(CHERYL is in her cubicle, talking on the phone.)<\/i><\/p>\n
CHERYL<\/b>
I know, Sue, I couldn\u2019t believe it either\u2026 No, you were so right to feel that way\u2026
(GREG enters and stands in the doorway. CHERYL sees him but continues talking.)<\/i>
Don\u2019t be. He shouldn\u2019t have been taking up two seats.
(GREG knocks softly on the doorway. CHERYL holds up a finger.)<\/i>
There were two comfortable chairs in the entire coffee shop, and he sits in one of them and drapes his coat over the other. I would have been pissed too.
(GREG sits on the edge of the desk.)<\/i>
Sorry, Sue, I have to go. Uh-huh\u2026 Yeah\u2026 Well, these things have a way of coming back around, don\u2019t you worry\u2026 Uh-huh\u2026 Uh-huh.
(GREG taps his watch.)<\/i>
Okay, I\u2019ll talk to you later. Bye.<\/p>\n
(CHERYL hangs up. GREG stares at her a few seconds.)<\/i><\/p>\n
GREG<\/b>
Cheryl, we\u2019ve been over this.<\/p>\n
CHERYL<\/b>
Are you serious?<\/p>\n
GREG<\/b>
Of course I\u2019m serious. Did you think I was joking?<\/p>\n
CHERYL<\/b>
It\u2019s just that I can\u2019t believe you would hound me about my personal phone calls when Jim is in the next cubicle, building a siege engine!<\/p>\n
(pause)<\/i><\/p>\n
GREG<\/b>
A siege engine?<\/p>\n
CHERYL<\/b>
Yeah! He\u2019s got a catapult he\u2019s working on in there!<\/p>\n
(pause)<\/i><\/p>\n
GREG<\/b>
I didn’t know he was doing that.<\/p>\n
CHERYL<\/b>
He totally is!<\/p>\n
GREG<\/b>
That’s wrong too. That can’t happen.<\/p>\n
(GREG stands and exits the cubicle. The stage rotates, and we follow GREG into the neighboring cubicle, where JIM sits typing at his computer. On the floor are enormous planks of timber, giant wooden bolts, and several feet of leather belts. GREG carefully steps over a huge wheel.)<\/i><\/p>\n
GREG<\/b>
Jim?<\/p>\n
JIM<\/b>
Hey!<\/p>\n
GREG<\/b>
Can I talk to you for a second?<\/p>\n
JIM<\/b>
Sure thing.<\/p>\n
GREG<\/b>
Um\u2026 I shouldn\u2019t have let it get this far, so in a way the blame lies with both of us\u2013<\/p>\n
JIM<\/b>
If this is about the Bellwether invoices, I\u2019m on it. I\u2019ll upload them to the database this afternoon.<\/p>\n
GREG<\/b>
No, Jim, it\u2019s the catapult. I can\u2019t have you constructing a catapult in your office.<\/p>\n
JIM<\/b>
Technically, it\u2019s a trebuchet.<\/p>\n
GREG<\/b>
It makes no difference what form of siege engine you\u2019re building\u2026<\/p>\n
JIM<\/b>
Hells yeah it does! Technically, a trebuchet is a type of catapult. But when Americans think of a \u201ccatapult,\u201d they think of a \u201cmangonel.\u201d That\u2019s the clunky, stiff-armed log that just hurls something off into the distance.
(He cranks his arm with exaggerated clumsiness.)<\/i>
Thwunk.<\/p>\n
GREG<\/b>
And that\u2019s not what you\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n
JIM<\/b>
Uh, no. The trebuchet utilizes a sling. Much more elegant, much more accurate, gets a little extra torque at the release point. This is what you want to use to launch some flaming garbage or a diseased corpse over a wall.<\/p>\n
CHERYL<\/b> (off)<\/i>
You better not be thinking of launching any corpses into my cubicle!<\/p>\n
JIM<\/b>
Don\u2019t flatter yourself!<\/p>\n
GREG<\/b>
Jim, the point is that I can\u2019t have you working on this in your office.<\/p>\n
JIM<\/b>
I only work on it during my lunch break\u2026
(louder)<\/i>
\u2026unlike a certain person chatting with her sister all damn day!<\/p>\n
CHERYL<\/b> (off)<\/i>
She\u2019s going through a breakup!<\/p>\n
GREG<\/b>
I\u2019m more concerned about safety. I don\u2019t want it to go off accidentally and send a photocopier crashing into a conference room.<\/p>\n
JIM<\/b>
It takes several strong men working in tandem to fire one of these. It\u2019s not going to go off accidentally.<\/p>\n
GREG<\/b>
Siege engines are obsolete pieces of weaponry, rough-hewn and unpredictable. Unlike modern firearms, there are no regulations or licensing procedures in place concerning their safety in an office environment. Accidents happen, Jim.<\/p>\n
JIM<\/b>
I don\u2019t know what kind of idiot you think you\u2019re dealing with, but I would not have embarked on this project without a thorough understanding of what I\u2019m doing.<\/p>\n
GREG<\/b>
I don\u2019t think you\u2019re an idiot, Jim.<\/p>\n
JIM<\/b>
Who caught the error on the Bellwether invoices right before they were sent out? I saved this company tens of thousands of dollars!<\/p>\n
GREG<\/b>
Thank you.<\/p>\n
JIM<\/b>
And frankly, unless you can point me to the Rules & Regs where it says I can\u2019t construct a trebuchet in the workplace, I think I\u2019ll keep right on constructing mine.<\/p>\n
(pause)<\/i><\/p>\n
GREG<\/b>
Do you know what a rollmop is, Jim?<\/p>\n
JIM<\/b>
A pickle wrapped in herring.<\/p>\n
GREG<\/b>
It\u2019s a pickle, wrapped in herring. There was a project manager named Ackerman who used to make them, and it stank the place up something fierce. I told him to knock it off. He pulled that \u201cshow me the Rules & Regs\u201d crap, and no, according to the letter of the law, there was no anti-rollmop clause. But the next time we updated the Rules & Regs, we added one. And the next time he stank up the break room with herring, he was out of here.<\/p>\n
JIM<\/b>
When was this?<\/p>\n
GREG<\/b>
Seven months ago.<\/p>\n
JIM<\/b>
And how often are the Rules & Regs updated?<\/p>\n
(brief pause)<\/i><\/p>\n
GREG<\/b>
That\u2019s not your concern.<\/p>\n
JIM<\/b>
Cheryl, how often do they update the Rules & Regs?<\/p>\n
GREG<\/b>
You don\u2019t have to answer that, Cheryl.<\/p>\n
CHERYL<\/b> (off)<\/i>
Every five years.<\/p>\n
(pause)<\/i><\/p>\n
JIM<\/b>
It appears we are at an impasse.<\/p>\n
GREG<\/b>
It appears we are.<\/p>\n
JIM<\/b>
And I\u2019m the one with the siege engine.<\/p>\n
(GREG and JIM stare each other down for several moments. Then GREG leaves. JIM returns to his computer. After a beat, GREG reappears at the cubicle door.)<\/i><\/p>\n
GREG<\/b>
But watch your back, Jim. If I catch you so much as thinking about wrapping a pickle in herring, you are out on your ass.<\/p>\n
(GREG leaves again. JIM once again returns to his computer. Beat.)<\/i><\/p>\n
CHERYL<\/b> (off)<\/i>
Hey, Sue, sorry we got interrupted\u2026 What I was saying was one of these days that guy is going to take up two seats in the wrong coffee shop. Then he\u2019ll know what it feels like.<\/p>\n
(JIM shakes his head in exasperation. Blackout.)<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(CHERYL is in her cubicle, talking on the phone.) CHERYLI know, Sue, I couldn\u2019t believe it either\u2026 No, you were so right to feel that way\u2026(GREG enters and stands in the doorway. CHERYL sees him but continues talking.)Don\u2019t be. He shouldn\u2019t have been taking up two seats.(GREG knocks softly on the doorway. CHERYL holds up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[54],"class_list":["post-22","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sketches","tag-dave-stinton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sketchwar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sketchwar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sketchwar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sketchwar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sketchwar.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sketchwar.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sketchwar.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sketchwar.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sketchwar.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}