The Tattoo

Since the day My Partner in Crime overheard Sophia and I talking about past skinny dipping experiences, any mention of public nudity in the production managers meeting immediately turns to me.

Do they really think that I am naive enough to believe that I am the only person in that room who has ever swam naked with other people?? I think not.

Tommy Lee had started the meeting off today by showing everyone the new tattoo he had received last weekend. So, as we sit there, staring at the shirtless back of Tommy Lee, Mr. Brownstar had asked if the tattoo still hurt.

"It's a little tender, but not bad. It hurt worse just sitting there for the 2 hours while they worked on it, my back muscles are killing me. The tattoo needle sticking my back was a piece of cake," everyone was looking intently at Tommy Lee's untoned back and the dream catcher tattoo he had gotten in tribute to the death of his father last month.

"Can you imagine someone sticking their ass up in the air that long?" Allison started to laugh, her missing front tooth grossed me out.

"Yeah, Phoebe, how does that feel?" My partner in Crime smiled at me, a devilish gleam in his eye.

"What do you mean 'Yeah, Phoebe', I don't have any tattoos," I glared at him from across the conference table.

If you haven't guessed it already, this would be the reason why I call this production manager My Partner in Crime. Of all the production managers, this particular one has the ability to bring out the worst in me.

"Oh, yah.... Prove it!" the devilish glint had taken over his entire face, he was up to no good. With every eye upon me, I couldn't help but laugh, if they knew what I looked like naked, I'm sure they wouldn't be asking me to get naked. After all, I've had 2 kids, the whole having a baby thing was not kind to me.

"The only way I'm proving anything is if we all prove it," we were laughing way too hard. I'm certain you could hear laughter coming from inside the conference room. I'm very surprised, actually, that Crazy Office Supply Jody and her barely clad bosoms didn't come bursting in to tell me that they could hear me laughing in the front office.

Crazy Office Supply Jody does not like me. You may think I jest, but the above events did actually happen one day as we sat in the production managers meeting.

"Sounds like we'll be needing to do an off site managers conference then, to get down to the bottom of the whole tattoo situation. Let's just make sure it's after I get back from Florida," Mr. Brownstar is pretending to pencil in an action item.

I can't even begin to imagine what upper management would think if they new the topics and discussions that go on in the production managers meetings.

What they don't know won't kill them.

The New Guy didn't show up for work today. His first day with the company was on September 18th, and he's already missed 5 days.

Not off to a good start.

GQ has been totally avoiding me today. Sophia and I are certain something is up. We also have suspicions that The New Guy may be involved in whatever the heck has caused the engineers to act so strangely around us.

As Sophia had pointed out, it wasn't until after The New Guy started hanging out by us that the odd behavior began taking place. If you think about it, he has the perfect vantage point being The New Guy. He can hang out under the guise of training and spy on every last thing we do, say, or think. How do we really know that every little tidbit of information isn't being passed on to people who really do not need to know this information, and, that said, how do we know these little tidbits of information aren't being taken out of context or twisted into something completely different from the original meaning?

We don't know.

I do know one thing, from now on, Sophia and I are going to be keenly aware of every last thought, phrase, and aspect of conversation we carry with or around The New Guy.