Comedy of Errors

Last week was a pure comedy of errors moment. On Wednesday, I left work to have lunch with my friend Mike. Now, I had been feeling slightly unwell earlier in the day, but it was nothing to blog about. During lunch my slightly unwell feeling exploded into a Linda Blair moment. After the second time my head spun around and I lobbed pho into the porcelain jaws, I decided that I should probably head home for the day.

I had, previous to making the decision to head home, sent a message to my co-worker Chris saying that I was not feeling well but would be back in the office. I followed that up with a text saying that I was going to head home. She never got the text. And thus it began.

On the way home, I lost my cellphone and my ID due to an unzipped side pocket on my travel bag. So was the stage set for an unsuspecting Brandon to find himself at the core of a coast-to-coast electronic manhunt.

Last Thursday morning, I sent an email to the office saying that I was still ill and would not be in. My roommates were gone for work for the day, and so I had only email to use to communicate to the office. Unfortunately, I had left the power cord for my Mac at the office and later that morning when I returned to consciousness to email my boyfriend, I discovered that my Mac was dead. I then tried to plug my old laptop into the DSL line, but it refused to access the Internet (Josh’s friend came to our house and “changed the settings” on the internet and now none of us can get on the internet with our computers via the wireless router and only my Mac is able to access the internet when plugged directly into the modem). I knew that David would probably be losing his mind wondering what was going on with me, but since I had emailed work that morning, I figured that work was peachy keen. Or, to be more precise, I didn’t think about work at all.

I was at home, with the flu, with no phone, and no internet access. For all intents and purposes I was living in the mid-21st century in rural Alabama.

Later that day, around 3:00pm, I heard a pounding on the front door. Since I was snug in my bedroom and half awake, I rolled over, grabbed a pillow, covered my head, and mentally commanded the Jehovah’s Witnesses to go away. If only I had answered the door, I would have found two distraught co-workers. Instead, I slipped into fretful dreams of Kingdom Hall.

I rose occasionally for the rest of the day to vomit, eat something, and pee. I also checked to see if Josh or Tony had come home. Finally, around 9pm, I turned off my light and went to sleep only to be awakened within an hour by the sound of CeCe, my neighbor from across the street, knocking on my door.

“Brandon!”

“What girl, I am asleep.”

“Your co-worker is out here and everyone is looking for you!”

“What are you talking about?”

“No one has heard from you for a day.”

“That is crazy. I will be right out.”

I got out of my bed to find Mervyn, my beloved girl pal from work, and my roommate Tony looking distraught. It turns out that the office never received my text nor my email, and David had called looking for me. Basically, CMJ turned into the Bloodhound Gang detective agency, and I was the mark. Turns out that my loving co-workers, had basically started a chain reaction that reached out and touched most of my friends across the country. People from the Bay to NYC to Atlanta were calling and emailing trying to find out where I had gone.

I have never felt so loved in my life. Today, I received an email from MAC--an amazingly brilliant human being that I can joyously add to my list of powerful female-bodied persons from whom I have learned and will continue to learn much. MAC was not pleased. She was not pleased with my lack of communication, and she was absolutely right. I will most likely, as a result of this situation, lose some of the amazing flexibility that we have at CMJ in terms of working from home or from alternative locations. I think that is fair. What else is fair is the way that MAC goes about discipline. I am not happy to have to have created a situation where discipline is necessary. But I have also never been given a voice in coming up with a solution to a situation that values who I am in toto.

And to all of you that were concerned, that reached out to make sure I was ok, I say to you thank you and I love you.