2. Nothing Personal
I passed the copier-printer-fax machine-label maker-cheese
grater on my way to my office. An error
light blinked on the hateful, high strung, high maintenance “business
productivity center.” (“Business”
as in, “I’m taking the dog outside to do her ‘business.’”) This
particular productivity center produced more jams than Smuckers. Overnight it had chewed up ten booklets I needed
in an hour. Paper was lodged in every
gear, roller, spring, and lever.
I fought the urge to kick the toner out of it. Instead, I got myself a cup of coffee from
the kitchen. I came back to the
machine. The urge returned.
I counted to ten and tried to remember what a friend had told
me. He had rescued a car from a
neighbor’s back yard. After working on
the engine for months, he had sanded, primed, and painted it. To repay his
kindness, the car would quit running the moment he lost cell phone coverage or
drove through a rough neighborhood.
“You gotta be careful what you take personally,” my friend
had said. “Otherwise you’ll do something stupid out of frustration. Plenty of
times I’ve wanted to push the car into the Ohio River, but I didn’t. The car’s not trying to frustrate me, it’s
nothing personal.”
Today I’ll
be careful about what I take personally.
Needles Not For Knitting (c) 2016 by
Ken Montrose
Needles Not For Knitting is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between the
characters and anyone you might know is purely coincidental.
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