twenty-nine years & nine months

“Ty!, Ty!”
Stacey’s trying to get my attention, but I’m ignoring her. Gotta focus at the task at hand.
Wazzup? Leaf me alone. Not dealing with it today. I skrewd up and worked overtime again. Just barely hanging on to sanity. Head’s spinning. I should try eating or something, huh?
“That’s what I’m sayYin . . . that’s what I’m sayYin”
Lisa’s talking smack to whoever it is she’s got on the phone line. Apparently, somebody flashed our phone number on the T.V. screen or something. Something about a wanted person. She’s getting all kinds of crazy phone calls now.
“Dooh . . . Ty, Julio, somebody! I need help . . . they put our number on CrimeStoppers or something!”
Not my problem, Lisa. I got my hands full right now. Not even sure what my name is right now. Lisa’s got issues, least of which is her phone line ringing off the hook. Stacey was trying to get my attention so I would go over and tell Lisa to calm down. That’s not likely to happen, so I’m not even bothering with it.
“Well, three of the people said they didn’t even know the guy’s name or something . . . and this dude’s wife is Jamaican . . .”
Jamaican? What on earth is she talking about? What’s that got to do with anything? Stay FOCUSED, maannn! Why is always tripping?
“Hey, is our fax machine working? Deputy So-and-so says he keeps getting a busy signal when he tries faxing us . . .”
Tell Deputy So-and-so to fax it over again. And please, spare him the details of your great adventure. It’s too late for me, but I can at least save some other poor soul from having to listen to your endless babbling. Oops—too late. She’s telling him the story right now. Poor So-and-so. He walked right into that one.
“Hey, Daddy, blah blah blah . . .”
Whew, we’re all off the hook for a little while. She’s talking to one of her dads. She says she has three dads. Her biological dad; her adopted dad, who her mom left her with when she ran off; and whomever her mom is currently dating. Sound confusing? That’s just the tip of the iceberg. She’s talking her dad’s ear off right now, talking about everything and nothing all at once.
All I know is that I’m gonna punch her mom in the face the next time I see her.
That’ll be her reward for unleashing all that psychic weirdness upon the rest of us. I know I should be more understanding, I know I should be more compassionate.
But not today, maybe tomorrow.
So much noise and confusion comes out of that corner of the office, it’s just not fair to the rest of us. She has these manic jags completely out of the blue, but her depressive states aren’t much better. She’ll bury her face in a book for hours and not say a word to any of us. This is while she’s on the clock. When she’s supposed to be working. Like the rest of us. There’s no happy medium here—she’s either on or off.
Oh crap. She just called a dead guy’s house.
We all have a sudden attack of gallows humor:

“If the guy’s been dead since November, then where is the equipment calling in from?”
“We can’t get a signal from Detroit, but apparently we have good cell coverage from Hell.”
“Client claims to be dead.”
“We’ll need agency verification. Ask them to hold for us until then.”
“I don’t think he’s going anywhere.”
“Can never be too sure. No bond on our charge.”

“Case notes read: subject smelled of alcohol.”
“I’m afraid that wasn’t alcohol they were smelling.”

“No wonder we’re all over the news lately, we didn’t even realize some guy we were tracking died five months ago.”

I’m sure there’s some logical explanation for all this. Maybe our field office finally recovered the equipment and hooked up the modem to download information. They just forgot to call us and warn us about it. Would have been nice of them.
Would have saved us from calling a dead guy’s house.
But we don’t call the shots, we’re just trying to roll with the punches. Just trying to do the best we can and keep our sanity at the same time. Well, some of us at least. I can’t speak for everyone. Just another day at work. Can’t wait for retirement, only a mere twenty-nine years and nine months more to go.