It was to be a steep run-up to the conference deadline. Documents had to be perfect; presentations perfect; flights perfectly aligned; passports current. Margery thought she had all of her ducks in a row and all boxes ticked, thanks to her trusty and hard working staff, including yours truly. However, as the date approached, her demands came thick and fast. Also gathering traction was her enormous personality disorder. Let’s say that Margery came pre-packed, with steamer trunks full of “issues”. Being a psychiatrists wet dream, she would often take great delight in reducing staff to tears, for the slightest thing, such as the fax machine running out of paper. Many a note was placed on her personnel file.
Nevertheless, one day, after a particularly troublesome morning battling with subway delays and trying to find a teller machine in torrential rain, I had just about had enough. Her phone rang and as she was not at her desk, I picked up the call. The person on the other end was equally as rude and bad tempered, as Margery. Seriously, Margery was so bad tempered she would have been rejected as a contestant for the Jerry Springer Show. However, she proceeded to bellow through the office, “Well!!!, Who is it???” My reply, “Your Parole Officer. They want to know if you have tried to take your ankle tracking device off again!”. This started the ball rolling for a vehement onslaught from her, up to and including the day that she was to leave for the conference. Fortunately, I was feeling in a particularly strong mood and was determined to not have Margery derail me.
“Karma, karma, karma”, I chanted under my breath, along with “Bring it on, Bitch!”, as I pondered whether I should put ground-up glass in her coffee. Unfortunately, Karma didn’t come during those final weeks, but her departure did, which brought an air of peace on the whole company.
Then the day of doom arrived when Margery would grace our shores again, albeit in a not so grand manner. Not because she was wearing her favourite ill-fitting label, “Do Not Dry Clean”, but because her personality disorder was obviously not in check either. Being in a foul mood (surprise, surprise!), which may have been the effects of the Pseudoephedrine tablets and alcohol that set her off (believe me, this was true to form), she thundered her way to the baggage carousel, ahead of my other colleagues.
After cursing the fact that her luggage was not one of the first pieces unloaded, she felt a warm breath at her ankle. Looking down she noticed a beagle sniffing her, with its handler. Then, before you could say the words, “anti-psychotic medication”, she launched her size 7 boot and kicked the dog in the guts. At this point the dog yelped, then, with break-neck speed, she was surrounded by three other burly customs officers. They all took turns to deride and scream at her, announcing in quite audible voices that she had just “tampered with Federal property!!”. Then came the second phase of the tirade from the officers, “So maam, are you hiding drugs or food in that bag??? COME WITH US!!!”. At this point a few of my colleagues reached for their mobile phones to take snaps of the incident, but were stopped by other officials.
Margery was then humiliated in front of all watching, as the officials went through all of her luggage, including underwear, tampons and even the lining of her suitcase. She, now, knew what it felt like to be belittled. After a thorough search and very, very stern warnings, she was finally let go. From this day on, she was nick-named The Beagle Basher.
Hmmm. I wander if it was her Parole Officer calling that day.
- Submitted by Lindan Marx
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