Circus Of Greed Part Two

Barley was intent on coaxing me over to the bathroom stall he was standing in. The stall door was shut. I had no clue as to what was going on in there, and I really didn't want to know. No good could possibly come from this I thought. I mean, what was he so nervous about and why did he have to play show and tell from a handicapped stall in the restroom? Visions of bad things flashed through my mind. Maybe he just dropped a huge log in the bowl and wanted to display his work. Perhaps he wanted to wiggle his meat pipe at me. Damn. This reminded me of the night Autumn's room mate Jeff called out to me through his bedroom door to "Come in and take a look at something." Jeff broke his leg earlier that night but at the time I didn't know about it. Why does this stupid shit always happen to me?

I stayed right up against the restroom wall which was plenty far enough away from Barley. I'd have enough of a lead on him to run like a motherfucker if he busted that stall door open and did some crazy stuff. When I was almost directly across from him he slowly opened the door to reveal a half dozen walkman CD players still in their plastic packaging. Barley had jammed them in between the metal handrail and the tiled bathroom wall. I was totally confused now. Barley told me he had walked through the dining hall a few minutes ago and came across an opened case of CD players, and he swiped the whole box. Afraid of getting busted for his petty theft he sequestered himself in the bathroom to wait for people he knew to come in. Then he could give them away without fear of being caught. I didn't see what the big deal was, hundreds of employees were walking around with arm loads of those crummy five dollar CD players so who'd care if he won them or if he swiped them. Nobody would know the difference. I mentioned all this to Barley but he seemed convinced that hiding out in the restroom was the best way to evade security. Or something. Anyway, I picked out a blue CD player from his collection, thanked Barley, and split.

Whew.

On my way back to the Big Top tent, I noticed a third, smaller tent-building was off to the side with a bunch of PCs in it. I wandered over to check it out. Someone apparently had the bright idea to hire a gaming company. There was at least two dozen PCs hooked up on a LAN running Unreal Tournament. One guy was standing around looking kind of bored. I picked a spot and sat down. As soon as I did so the bored attendant came over to me and started to describe the control layout, how to play, all that junk. I knew what was what already so I said thanks and waived him away. They had the controls laid out all fucked up from the way most people would so I quickly remapped the keys to my liking and then jumped in for a few brawls. I was the only player. When I spawned into the map all I saw was a mess of bots running around killing each other free for all deathmatch style. That was cool. I had a full beer and plenty of time to waste so what the hell. I'd do battle with bots.

Not long after I began to play I got a nice treat. J1 showed up. He instantly started jaw jacking about what a great video game player he is. Figures. He's always telling lies about how good he is at stuff. I said, "Good. Have a seat and we'll mix it up." This was going to be fun. For me. I don't really care for the Unreal series of video games. Unreal Tournament in particular always seemed extra corny to me, but I'd played it enough to at least be okay at it. J1 really bugs the shit out of me so this would be a nice way to take out some of my frustration on him. I spent the next half dozen rounds knocking him all over the maps. It was glorious. I ignored the bots when I ran across them only messing with them when I couldn't avoid it. The rest of the time I was J1 hunting with a vengeance. I could tell he'd had enough when tears almost started to well up in his eyes and he got up to leave suddenly. He was terrorized. Yay!

After I put a few more beers into me I decided to leave. I had mixed feelings about our company split, but for the most part I was depressed about it. The whole ordeal was a bad move in my opinion. Completely unnecessary. I didn't like the idea of suddenly working for a "new" test and measurement company with a totally different name and a lame-ass logo. I was worried about what the future might bring. Navigating the rat maze of building hallways I made it out to the parking lot, got in my car, and drove home drunk.