From Diane Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale

People disappear when they die. Their voices, their laughter, the warmth of their breath. Their flesh. Eventually their bones. All living mempry of them ceases. This is both dreadful and natural. Yet for some there is an exception to this annihilation. For in the books they write they continut to exist. We can rediscover them. Their humour, their tone of voice, their moods. Through the written word they can anger you or make you happy. They can comfort you. They can perplex you. They can alter you. All this, even though they are dead. Like flies in amber, like corpses frozen in ice, that which according to the laws of nature should pass away is, by the miracle of ink on paper, preserved. It is a kind of magic.

--Diane Setterfield



Thursday, August 23, 2007

Are Mormon's allowed to dance?

Our sales manages asks me this all the time.

Today everyone was standing around my desk as usual, we planned it that way... so I would be "in the know", chatting about loans and the crazy things borrowers do and Alex looks over and says :

"Are you drinking Coffee?!"

"No, it's my hot chocolate :)"

"Oh, cause your not allowed to drink things with caffine or coffee."

"I don't drink coffee..."

"You can't drink either, isn't that right?"

From Matt (possibly my favorite co-worker) " You can't drink?!"

"No." *thinking to myself... okay guys, I know we went over this my first week here when the branch went out to Bennigan's for a farewell party. Remember... I had the water....Matt, you were the one to grab the waiter and demand my beverage when the waiter forgot it. We made a big deal about the fact that I don't drink.

At this point everyone is looking right at me and I can feel the fire rising in my face. I hate blushing, so I worked hard on trying to blush... which one can never do, and it uaually stops the event from progressing...

Variations on "That's wierd... or I could never do that." from all the co-workers as they walk away form my desk to their offices.

3 comments:

Michelle said...

Ok one of these days I'll get it right!!!...

Arren you're such a great writer! I loved your story. People are so funny about those things. How can we live without a drink here and there!?

Peachblossm said...

oh, I know!

They always come up with something to make me smile.

Ruth said...

It gets me how people can live for the first part of their life (should be 21 years, but sometimes it's less as any of us who went to public high school know) without a drink, then suddenly they can't imagine a life without it. Hmph.