OFFICE BOY

OFFICE BOY
...or ...   A PRANKING WORTH A SPANKING


02 October 2012
Houston

Now I must confess to doing something naughty! (Who, ME??) 

My very first "job" was as an office boy. OK, it wasn't a real job - I didn't get paid or have coffee breaks. However, I did do work, and got to be a real hero to the guys on the fourth floor.

I was 6 years old, and my mother worked as a secretary in an office building in Washington, D.C.
I thought she had a great job, but she told me that it looked good, but the PAY wasn't anything to write home about. I told her that it was a neat job 'cause she could have all the pens, pencils, erasers, rulers, and staple removers she wanted for free! She told me that it didn't work like that. Oh, well...

Now, because I was 6 years old at the time, I, of course, went to school. But every so often, I'd get a day off for whatever reason, and so my mom would take me to the office. She was so proud of me, and everybody there at the office wanted to see me and say hi to me. Even the blind man who ran the coffee stand in the basement played hide and go seek with me, and usually found me.
(I think he was just playing like he was blind!)

My Mom's boss was Mrs. Mergatroyd (not her real name, but it fits!) She was ever so nice to me, and I really liked her. But I noticed right away that she had rather larger facial features, and, I know it is hard to believe that I'd ever express my opinion out loud, but ... after having a little chat with me, Mrs. Mergatroyd left the office, and I immediately remarked to my mother, in my little voice that carried half a block: "Mommy, Mrs. Mergatroyd has a BIG MOUTH!" (Of course I was referring to the SIZE of her oriface, not that she was a blabbermouth.)

That was the exact second that Mrs. M. returned to the office for... I don't know what... and she heard what I said. I didn't think I said anything wrong, but my Mommy sure was miffed at me!!

I was pretty well-behaved, for a six-year-old boy. I made myself useful there, helping my mother by delivering letters to other offices, taking letters to the drop chute be mailed, bringing her typing paper, ribbons, and all sorts of stuff. I even helped her out by stamping incoming mail with URGENT and IMPORTANT red rubber stamps - even when she didn't want me to, and I still can't understand why she got into a little trouble over this...

I took delight tearing up stuff to be thrown away, punching holds in blank pieces of paper, and in unstapling papers she asked me to unstaple.  I also enjoyed watching her make Thermofax copies. Before copying machines that took pictures, the thermofax actually BURNED an image from a typed document onto a blank sheet of paper, and when the top was closed, there was the brightest yellow glow I ever saw! The pages were really hot when they were done.

Now I wasn't a mischevious lad - honest Injun. I just would get into trouble every once in a while for doing stuff. I'll explain:

One time I went to the men's room, located one floor below us. Why men's rooms and women's rooms were not on the same floor, I'll never know. Nevertheless, I was in a stall and after finishing, I decided to crawl out underneath the door into the next stall (which was vacant), and lock it. I repeated the process, locking ALL of the stalls...giggled to myself, washed my hands, and went upstairs, where I had a delightful time playing office boy some more.

Yes, delightful it was, for a short while... that is, until somebody got the bright idea that my mother's little boy could just be the very answer to their problem, came running into the office all excited, and asked my mother if she might volunteer her onlybegotten son to help the guys out on the fourth floor. It seems as though all the toilet stalls were locked, and they needed a little boy to get them unlocked.

My mother was very happy to oblige, saying something like: "Yes, sure! Kenny would be delighted to unlock those toilets." At some point in that conversation I began to see her smiling face change from a smiling, happy countenance, abruptly into one I'd rather not describe, as she contemplated the CAUSE of the problem presented to her. Seconds seemed like minutes to me then. She was quickly coming to the realization that I just might be the perpertator of the lower floor mayhem. She looked at me with that "You are SOOO in trouble!"-look and said sharply: "KENNETH!..." (She never called me that unless I was in doo-doo, and in it deeply I most assuredly was.) At that moment I now instantly recalled the nearly-forgotten events of about an hour ago, and it was like a surge of electricity shot through my brain.

"Kenneth," began the lower tone, stern question I dreaded: "Did YOU lock those toilets in the men's room?"

Of course I had guilt written all over my face. I was so busted!! I never could get away with anything. My mea culpa at my auto-da-fé was at hand, and I quickly confessed to having done the deed most foul, and as penitence, was ordered to "volunteer" for the task, and to head down to the fourth floor post-haste and undo what I had done.

On the fourth floor, in a line that stretched clear to the middle stairway, were men - many men - many very important men, whose suits cost more than my mother made in a month. They were not happy men. They were very uncomfortable men. (In retrospect, did I not realize, as I was committing the terrible act with which I had now been charged, that at some point what I did just might get noticed?
I guess these thoughts do not course through the mind of a 6-year-old...)

My tenure as office boy was now in jeopardy; what I did most certainly was not a career-enhancing move. So, as damage-control (and also because my Mommy told me to!),  I eagerly volunteered to go to the rescue of the men of the office.

I had one saving grace - these guys had no idea that it was I who locked the stalls in the first place! They were all smiles when I came to unlock the doors, and they actually THANKED me, akin to people thanking a fireman who extinguishes a blaze HE himself started! For once I was a real hero, although I didn't feel much like one! I also had to apologize to a couple of them, and by then I really was sorry for the misdeed.

They say that time heals all wounds. The converse is also true: Time wounds all HEELS. I was heartily sorry - contrite, even - for what I had done, and I an pleased to say that I did go back to the office once or twice with my mother after that... eventually. I can just imagine word getting out that that "kid was back, and you'd better go now before he locks the toilets again!"

You can bet your bottom dollar I was strongly warned as we went to the office, to exit the toilet area in the normal way!

Thus ended my budding career as office boy!