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The Turning Tides

I was recently in Houston with some work friends for a long weekend/vacation. It was a lot of fun; we ate & drank plenty, we saw a couple of shows (Miss Saigon & Wonderland), and there was general merriment to be found. Heck, I even found a guy who used to be in the armed services that taught a class called "Bootcamp" (all you other "bootcamp" classes taught at random gyms, I'm pretty sure you got nothing on this guy). It was a good time, and I'm glad I went.

But you know what worries me? On this trip, it felt like my friends were slowly taking more liberties with messing with me. It's not like anyone was out and out being a jerk (if they were, we'd have words). No, it was far more insidious & devious than that. It felt like a slow turning of the tides, with yours truly on the receiving end of the crashing wave.

Don't believe me? I present to the jury Exhibit A: after watching Miss Saigon, a couple of people joked that I reminded them of the Engineer. If you haven't seen the show, he's the one who's part comedic relief, part hustler. He swears, he's a pimp for the girls, he's always trying to cheat people, and he's generally the opposite of strait-laced. And they compared him to me. Innocent old me. Yeah, I scoffed, too.

It gets better, though. When I expressed aloud my disbelief, one of them actually clarified, "oh no, you don't remind me of the Engineer. The Engineer reminds me of you." So, I'm the cloth from which the Engineer is cut, or I'm the Form of rogue-ish behavior (who says I wasn't paying attention in class?). Great, that makes it *so* much better.

But wait, ladies & gentlemen of the jury, there's more. Friday lunches have become something of a tradition with the work crew, but not everyone is in the office on the same Friday (we have flex schedules). A couple of the regulars just switched their schedules, so on the Friday that I'm in the office, my lunch options have become more limited. You know what the understanding, empathic response to this was? "Heh, sounds like that's your problem, not ours." Admittedly, this was late on a Sunday night, and we were a couple of pizzas and a few glasses of beer/wine in, but still. No love for the brown kid.

I'm not sure I like where this is headed. Combined with my recent slide down the social ladder, this could be trouble. Next thing you know, they'll actually be teasing me. Openly. And I can't be having that. No, I need to nip this in the bud. If it weren't for the fact that the office is generally tame, I'd be tempted to start multiple prank wars. Or declare a few blood feuds.

That's it, I'm off to go scheme up an appropriate response.
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