Oh my God, you guys. How the plot with Gerald has thickened.
One of the higher-ups at work has finally cottoned on that Gerald has way too much time on his hands, and is essentially being paid quite well to perv on his female colleagues. The result is that Gerald has been made redundant (i.e. there is no demand for lecherous old guys - the market is saturated.)
He's going to be kept on for a few more weeks, but from October 10 I'm going to be free!
Gerald came down to my desk to break the news to me, and was lamenting how technology had made his clerking services nearly obsolete. In the course of my phony commiseration, I made some offhand comment about the business my parents once owned, foolishly mentioning it by name. Well, I could have slapped myself as soon as Gerald's beady little eyes lit up. It turns out that I'm a second-generation Gerald victim; he knew my parents through their company and evidently hassled my mum over the course of the 20+ years while she and my dad were in business together. I'm surprised it took him this long to make the connection.
The redundancy was quickly forgotten and Gerald was positively giddy as he made multiple trips to my desk, each time saying "It's a small world!" (and me mentally replying: "Evidently not small enough! (Good one, me. High five.)").
Then he wondered aloud, "What happened to the business? Did Mary and Steve split up?"
"Yeah, they divorced," I replied
Then, in the most obnoxious, infuriating move EVER, he cocked his head to the side and said doubtfully, "Did they?"
YES, THEY DID. DAMN IT, GERALD. They're my parents, I think I'd know. But thank you for invalidating my painful childhood memories!
I scampered home to tell my mum, and we sat around swapping Gerald stories. Here are some of my favorite anecdotes from her collection:
- Gerald used to live with his mother, whom he referred to in conversation as "Mother". Yeah, that's right. "Mother" as in, "Mother isn't feeling well today".
Say no more.
- Gerald committed to memory the first and middle names of my siblings and I, and used to ask my mum about us every time he ran into her, in this format:
G: "How is David Bryan?"
Mum: "Fine."
G: "And how is Jennifer Maree?"
... and so on.
I'll just mention that this is the exact same conversational angle that was once used by a violent felon who was trying to scare the bejeesus out of my mum back when she practiced criminal law. The same one who had the tires on our family car slashed.
Of course, intimidation was not Gerald's intent, but I'm not sure why he went to the trouble of memorizing all our names. I'm one of four kids, all of us dull and unremarkable children. Certainly not worth inquiring about collectively (let alone individually) several times a week.
- Gerald obtained our home telephone number from the phone book and would occasionally call in the wee hours of the AM with a flimsy excuse to chitchat with my mum. This continued for some time until my dad told him to get stuffed.
Evidently he was very sweet on my mother, probably because she is incapable of acting with overt impatience or unkindness towards lonely old geezers.
And so we have come full circle.
