Germ Freak's Vacation

Things have been pretty nice in assembly minus the Germ Freak. He's been gone for a couple of weeks on a vacation to Hawaii. I lost track of how many days he was gone. Today he returned to work bearing tourist trinkets as gifts for all of us. A nice gesture on his part I suppose, but I would have been happier if he had skipped giving me a turn picking something from his basket of goodies. Before he left to go on his trip, I joked around with Shitfoot about Germ Freak probably being one of those nitwits that won't get on a plane unless he's wearing a respirator. Or at the very least a HEPA dust mask.

When the Germ Freak walked over to Final Assembly he caught me up to my elbows in gutted boxes. I didn't have anywhere to go, so I sat and took the hit. I tried to feign interest in his collection of ball point pens, minature decks of playing cards, key chains, and lighters. The sooner I grabbed an item and made small talk with the guy the sooner he would be gone. As I selected a ball point pen from his pile o' crap, I asked him how the flight went. Germ Freak said, "It was okay, but some people were making fun of me when I walked on board the plane."
Hmmmm. I smelled stupidity on his part. "And why were they hassling you?"
"They recycle the air inside planes. Did you know that?"
"Yeah. So what?"
"I don't want to catch a cold from somebody else so I wore a mask during the flight and some people were ridiculing me because of it."
Man. Can I call this shit or what? I laughed in his face.
Germ Freak looked at me with a hurt expression and he said, "I'd really like it if we could be friends. Can we be friends?"
Oh brother. This was getting too sappy for me so I said, "Sure, pal. We can be friends. Thanks for the pen. Now take a hike. I'm fuckin' working here." I gestured around at the four or five dead Signal Generators I had on carts surrounding my chair.