David

I used to work in a cubicle. Cubicles are not fun places to work. They’re all confined and grey and cube-y. In order to make my cubicle less cube-y and more me-y I started adorning the walls and my work area with various random items.

The more random the better.

The items on my desk ranged from a ferret calendar (do I like ferrets? No. But every month offered a new ridiculous picture of a ferret dressed up in some even more ridiculous outfit. This entertained me more than most of my coworkers could really comprehend.) to a jar of gherkins. (because one day one of my coworkers said the word “gherkin” and I’d never heard it before in my life. I thought it was an awesome word and sat in my cubicle repeating it using different inflections for the better part of the work day. The co-worker bought me a jar at the store, to show me what they were, and I kept the jar on top of my computer, just because I loved that damn word.)

As time went by just about every inch of my desk and wall space was covered in completely random items. Much to my amusement. And much to the confusion of people visiting the office. I could always tell if I was going to be friends with someone by whether or not they laughed at the random crap on my desk. Some people would look at my area and quickly advert their eyes, not wanting to engage the employee that was clearly mentally unwell. Some people would inquire about some of the items and then merely frown in confusion when I explained how they each amused me. And then there were the ones who would make a point to come by and play with the various items on my desk or perhaps even bring items to add to the collection. These were my people.

David was one of those people.

He worked in the IS department (aka: The Computer Dorks) and I worked in the Accounting department (aka: The Math Dorks). David and I both actively sought out things to entertain us while passing the time at our extremely boring jobs. Much of David’s entertainment was found in seeing how annoying he could be to me.

Despite the fact that my cubicle basically looked like a flea market I knew exactly where everything went. If someone were to come by my desk and move anything even the slightest bit, I noticed and moved it back. And was quite annoyed in the process.

Once David found this out there was very rarely I time that I returned to my desk and didn’t find something out of place or just generally messed with – courtesy of David. He’d do little things, like move the gherkins to another part of the desk, or hide paperclips in various places. Or he’d do more elaborate things, like turn my rubberband ball into an abstract piece of art that could have probably sold on ebay for a good sum of money.

One of his constant changes was to a picture on my wall. A woman in my department had printed out a cute picture of two puppy dogs and pinned it up on my wall. Sure it wasn’t as much fun as the ferrets, but who doesn’t love puppy dogs, really? One day I looked up to my wall and noticed that something was different. After some time I realized that the two puppy dogs had turned into two horses. From that day on David would come by my desk before I got to work and put up a new picture of two animals. It became a running joke and also quite a challenge for him. (There really aren’t THAT many animals in the world, or THAT many pictures of just two of them.)

In addition to rearranging my desk David also helped contribute to it. On the orders of his boss he was forced to clear some of the useless stuff off his desk. And instead of throwing it all away he sent quite a bit of it to me. It seemed like every time I checked the mail there was another interoffice envelope with some completely pointless item from David’s desk – parts to computers, instruction manuals from the 1970’s and my favorite, a Bill Gates paper doll book.

When I left the company where we both worked I received many cards and presents from people wishing me a fond farewell. When David came to say goodbye he brought his final, heartfelt gift. A dead tree that had been sitting in his department for who knows how long. He even put a bow on it. Thanks buddy.

David’s funeral is today and I wonder if anyone will talk about how funny he was, or tell any stories involving a rubberband ball. Probably not. Funerals are such downers. I understand that someone has died, that it’s a time to mourn, and all that. But to me life is about so much more than someone’s death. And funerals should be too.

When I go to say goodbye to David today I won’t bring a dead tree, even though I think he would have liked that. When I remember him, I’ll remember his laughter and his playfulness. I’ll remember that he had a great heart and a great spirit and an abundance of useless crap on his desk. And I’ll remember how he went out of his way to use that useless crap to make me laugh every day. Thanks buddy.