I was in a meeting the other day, one of those long, pointless meetings that accomplish nothing other than sucking up hours of my life that I’ll never get back. It was the sort of meeting where people go around telling everyone else what they’re working on. Nothing gets done, nothing gets decided. It was just people talking, one of those state-of-the-team sort of meetings that serves no purpose other than pissing me off. I hate those kinds of meetings with a fierce and fiery passion. I don’t give a hairy fuck what everyone else is working on because A. it has nothing to do with me, and B. even if it does have something to do with me, I already fucking know about it, so I don’t need a goddamn waste of time meeting to keep me informed, and C. I have so much shit to do that I feel like I’m on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and taking time away from all the shit that I have to do in order to sit through the longest, most useless meeting of my entire fucking life gives me heart palpitations. And have you ever noticed that the most useless people, the ones who do the absolute least in the office, always have the most to say? They go on and on and fucking on about nothing while those of us who actually do have a great many things to do stare at them in the hopes that the force of our hatred is enough to set their heads on fire.

Anyway, so I’m in one of those meetings the other day, and I’m desperately wishing it would end, and I’m trying to think of ways that I can get out of the meeting so I can go back to working on my enormous and out of control To Do list. I pondered faking a seizure for a while, but ultimately I had to abandon the idea. If I did that, the co-workers would probably insist on calling an ambulance or something, because I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t let me go back to work after a seizure. And if I pushed the issue, and kept insisting that I was fine, they might get suspicious and realize that I’d faked the whole thing. And then not only would we have to go back to the original meeting, but I’d probably get dragged into another meeting about how it’s totally irresponsible to fake a seizure in order to get out of a meeting. So the seizure thing was out.

I thought about starting a fire, because I was pretty sure that would end the meeting in a hurry. But then I decided that if faking a seizure would get me in trouble, setting a fire would most definitely get me in even more trouble. Plus, I didn’t have a lighter or matches handy, and while my anger certainly felt strong enough to start a fire, I was pretty sure my mental fire-starting abilities were not yet up to igniting even the tiniest spark yet.

I thought about causing some sort of scene that would stop the damn meeting. I could stand up and start screaming uncontrollably, or I could jump up on the table to give my rendition of River Dance, or I could urinate in a corner or in someone’s coffee. Then I thought about jumping up and exposing my breasts, because I was pretty sure that would bring the meeting to a screeching halt. But the more I thought about it, I realized that it wouldn’t be all that easy to expose my breasts. I was wearing one of those industrial-strength bras with the 17 straps and a complicated series of buckles which, while excellent for making my breasts look all pert and spry and awesome, aren’t the easiest things to remove in a hurry. And then I started thinking that if I were a man, I would totally whip out my penis and slap it on the conference table. I was thinking about that, and about the looks on the faces of my co-workers when confronted with my genitalia out of nowhere, and I started laughing. I mean, what would you do if one of your co-workers suddenly stood up in the middle of a meeting and slapped their penis on the table? I tried to cover the laughter up with a coughing fit, but a couple of people were still looking at me funny, which of course made me laugh even harder. For the entire rest of the meeting, I sat there shaking with suppressed laughter, making all manner of weird snorting noises as I tried to contain my giggles. I knew people were staring at me, but I couldn’t stop, I just couldn’t. I kept thinking about how, if I had a penis, I would jump up and start waggling it around at everyone, and I kept imagining the horrified expressions on the faces of everyone at the meeting. And I imagined dick tagging the useless fuckers who were doing most of the talking, because if anyone deserved having genitalia slapped upside their head, it was those lazy bastards. By the end of the meeting, I was near hysteria with the laughter.

As we left the conference room, one of the people who had noticed my little fit came up and asked what had made me laugh. Of course I couldn’t tell her, I mean, that’s just not the sort of thing you share, you know? Not with co-workers, at any rate. So I tried to blow her off by telling her that I’d thought of something funny I’d read, but she didn’t believe me. She kept asking me what was so funny, and I kept telling her it was nothing, but she was all, “Well, if it’s nothing, then tell me,” and I was like, “Seriously, I don’t even remember anymore,” but she was like, “Were you laughing at me? Is that why you won’t tell me?” and I was all, “No! It had nothing to do with you, I swear! It was really nothing, “ but she was still all, “If it was nothing, then why can’t you tell me?” and I was all, “I swear I don’t even remember!” and she was like, “Which means that it was about me, and I don’t think it’s very professional to laugh at someone like that. I have feelings, you know.” At which point she walked off in a huff, convinced that I’d been laughing at her. But what could I do, you know? I couldn’t very well tell her that I’d been laughing because I’d been imagining having a penis and waggling it around at people and slapping them with it, right?

Le sigh.

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