so ridiculous it still makes me smile

In my first job out of college, I worked in two offices. From Tuesday through Friday, I was at my desk in a small satellite office. And on Saturdays, eight of us worked in the huge main office that looks sort of like a spaceship from the highway. The were no suits on the weekends, so we could dress down and joke around as loudly as we wanted as long as the work got done. But outside of our small group of cubicles, the empty building was really creepy. And I've never been good with lonely places.

Cc was on that crew, too. When I first met her, I admit I was a little intimidated. She was all business, striding around the department with her black boots and New York accent and focusing on work with steely concentration. But after several of those relaxed Saturdays, I noticed her sense of humor would break through the serious facade and catch everyone by surprise.

One afternoon in the mothership, I was walking around in a bit of a fog because I had been out late the night before. I left my desk to use the restroom. It was a huge one with a carpeted foyer area with a chair and a couch, where rumors said the weird IT guy slept late at night. And that day the feminine product machine must have been broken, because there was a gigantic box of them on the counter. I remember seeing that box on the way in and thinking, Damn, that's a lot of tampons.

I went into a stall and was minding my business, when a shower of unused tampons suddenly came raining down on me. I hadn't heard her come in, but cc was throwing them over the door and laughing hysterically. Especially because my gut reaction was to yell, "Heeey!" not unlike a little kid would if someone snatched her candy. She just wanted to see what I'd do and it seemed like she enjoyed the reaction. It was so ridiculous. But for some reason, that's when I knew we would be friends for a very long time.

Even all these years later, cc can make herself crack up just by thinking about my reaction to those flying tampons; it freaks people out on the train or in the elevator when she laughs to herself for no apparent reason. And now that I know her a lot better, when I think back on that incident, I can't believe I was surprised.

Happy Birthday, cc. Now if I enter a stall whenever you're around, I know to cover my head.