DISCLAIMER:
Names, places and just about everything else has been changed in this story to protect the innocent.
A place where I once worked had a secretary that was one of the sweetest ladies you would ever meet. She was the type of person that if you needed anything work related or just about anything else, she was there for you. She helped people with their paperwork, helped them with reports and so on. She would help just about anyone in the community at the drop of a hat. She would get a call and off she would go. A more generous person, you would never meet. Lets call her Cindy.
Another co-worker was the "Joker". Always kidding and joking around with everyone, sometimes pulling pranks. and generally just pulling your leg about something everyday. No issue was ever off base or out of bounds for him. Always staying just low enough under the radar to keep from getting run off. Lets call him Ralph.
The third co-worker and main character in this story was an older gentleman. He was always pleasant to be around, very polite and seemed to me to be a very honest and straight up guy. Prior to this incident he had become slighty withdrawn, and somewhat forgetful according to others that were around him everyday. Lets call him Gramps.
Cindy had just suffered a loss in her family and had been recieving flowers at home and at work from people. After such a loss, as we all know, things can get overwhelming. So overwhelming in fact that you might make statements and say things that you really just don't mean. Such was the case the day that her, Ralph and Gramps were all sitting about in the office and the phone rings. Cindy answers and after a brief conversation, hangs up and says, " More flowers, I have so many I don't know what I'm going to do with them". A few minutes go by and the phone rings again. Cindy answers and finds out that another co-workers father, that she knows, has had a medical emergency. Away she goes to help them out and forgets about the flower delivery that has yet to arrive. A short time later, Gramps and Ralph were hanging around outside and the delivery guy drives up and gets out with a dozen beautiful roses in a vase. Gramps, which by the way has a much younger wife, looks over at Ralph and says "Wonder if I might get lucky tonight if I took my wife home a bouquet such as that, Cindy said she didn't know what she was going to do with them anyway"? Ralph looks over at Gramps and says "Probably so". Ralph at this time senses that Gramps is serious and decides that it's time he got the heck out of town. Ralph leaves and really doesn't know what events actually took place after that, but figures that crap if fixing to hit the fan if he does. Ralph giggles as he drives away.
Sometime later, Cindy arrives back at her desk and continues work as ususal. A while later she realizes that her flower delivery hasn't arrived and she strikes out asking everyone that was there if they had seen them.
She then calls the florist back and finds out that they indeed had been delivered. Cindy continues looking and asking questions, all the time getting madder and madder. At this time Cindy has been assuming that Ralph had hid them from her because she's well aware of his previous pranks. She calls the florist again and finds out from the delivery driver that a guy in a cowboy hat (Ralph) and an older man(Gramps) had been standing out front when the delivery arrived. She then proceeds to call Ralph and the conversation goes like this.
Cindy: Do you know where my flowers are?
Ralph: I don't know anything.
Cindy: Are you sure?
Ralph: Giggles and says "no".
Cindy hangs up and is getting furious. By this time the Manager has shown up and gotten involved in the hunt for the flowers, lets call him Paul. Paul listens to the facts thus far and assumes the same thing, must be Ralph. He calls Ralph.
Paul: Do you know where the flowers are?
Ralph: I dont know anything.
Paul: This is getting serious and if you didn't know, we are mad about it.
Ralph: Giggles and says, "have you asked Gramps"?
Paul hangs up the phone. By this time Ralph is laughing hysterically and calls Gramps up and finds out that, yes, he took the flowers home to his wife. Ralph begins to explain to him that he needs to let them know because they are mad and talking about firing whoever took them. Laughing the whole time, Ralph proceeds to let Gramps know that if they call him again, that he is going to have to spill the beans. Gramps is now caught in a predicament. His wife thinks he purchased the flowers, and if he gives them back, what is he going to do? So he comes up with a brilliant plan. He goes in the house and cuts one of the roses off of the stem and takes the bud up to a florist in town. Lo and behold he picks the very flower shop that the roses originally came from.
During this time another co-worker, lets call him Mike, has called Ralph and he proceeds to tell him the story laughing the whole while. Mike hangs up and calls the office and asks Cindy if she might have some flowers that he could take home to his wife. This didn't go over to well, who would have thought that, and the manager picks the phone back up and calls Ralph and says:
Paul: You think this is funny?
Ralph: Honestly, yes I do. Not that something got taken, but can't you just see Gramps right now. He's probably having chest pains running around trying to figure out how to get out of this.
Paul (starts laughing): Yeah if you look at it that way it is funny.
Cindy wasn't the first bit amused by all this, I wasn't there, but I heard she let it be known.
Back to the florist. The florist recognized the rose bud and immediately knows what's going on. Gramps tells them to fix another bouquet for him and so they do. So Gramps in all of his infinite wisdom, instead of taking the new flowers back to Cindy, he takes the new roses home and very sneaky like, he replaces them with the original ones. He then takes the original roses back to the office and puts them on the desk after everyone has gone home. Cindy shows up the next morning and finds the roses. Yep, 11 beautiful roses and one stem.
I wish I had a wonderful happy ending to this tale. Something along the lines of ... Gramps coming in and boasting of a wild night of ... well I don't. Gramps only showed back up at work a few times after that, and as I heard it, he and Cindy weren't best buds anymore. The day that I was told this tale, I laughed till my sides hurt. Not at Cindy, not at the fact that things got taken from our office, but I laughed at the situation. I would have loved to have been a fly on Gramps shoulder as he was running back and forth between his house and town and to listen to his conversations with Ralph. I found out later that Gramps wife had questioned him that the flowers looked different and that they had been moved. I'm not sure how he explained that one, but whatever he said it must have worked.
Ralph told me that after a few days, Gramps called him and asked him "Ralph, when you were a teenager, did you ever do something really stupid that you regreted later"?
Ralph responded "Haven't we all"!
No comments:
Post a Comment