authority

dear friends, i have some bad news bears. i know you have all become very fond of cocaine the food runner. he's only been with us for a short while, but he's already been so much to so many of us - friend, colleague, cautionary example - that he's become part of our shared experience. it saddens me to inform you that our time together has come to an end. worse still, i may have had a hand in his departure.

since he started running, cocaine has consistently deferred to my judgment: whenever he wanted to take a break or smoke a cigarette, he always asked my permission first. i never knew what to make of this because i mean do i look even a little bit like an authority figure? i always said yes when he asked because doing so meant that he would go to a place where i wasn't for a while. after a couple weeks of this odd behavior, my curiosity overcame my desire to avoid having him get all close to me, so i asked him about the manner of his deal. he explained that my boss had introduced me to him as "head food runner" then made an extremely clever joke about oral sex. he must have thought the the joke had gone over my head because when i failed to laugh he explained that "head" is a slang term for fellatio (who knew?).

anyway, he disappeared yesterday during a shift without notifying any of the managers (which is considered voluntary resignation). my theory is that he asked me if he could leave (assuming that i am a manager) and i, in my fervor to avoid engagement, assented without actually processing his request.

actually, what happened is that he came to work after having drugs and quickly decided that rather than continuing to have employment, he was going to wander off and have extra drugs.

godspeed, cocaine. thank you for making us all look better in comparison.