Well, la-dee-da! I won “Blog for a Beer” yesterday on Fantasy Friday!
It was a quick and fun little break…winning was just a bonus.
Every single word of this actually happened. Today, I bought Patty some flowers with my winnings.
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Patty fainted at work today.
She was at the fax machine before she wandered over to Linda’s cubicle and stumbled in the doorway. I made an offhand comment suggesting she blame her clumsiness on the stinky new carpet. Linda shouted a rebuttal over the wall, but there was only a moan from Patty as she fell into a chair.
That’s when we got scared.
Linda ran to get our Director and call 911. Stephanie stood in the hallway, staring pale-faced at Patty’s neck lolling back like a newborn baby, her eyes rolling up into her head. I wondered if I shouldn’t at least hold her head up when everyone came running.
She was lucid soon enough, but she had lost a minute of so of her life. She didn’t remember the joke about the carpet. She only remembered feeling dizzy at the fax machine and then coming back to reality in the chair, sweaty and nauseous and curious as to how long she’d been sitting there.
She was shuffled off to the Director’s office, where the paramedics met her several minutes later to take her vitals (and clear the corporation of any possible wrong-doing). The ambulance left without her, someone volunteered to give her a ride home, and apart from that exceptionally bizarre episode she seemed fine.
The aftermath in the office lasted quite a while longer, of course. The buzz of what happened spread as quickly as the mutters of concern and the speculations over what might have been the cause.
“Well, I know she’s diabetic.”
“Yes, but she’s got that under control. She was just at the doctor’s a couple of weeks ago and everything was fine.”
“Maybe she’s pregnant.” (laughter)
“She said she ate breakfast this morning, so it couldn’t have been that.”
“George said she was hot to the touch and sweaty. Maybe it’s a bug.”
“Maybe it’s a deadly new strain of virus and they’re all going to come back in contamination suits and tell us that we’re quarantined here…forever.”
My comment was met with many blank stares, and a very long pause.
You know, after seven years you’d think they’d be used to working with a fantasy writer.
