"I'm a what?"
"You're a gorilla. Give a chimpanzee something and he'll smash it. Give it to a gorilla and he'll delicately take it apart into its component pieces. A bonobo will just hump the thing, and an orangutan will take it apart and put it back together."
"I see," I said, handing him the screwdriver. I had just explained that I am the kind of person who takes things apart but doesn't know how to reassemble them. He quickly set to repairing his mouse, the one with the dodgy scroll wheel. I conceded (without much irony) that the screwdriver was probably of more use in the hands of an orangutan, and that he was welcome to keep hold of it.
-
At lunchtime, the sun broke through the clouds and I looked out past the small collection of books that live on my windowsill. A haze lingered over the smoking shed and a few unhappy-looking people shuffled around, puffing very seriously on their cigarettes. It struck me that there was a story behind each elongated face. Perhaps a decision years ago, a teenage temptation that turned into a lifetime. Perhaps just a moment of madness. I was lost in a reverie for a while.
Reveries are swiftly broken by colleagues talking about their bowel movements. It turns out that Peter hasn't had a poo for four days. He went home this afternoon, looking like a sweaty cardboard cutout. I accidentally told him to 'have a good one,' and then went red with embarrassment.
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