An Explanation As To A Certain Pungent Odor In The Building Today

So, The Powers That Be™ have been threatening since, like, FOREVER to no, really move us to a ‘flexible’ work space.

(We’ve had a…sort of…flexible…well, actually, I’ve been sitting in a poached seat between two people in the row destined to be a flex-space, you know, after they had finished out their final couple weeks before being TERMINATED)

(…yeah…AWK-ward…)

(but, not as awkward as me parking in one of their chairs before they were gone, because on my first day the project manager had waved his hand at the row and said “First come first serve, this whole section is the ‘flex’ seating…” and there was the ‘welcome to your flexible space! tidy up after yourself, don’t be a jerk! isn’t this awesome? yes it is! and also, here’s some desk sanitizer! yay, flex space!’ propaganda everywhere, but then it turned out no it wasn’t, actually, they were the desks of people on the countdown to I JUST GOT CANNED, hahahaha, yeah, sorry about that, dude, they, um, kinda told me that…cough-cough…these seats were…OK, you know? I’m just…gonna…move, now…TO ANOTHER BUILDING OR SOMETHING BECAUSE WOW, IS IT SUDDENLY REALLY HOT IN HERE, OR IS IT JUST ME…?!?!”)

Ahem, anyway…apparently over the weekend, Stuff happened. Among them, a (somewhat inexplicable, because there was nothing wrong with anything that was already in place) rearranging of the hardware.

Which is why this morning I found a different keyboard at the desk I have been gravitating to since about my second week. (Because I HAPPENED to know that the guy who formerly sat there was no really GONE gone…because he had taped his cut-up access badge to the monitor. Subtle clues: I detect them.)

About thirty minutes into my day (and about forty cuss words because the keys were sticking an awful lot) I peered into the dark recesses under the keys and thought, huh, that looks a little dirty, doesn’t it…

So I turned it upside down and gave it a shake.

Sweet mother of mercy…how many eyebrow hairs (I presume) can one person shed into a keyboard?!?!

…OMG, apparently, it’s a LOT…!

(And the pink stuff? I’m pretty sure it was frosting of some sort. But I didn’t do any scientific research on it. Because, EW.)

Then, as I squeamishly dabbed All That into the trash with a tripled-up napkin (which squeamishness is really funny coming from somebody like me, who will do things like kick aside an unfortunately-piled stack of horse poop while wearing sandals and won’t let the fact that I have no gloves handy stop me from hand-picking the squash beetles off the butternut squash), I was hit with one of my weird must…disinfect…ALL…the things…! spasms.

And that’s why the ENTIRE FLOOR – nay, the entire BUILDING - smelled of sanitizer today.

The end.

(Ew.)