the freaky and the geeky

One of my coworkers just joined Facebook and friended me. This coworker--Eileen-- I think I may have groused about her before. I do disparage her from time to time, but I can't manage to do so without winding up with this thick residue of GUILTY all over me. She is nothing but nice to me, and in general is 100% good will toward one and all. I feel I must be petty and/or evil to be irked by her but nevertheless.. .. yeah...she is so geeky it pains me.

For one thing, she's got this excessive enthusiasm about EVERYTHING. I gave her like, 4 large binder clips for a project and that evoked 2 minutes of "Oh WOW. Thank you. These are great. Aren't these great? They work really really well. THANK YOU SO MUCH. Wow." Please note here that though I may have a mile-wide mean streak, I do work to suppress it. Therefore, I limit my response to "You're welcome, Eileen" and refrain from adding "just simmer the hell down, wouldja?"

REEEEALLY vexing is her propensity for looking over my shoulder at my computer screen. She doesn't even attempt sneakiness. She'll inquire as to what page I'm on. "Ah, well, Eileen, I'm not supposed to be pissing away company time on the internet right at the moment, but ohhh sure...why don't I send you the link??"

Also she does this thing when someone's cell phone goes off. Y'know it's embarrassing enough when you forget to shut off your cell at work (or neglect to switch it to vibrate) but when one goes off in the office with its own unique tune or tone or whatever, Eileen invariably goes "WHAT is THAT??" But not joking, or like she's trying to tactfully ask "Who's the stupid schmoe who left their cell on & unattended?" She says this--everytime-- like she's genuinely bewildered. I really don't know how someone over the age of 6 can get this far into the 21st century and not recognize what a fucking cell phone sounds like. If she wasn't proficient in Microsoft Excel, I might seriously suspect she was a golden retriever trapped in a person body.

Anyways, all that grousing (possibly re-grousing...I can't remember all my past blathering) just to preface the fact that she friended me on Facebook. And OF COURSE I accepted. I haven't the spine to reject anybody (consequently I have a lot of WTFs on my Friends list, lemme tell ya) I accepted with a feeling just like I felt when I friended my aunt. Like, I'd known for weeks she'd gotten on FB, but was blissfully ignoring the fact, when two of my cousins "recommended her " to me. I dunno what kind of pushy asshat does such a thing (my cousins, apparently). So that ended my run of pretending not to know she was on Facebook, so I friended her...with mucho reluctance.

Now on to the freaky... I was accessing this patient file to check for insurance info (don't worry, am not going to divulge any names here...no HIPAA violations on this bloggity blog!!) and on the first page of a patient profile, there's this space "Non-clinical Notes" it's called. In there we input little helpful hints such as "if no answer to your knock, walk in. Door is open, patient slow to get up" or "Make sure you don't let the cats out!" Well, I happened to catch a glimpse of the nonclinical note for this particular patient and it read: PATIENT & HUSBAND HAVE A MONKEY THEY CONSIDER A CHILD; PLEASE REFER TO IT THAT WAY.

Ooookay. I'm mildly weirded out by just the first sentence, but concede that I am a bit biased on account of some anti-monkey sentiment I harbor. I mean, freakin' monkeys KILLED THE DEPUTY MAYOR OF NEW DELHI. Okay, this was some time ago, (2007)and I wasn't particularly close with the deputy mayor, but nevertheless, it's an apt example of what crazy unpredictable mo-fos monkeys can be. I, personally, would *NOT* keep one for a pet. Ok, that said, I can be open minded (when I try hard) and allow: some people like filthy monkeys ...and like 'em enough to domesticate them. And OK--people get very schmoopy about their pets, think of them as their "babies". ...still passing for semi-normal here. It's that last sentenece, though, that gets me, makes me wonder about this lady's relations with reality (or lack thereof). So now everytime I read this patient's name (during my day-to-day med supply ordering duties) I hafta chuckle and wonder just how our nurses' visits there go. I wonder what kind of hell breaks loose if they mistakenly refer to the pet monkey as...(gasp!) a pet monkey.