L and I have been utilizing company property to grow an
octopus. She retrieved the prize from a bag at the end-of-the-project party last July. I, having pulled out a pencil or a toothbrush or something equally inferior, fixed on the
octopus. Its
orangish skin. Its fierce eyes.
The front of the package raved: "It grows 600% in only 72 hours!" The back of the package provided three drawings illustrating the progressive size increase. By drawing three, the
octopus gets so big that it climbs out of its container!
The thing lay dormant and small in her cube for almost a year. This was not out of lack of excitement. Nearly every week, we'd talk about growing the
octopus. The problem was remembering to bring a bucket to work on Monday so as to maximize observational time during the week.
"What will I do when you're gone?" She asked me this in a very real, non-idiomatic way.
Over the past two years, L and I have become somewhat unlikely friends. Our boss picked up on this and often announced during meetings that "the two of them seem to get along very well,
even though they have nothing in common." This always strikes her as odd. Almost as much as my reprisal of last weekend in which B and I found ourselves in a cab with an unknown third passenger. ("Buddy, where did you come from?" and "What is this guy doing here?") "Wait," L stopped me, "were you
drinking?"
Despite our many moral inequalities, we have compatible self-reflective natures. We both wrestle with the same questions, such as How important is family? How fulfilling should a job be? and Can one convince oneself of being happy or is happiness really based on something other than willpower?
When we decided to work from Borders one afternoon we got to talking about lamenting over mistakes in our past. "I generally don't bother with regret because it's a waste of an emotion. I'm more of a fate-believer. If I make a mistake, it was because I was supposed to make that mistake."
"What if you make the same mistake twice?"
"Then, clearly, I didn't learn enough to move on from it the first time."
I've only very recently started feeling regret, and both instances had to do with her--not calling her that week she was helping her parents move through Alabama and the weekend we were in Nashville for a conference and she got the call that her Dad, a lifetime nonsmoker, had lung cancer. Of course there was nothing I could have done. But I still feel regret. It's like Uncle Jimmy says, "There's nothing worse than not being able to help someone you love."
"You know what's a good idea?" I'd say after we'd been bleeding hearts for a bit, "We should grow that
octopus." Months ago we said that. Hundreds of trips to
CVS. Mid-afternoon naps in her living room. Her Dad got worse. Nana died. Friends left town. Lovers dissipated. "People come and go, but mostly they just go."
Finally one of the gumshoes in our department stayed for a late evening and found that, at the end of the day, the blue recycle bins get dumped into the same trash bag as the black trash bins. (The discovery caused quite an uproar with tons of people on the floor, all of whom religiously recycled, but none of whom ever bought recycled notepads, yarn, or bicycles.) So last Monday, after L had calculated that I only had 13 regular days left in the office, we decided to make the first good use of those recycle bins and perform our experiment.
Within 24 hours, it was slightly bigger. The researchers wondered if it would increase 600% in length or volume.
Day Two. Not much more growth. Researchers decide that, if experiment repeated, starting volume should be determined. Researchers postulate various methods that could be used to measure volume: displacement, calipers.
Day Three. Almost no change from Day Two. Researchers begin to use words such as
disappointing; they flip over the package to compare the illustrated
octopus climbing out of its line-art container to the real foam
octopus still quite submerged in the recycle bin. Researcher bring outline of
octopus, traced at the experiment's beginning, to the copier and attempt to blow it up 600%. Researchers determine what the width of one
tentacle should be at 600%. Return to the recycle bin and curse the Chinese for getting their hopes up.
Colleague walks by and says, "You know, 600 percent really isn't that big." Researchers consider cursing her too.
With the official experiment concluded, we just let the thing sit through the weekend. By Day Seven, when we came back into the office, two of the
tentacles were stretched and reaching out of the water. "Small victories, J. Small victories."
Of course no amount of fantasizing could have prepared me for what happened: I became scared out of my mind! I had to drag J into the photo, and I couldn't say anything to him except, Thanx. Great show. And although it really was a hilarious show, I said this without enthusiasm and ran away. So, I'm not sure if Mo Rocca and I will be best friends, but, hey, I got my picture taked with Mo Rocca!
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