The Life and Times of Clomp

She is doing it again. The daily ritual of her clomping up the corridor with a permanent look of confusion on her face, shoulders hunched over and an air of desperation entombing her like a hot dog in a stale bun. Her whole demeanour screams a compendium of conflicting messages, "I'm unhappy!", "Please love me!", "I'm better than you, check out my shoes!" Let me explain. She is unhappy as her only friend is canine, she seems to own only three items of clothing and she smells of meat. She is desperate for love as she is lonely and latches on to any spark of conversation, or in a tactical move, bring up a topic six months out of date to use it as a way in to let her social skills shine, and she smells of meat. The only pride she seems to take is in her job role, frequently looking down on the other teams who she will openly call "the working class". This is from a woman who smells of meat.

The heavy footed clomping sound sparks immediate annoyance in me. Knowing that three seconds later she will appear. It is the knowing that is the killer. She will saunter into the kitchen for the first of many trips for water, surveying the options for conversation as she tries to catch someone (anyone's) eye. Slowly she will make the trip back to her desk where I will then wait patiently, furiously punching the buttons on my keyboard, while the clomping starts again. Yes she is making the same journey up the same corridor to visit the toilet. My mind works overtime as I plan out the way I would have been able to make the toilet and water break in one fail swoop.

Efficient toilet break/water gatherings aside the slow corridor mooching is all an attention seeking ploy. Many have been victim to her corridor attacks, they yielded numerous results such as being hailed her inspiration, but each 'attack' leaves me with an inherent sense of cringe. It is a well known fact that several doses of cringe a day are harmful to that part of your brain that controls the muscles to create a palmface. Very soon I will lose control of that instinctive post-cringe action and will have to resort to smashing my forehead on the keyboard.

I must make you aware of one short term side effect, the post-cringe-post-bitch guilt. It gets everyone. Well, everyone who notices her irritating habits and imparts their annoyance to like-minded people. After offloading the rage the guilt will pour itself all over you like a pint of lumpy sour milk, making you feel worse than Lady Macbeth, except you don't have the madness to blame it on. Yet.

Fear not, the maddening ritual will begin again, washing away the stench of guilt and possibly inspiring some irritant-inspired poetry...