Something Happened

I play more golf. (Swish!) And am getting quite good.

Kagle's off the payroll with his pension and profit-sharing benefits and has a two-year contract with the company as a part-time consultant whom no one will ever use.

But I've still not been able to hire a Jew. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and Advertiser and I don't know where to find one. (Green found one to replace me and is paying him more money than he was paying me. I hope he's not pushy.)

Martha the typist is gone. (In every office in which I've ever worked, though, there was always at least one person who was going crazy slowly, and I am waiting to see how long it will take Perso

A man named Gray has joined the company from a high government post and will fit right in between Black and White. We have no primary colors left, I believe, although we probably have some reds, ha, ha, most of us feel blue, ha, ha, and all of us are yellow.

Whenever I have a really good bowel movement, my lonely hemorrhoid begins to bleed. Maybe I ought to get it a friend.

Now that I have taken charge of my responsibilities, I do hear voices. I hear:

"You're a good administrator, Slocum."

"You've done a good job, Slocum."

"I liked the way you stepped right in and took over."

"You've got the department really humming, Slocum."

"You got Kagle out pretty smoothly, didn't you, Slocum? Ha, ha."

"I've never seen them working so hard, Slocum."

"I like the way you've taken control."

"I'm glad to see you're fitting in."

(I am fitting in.)

"Who's that?"

"Slocum."

"I'd like you to meet Bob Slocum," Arthur Baron and Horace White introduce me now. "He's one of our best men."

I meet a much higher class of executive at Arthur Baron's now when he has us to di

"Slocum's the name. Bob Slocum."

"Look me up the next time you're in town."

I have played at White Sulphur Springs in West Virginia as the company's representative to a national business conference. Maybe someday, if my game and my job continue to improve, I might even play St. Andrews in Scotland. (Swish.) I miss my boy. Martha the typist went crazy for me finally at just the right time in a way I was able to handle suavely. I took charge like a ballet master.

"Call Medical," I directed with an authority that was almost musical. "Call Perso

Martha sits in her typist's chair like an obdurate statue and will not move or speak. She is deaf to entreaty, shakes helping hands off violently, gives signs she might shriek. I wait nearby with an expression of aplomb. Her look turns dazed and panicky when anyone comes close. The nurses from Medical are quickly there.

"How are you, dear?" the eldest asks soothingly.

We have a good-sized audience now, and I am the supervisor. Martha rises compliantly, smiling, with a hint of diabolical satisfaction, I see, at the wary attention she has succeeded in extorting from so many people who are solicitous and alarmed.

"There, there, dear."

"Come along, dear."

"That's nice, dear."

"Take your purse, dear. And your book."

"Do you want to rest, dear?"

"Do you have a roommate, dear? Someone we can call?"

"Would you like to lie down, dear? While we're waiting for the car?"

"That's fine, dear."

"Good-bye, Martha."

"Good-bye, Martha dear."

"Bye, bye, dear."

"Did you leave anything behind?"

"Don't worry, dear. We'll send it along."

"Be gentle with her," I adjure. "She's a wonderful girl…"

I hear applause when she's gone for the way I handled it.

No one was embarrassed.

Everyone seems pleased with the way I've taken command.