7.20.99

On rare occasions I must sit watch while some third entity peruses otherwise confidential information. Juicy portions will be copied and taken away. Today and yesterday such an entity came, except the party was even further removed from "third", being "fourth", and not charged with perusing, only copying. Fourteen hundred pages. I sat watch, reading my own book, eating dinner, generally unopposed to the whole process. They came wielding their own copiers, wheeled before them on metal carts like some farcical bureaucratic army. Two men. Their names were taped to the sides of the machines, either that or the machines had names. One, clearly the veteran, stood straight-up and spoke with confident volume. He wore pressed cotton shorts into which he'd tucked a black t-shirt emblazoned, front and back, with some ferocious Siberian tiger with sky-blue eyes. His coworker, had thick strawberry blonde hair that supported, with volume, his Oakley sunglasses. Eyes blue and his face like a movie star's, wearing the classic white t-shirt and jeans. He spoke like a man who spends his weekends kickin' the keg, ten years beyond cool. Copiers whirring. Boys chatting. Finally got the T-bird licensed. How much? … Whoa, that's a lot. Taking my dad to the new Safeco field tomorrow. Yep! Tomorrow is my first night in the new Safeco field. I'm sorry. You know what show I'm watching tonight? No. Heather Locklear is making a guest appearance-- What IS the deal with Heather Locklear anyway? Ohh... it goes WAAAY back to the T.J. Hooker days. How do you keep yours from jammin' like that? Like what? Mine jams sometimes when the page comes out only this far... See? Doesn't yours do that? No. Well, next time I need a copier I'm takin' yours. You think Dick gets mad when you take his copier, you try taking mine. I'd never take Dick's. You take Dick's you gotta deal with Carrie's wrath too. When they were finished and rolling the carts back through the hallway, Blue Eyes asked me what I was reading the whole time. I told him and he said he didn't know that one. He kept looking at me, so I finally gave a short synopsis. He said: Oh, some light reading, huh? Then: Have you seen my sunglasses? Oh man, have to go back for my sunglasses! I said: They're on your head.

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