The Mysteries of Cellophane

The thing about being functionally insane is that crazy is rarely on the surface. Usually, insanity is buried deep under many layers of "socially acceptable behavior" and "work place decorum." But like a $1.29 goldfish after three months, crazy eventually rises to the top in one form or another.

It took almost a year of working a temp job before this particular woman's bloated carcass of crazy broke the surface. And I would like to stress that she was completely normal up to that point: normal conversations, normal behavior, and normal appearance. Normal, normal, normal.

"Tina" and I had developed a pretty good friendship over the months. We even got into the habit of trading office gossip. On this day, our conversation wandered onto (believe it or not) 'crazy coworker' stories. Having been with the company for several years, Tina had a wealth of stories. But I didn't hear a single one of them. Her actions spoke louder than her words.

As she talked to me, Tina reached into her desk drawer and removed a packet of vitamins sealed in a cellophane pouch about the size of an index card. She opened the packet and emptied the pills into her hand. Next, while she was yakking on about somebody else being crazy, she proceeded to fold that cellophane wrapper into tiny squares about eight times!

Now that's merely odd. What made it outhouse rat insane is that she then pulled out a rubber band, which she wrapped snugly around the tiny square of plastic. And finally, she tucked her little bundle into a pocket inside of her purse.

By this time, the whole conversation was a wash for me. My mind couldn't hold onto a thing Tina was saying because it was abuzz with questions, such as:

• What's so important about that cellophane?
• What does she do with the cellophane when she gets home?
• Is whatever she does with the cellophane so complicated that she can't take care of it here at work?
• Why the rubber band?
• Does she think the cellophane will make a break for it if she doesn't secure it tightly?
• Is this a hobby for her?
• If so, then what particular qualities does she look for in her collectible cellophane?

I didn't, however, ask Tina any of these questions. I couldn't. It would have meant acknowledging the crazy, which would have resulted in one of two possible outcomes. One, she would become embarrassed by the acknowledgement, and then things would become awkward between us from then on. Or two, she (thinking that her actions were board-certified sane) would invite me into her crazy cellophane imprisonment/hobby, which would make things super awkward between us. Either way: no fun for me.

So I did the only thing I could. I nodded and smiled for the next ten minutes. Then I said something nonsensical, like "I guess these papers aren't going to staple themselves." And then I got the heck away. Thankfully, Tina never did this in front of me again (although based on her near-automatic actions, this was clearly a habit for her). Maybe she wisely added another layer of "socially acceptable behaviors" to hide her crazy from me. Or maybe with that last piece of vitamin wrapper, her cellophane collection was finally complete.

She must get lost. A lot.

When you temp for a living, you get to meet a lot of interesting people. And by "interesting," I mean to say "functionally insane." I guess you can say that on some level everyone is sanity-challenged, including me (did I mention that I temp for a living?). But it's my blog, so I've decided that I am the sane person in the room. And the voices in my head agree with me, so there!

Anyway, this brush with the bizarre occurred during my first week on a temp job. "Abby" was showing me the ropes. As she trained me on what I was to do, Abby handled a multi-line phone and juggled several responsibilities at the same time without breaking a sweat. All in all, she was a very competent person. So there's NO WAY someone like that would open up a can of CRAZY, right?

Well, during a slow moment in the day, Abby complimented me on my manicure. I thanked her and said that if she was interested, I had it done at the nail shop across the street, just north of this building. I tried to point in the direction of north, but the area where we were sitting did not have any windows, and being new to the job, I didn't have my bearings. Abby, surprisingly, did not know either; however, she mentioned that she had a compass in her desk that could help us.

A compass? Really? This wasn't a temp job at the Timberland Outlet Store. This was a paper pushing job at your standard office building. There was no conceivable reason why anyone would need a compass. But no worries: I'm sure there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for her having a compass. Maybe it was a keychain. Or maybe it was part of some novelty paperweight. Or heck, maybe she was an avid hiker and liked to keep her compass/GPS locator with her at all times because she never knew when the urge to go hiking would overcome her and she liked to be prepared. Whatever.

So, imagine my shock when she pulled a mouse pad out of one of her desk drawers. A MOUSE PAD. One of those little flat pieces of foam and cloth that you place under your computer's mouse to make it glide easier. A. MOUSE. PAD.

It was one of the company's promotional mouse pads-- it was circular and had a pattern of a compass printed on it. It represented the company's slogan which was something like, "using this company's products is going in the right direction." But it couldn't have been more not a compass. And yet I sat in stunned silence while this very accomplished woman ROTATED THAT MOUSE PAD clock-wise and counter clock-wise, trying to "adjust" it so that it faced north. After several long seconds, Abby finally gave up and said to me, "I guess this won't help."

No, I guess not.

[Note: I am completely joking when I say "the voices in my head." I once made that joke with a casual acquaintance, and she looked at me funny for the rest of the evening. Please don't assume that it is a cry for help. I let my drinking do that for me. KIDDING!]