"I'm heading back now. I'll call you la-"

"Ehhh Golden Bow Hotel?"

I don't have time for this.

A group of Chinese tourists stood there asking for directions to a hotel I'd never heard of.

"I'm really sorry, but I'm in a bit of a rush-"

"Umm, what are you doing?" she pounced. 

I let out a nervous laugh.

"Yes. Okay, lets see..."

They handed me a map of the entire city and pointed. The road they were looking for wasn't too far away and my spirits had been lifted incrementally now that my stomach was full, so I decided to do the right thing, at least according to the rule, and take them myself. It wouldn't take up much time, and there would still be enough left to finish the report - or so I convinced myself.

When we arrived at the hotel, I tried to say goodbye but they insisted that I go inside with them to check in. 

"Please, you take us?"

I wasn't feeling at all well, and in any case there wasn't much more I could do, other than hand the confirmation letter over to the receptionist and inform him that they didn't speak English. In hindsight, he didn't need to have Columbo's prowess to figure that out for himself. My tour-guiding job had taken up much more time than I'd anticipated, not least due to their insistence on stopping every 10 yards to take a picture. I only had an hour left to get back and blitz the report. I sprinted. Max's chequebook was still on my desk and he wasn't in his office. I felt like a teenage girl sneaking back home after a romantic evening at the skatepark with my emo boyfriend. 5 o'clock was looming. Time to get to work and end this disastrous day. That's when things really took a turn for the worst. My stomach began growling and contracting viciously. Lets just say I'd rather have been hit with a body shot by a relatively skilled bantamweight boxer. Yes, it was that bad. Never before had I felt such contempt for a hotdog. All of the stalls in the men's toilet were taken. I say all, there were only four in total, two occupied, one for handicapped users and one which was out of use. The situation was getting worse and it reached a point where I couldn't wait any longer. I started banging each stall like a madman.

"HEY, I NEED TO USE THE TOILET. IT'S AN EMERGENCY"

"COME ON, HURRY UP!"

It was as if i didn't exist. 

I became blind to etiquette, courtesy and in fact any form of human decency. I heard some movement in the disabled stall, so I hammered the wheelchair logo with as much force I could muster in one leg. Its hinges came off - at least partially - and I shoulder barged what little was left of this barrier to my suffering. The door fell and landed on the guy's legs, crushing his kneecaps into dust. When he first heard my ramblings, he'd manoeuvred himself back to his wheelchair in an attempt to get out. Unfortunately for the both of us, not fast enough.

"I'm really sorry, Stu, it's an emergency!" that's what I thought I had said. It transpired later on that a more accurate version of my words was "Move you fuckin' cripple, I'm gonna' explode." This really was a low-point in my existence. I picked the broken door up from the pair of knees it leaned on and threw it to the side. Then i stood behind him and aimed his wheelchair straight out of the stall. I threw myself onto the toilet and then came the moment I had been longing for ever since I ate that godforsaken hotdog. I don't recall what happened during the following minutes. I think i may have passed out. What I remember next is looking up to see two security guards looking down at me with folded arms. From between their bodies I could see a paramedic dragging the ailing wheelchair man away. 

"WHEELCHAIR STU IS IN HOSPITAL BECAUSE YOU COULDN'T HOLD A FUCKING SHIT IN?"

"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?"

"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW BAD THIS IS?"

I felt like Guy from Swimming with Sharks, only this time there were three Buddy Ackerman's.

"Ok, I know this is awful but it would never have happened if Max didn't make me take those files up to Hugh before my lunch break."

'"WHAT?" "WHAT?" "WHAT?"
In harmony virulence.

"Well, if I didn't have to go to Hugh, I would never have had to listen to how a transexual prostitute was the cause of his divorce, which means I wouldn't have had to sneak outside - after the lunchbreak I never had- to get a hotdog, which means I wouldn't have contracted whatever bug it was whose sole purpose was to rip my insides apart, and those tourists would never have seen me and coerced me into taking them to their hotel, which means I wouldn't have had to run all the way back here with diarrhoea swirling around my ass like a cyclone, just to get that report finished for Max so that he could impress Sandra up on 10th. Yes, I know about that. He's only doing it because she's sleeping with Jack. What, you really think she'll put in a good word for you while she's up there getting screwed? 'Ahh. Ahh. Keep going. Oh Jack. Don't stop. Ahh. Did I tell you what a great job Max is doing down on 3rd? Really top notch. Ahh. Ahh.'"

...

And so I sat there for the next hour as Max, Hugh and Jack (their boss) stripped me of what little dignity I thought I still had left.

"YOU'RE FIRED" shouted Jack, finally.

"Listen to me, Jack. I'm not the one you should be firing. The two apes standing either side of you are incompetent in the absolute worst sense of the word . One of them is an ass-kissing, unprofessional shit-head whose only role in life would have been holding the King's balls as he walked around had he been born a few hundred years ago. And the other is a jack of no trades, master of dick jokes. That's all they're good for.

"I've heard enough"

"You think it's fair to have them behaving as they do and to punish me for what is otherwise an impeccable record? Look at the figures. You think Max is doing a good job down here? I'd do a better job than both of them combined if given the chance.

"I said thats enough"

"How can you be so blind? I'm not out of my mind in saying this, it's all true. They're spineless,  ask anyone of their honest opin-, screw that, hold an anonymous survey asking just one question: Who would be first to pick up the soap? I bet you their names would have more ticks than mine, Jack.

"You've got 10 minutes to clear your things"

...

"Are you two just gonna' stand there and watch me pack?"

Security just observed me with folded arms. I often wonder wether security guards come out of the womb with their arms crossed, or if part of their training process involves prolonged periods of arm crossing. Those who can take it, make it. Those who can't, end up working nights at McDonald's.

I sat on the train with a box of my possessions on my lap, mumbling "just say yes" to myself. How did it come to this? Security was so disgusted with me that they didn't even give me 10 minutes.  The shame of returning the next day to clear any  remaining trace of my existence still faced me. As I left the station, I noticed that the woman was still in the same spot. The only difference was a container for donations. Bar a chewing gum wrapper and what looked like used tooth floss, it was empty.

"Spare some change, sir?"

She didn't recognise me.

"Trust me, lady, you've had a better day than I have"

"I'd be happy with anything, sir"

"What's your name?"

"It's Lois"

"I might just have a little something for you, Lois"

I put my box on the floor and took out my notepad. I flicked through and hoped what I was searching for was still there. It was something I'd saved earlier - a slip from Max's chequebook. I scribbled down $20,000 and forged his signature on the back. Considering his IQ, it wasn't the most difficult to replicate.

"Listen to me, Lois. If you do exactly as I say then this money is yours. As soon as you find a place to live, I want you to go to the bank and open an account. Wait a few days before you cash the cheque. After that, withdraw everything, get on a train, and go as far away as you can. When you get there I want you to change your name, burn any record of your old name, and don't ever think about coming back. Understand?"

When I got home, I made myself a real coffee and sat down to try and process what had happened.

My phone rang.

"Hey, did you take them to their hotel?"

"Yeah, I'm sure they're in the honeymoon suite having a hell of a time in the jacuzzi as we speak."

"Oh can't you just be happy for once? You did a good thing today"

"You know what, I haven't felt this good in a long time. Someone ought to make a movie about the day I've had."