"Do you know how much trouble you are, Mr. Golding?" she said.
I was unsure if she was aware that she'd spoken these words out loud. It was the kind of thing one might mutter to themselves and not generally how one would address a client.
"I beg your pardon?" I said.
"The way you carry yourself," she went on. "It's Odious. Not just to me but to the entire staff. I don't think you are even aware how it affects others."
My wife had told me just prior to our Meeting that I probably needed a breath mint. She was always saying helpful things like that. I performed the familiar hand to mouth breath test and found no fault, so here we were at the meeting, and I was going to get a bad review.
The lady stared over her thick black plastic framed glasses, and her dark eyes bore into my skull.
"You are sour, sir," she said. "Through and through. I'm afraid this isn't going to look good in your file."
When the meeting concluded, we decided to go for a hike in the Santa Monica mountains. There were some interesting restaurant destinations at the end of the winding canyon trails. It was a nice day, sunny with high clouds and a slight ocean breeze.
We walked along the ridgeline, past the houses in Topanga Canyon and off into the uncharted, unformed landscape that only gets unfurled when someone actually hikes there. Normally, it is a barren wasteland, bereft of vegetation, all of the foliage and topography kept stashed away in a box until needed. We must not have been expected because it looked as though the camouflage netting had just been hastily thrown over the rocky ground, and seams were evident in the subterfuge.
It became difficult to walk on the shifting and sliding fake ivy since it hadn't even been tacked down yet. I made a mental note to delay future trips to this area to give the powers in charge of constructing the physical world on demand time to get their shit together. It doesn't pay to show up to your own surprise party before the streamers are even up and no one has had a chance to hide behind the couch.
