Government Conspiracies

This morning I got to work and was pleased to see that my diet will not be restricted to the items in food drawer since the boss brought in bagels and cream cheese. So as I settled in at my cubicle with my bagel, I hear that Underwriter Andrew is on the phone. I'm unclear as to what the context of the conversation was but I started listening just as he was saying "so if I go to rehab, say next week, how am I going to be treated?" Based on a follow-up conversation with underwriters Philip and Phyllis I gather that he is investigating whether or not some celebrity received special treatment in rehab. I'm unclear as to why this is such an important issue for him. Things kind of settled down for a while, and the underwriters went back to work.

An hour or so ago Underwriter Philip starts a conversation with this announcement: "Did you know that the government sells Heroin to other countries? One in every 5 Vietnam vets came home addicted to Heroin that the government shipped in to try and destroy the enemy. It didn't work though because instead their own troops were using it." Underwriter Andrew listens to all of this and then remarks at the end "well, it figures that the government would do something like that." He takes this news from Philip as though there's nothing out of the ordinary about the claim. Again the conversation fizzled and the underwriting department fell back into silence.

The silence didn't last long before Underwriter Phyllis started a conversation about alarm clarks. Underwriter Andrew, always wanting to be the one to share something shocking interrputed Phyllis with a story about his brother who is a trucker. This trucker brother stopped at a rest stop somewhere and climbed into bed in the sleeper cab. Apparently at some point in time his car alarm was set off, but the brother was so tired that he slept through it. Andrew claims it was so loud that people finally showed up, broke into the sleeper cab and dragged his brother out because they thought the brother must be dead to sleep through that kind of noise. I'm not sure what the point of the story is, only that Underwriter Andrew seems very proud of his claim that his brother was so sleep deprived as to remain asleep during all the commotion. There may have been another ending to the story but Andrew received a personal call about a friend on steroids, so the story came to an abrupt stop.

After the phone call Underwriters Andrew and Phyllis discussed purchasing a lottery ticket together. They have decided against it, but Andrew is telling Phyllis that were he to win he would "just act like I was dead." Underwriter Philip has interrupted to add that he would "just go crazy with that kind of money. I would seriously just do crazy things." At least he knows he has a weakness I guess.

I feel really blessed to be seated in such close proximity to these people, but without actually having to interact with them.