Too hot to handle

I know that in my last post I lamented how life can be terrifyingly boring. My current job is certainly no exception, but every once and awhile an event occurs that causes me to become so traumatized that I would do anything to return to those nostalgic days of boredom. Today one such event occurred.

I was sorting the mail, which in itself is a frustrating exercise. You spend 40 minutes carefully organizing paperwork that in itself will generate another 3 hours of paperwork. Needless to say I was looking for a distraction. That distraction came in the form of Jessica (the names have been changed to protect the innocent). Jessica is my 50ish coworker who is pretty much one of the nicest people around. She’s always helping me with my many purchasing questions and never minds doing it. Anywhoo, she asked me to turn on the air conditioning (the control is right by my desk). I turned it on and said “it sure is a warm one today, isn’t it?” Yes, I have been relegated to looking for in excitement in weather conversations. Well, that day excitement found me when Jessica replied “Nope, just going through one of my hot flashes”.

I froze. Nothing in my 21 years of life could have prepared me for this moment. We maintained the awkward eye contact and my mind screamed and writhed with revulsion. Searching for something, anything, to say I dumbly replied “Yeah, I know what you mean”. The eye contact continued. Obviously I’m the wrong gender and too young by 40 years to have any clue what Jessica meant. My mouth did the fumbling open and close motion for a few seconds and I wondered to myself if I jumped head first out the window the tension might be broken. Unfortunately, the tension was broken by something much worse.

Before Jessica could respond, Sarah (I know, another clever pseudonym) walked in and proudly began to continue hot-flashes conversation. Luckily the awkward statement of the year lay forgotten but unluckily the menopause conversation between these two ladies raged on. I’m the only male in the office and since I’m 30 years younger than anybody half the time the other employees don’t even acknowledge me. This was one of those times. I focused like I had never focused before on my paper work but phrases like “cold sweat” and “dryness down there” seeped through. I quickly cranked the a/c down to 68 degrees and thankfully the conversation shifted to something less vomit-inducing.

Now I know it seems like I’m being a tad immature. After all, menopause is a “natural part of life” and I shouldn’t be so uncomfortable about it. But people I’m sorry, there’s only one person a man should hear gripe about “the second change” and that’s his wife or girlfriend. Don’t get me wrong; many years from now I’ll be all supportive to my wife. But hearing that conversation between two co-workers made me long for the days of boredom.