And still looking

There's one particular person at work who's a real thorn in my side. Let's call her - and can you tell I've been working 12-hour stints, mostly of intensive editing? - Thorn. Thorn has long fascinated me, because even within an organizational structure that can only be called a mediocracy, she truly stands out...about three standard deviations below the mean.

I don't wish to be needlessly cruel. But in trying to fathom Thorn's way of looking at problems or of seeing the world, I find myself drawing heavily on my experiences, about six weeks ago, with the chihuahua.

Thorn seems to sense this, and, ordinarily, tries to avoid me (good girl). However - sadly - this cannot always be possible. One of our bones (as it were) of contention is that Thorn seems to have a great deal of difficulty understanding what my job does and does not entail. Consequently, she tends to run off and do for herself, without so much as a courtesy notification, things that really ought to fall within my portfolio, and tends to ask me to do things that aren't remotely connected to my portfolio. Which, when it comes right down to it, is a pretty damn simple one: I write the songs. When other people write songs, I'm supposed to edit their songs. And if someone performs a song, I'm supposed to at least be told about it.

Today, she summoned me to her office and asked me whether detailing a singer to another department was a reimbursable or a nonreimbursable expense.

Now, Readers, I'll admit: I tend to score a bit higher than is socially desirable on the Asperger's scale. The reasons why other people do the things they do sometimes elude me. Ok, fine: they frequently do. That's probably the main reason why, to my deepening shame, I'm turning out to be such an execrable novelist.

Anyway. The following possibilities ran, in quick succession, through my head:

(1) Thorn wants to demonstrate to me that she haz a Kompetensee;

(2) Thorn continues not to have the slightest friggin' clue what my job involves;

(3) Thorn is, with remarkable subtlety, telling me that I'm heading to Sudan after all; and

(4) Thorn, having grasped that my portfolio involves something to do with words, erroneously and hilariously believes that if I can only diagram out for her all the nuances of each term, our Budget & Administration Office's policies will suddenly be revealed therein, like a Virgin Mary image on toast.

Readers, I prayed for (3) but credibly feared (4).

Not resolving it at the time and continuing to mull over it this evening, I related the story to K.

"Haven't you ever gotten momentarily confused, between, say, 'secular' and 'nonsecular,' and thought perhaps 'nonsecular' meant 'nonreligious'?" K asked.

Errr...no.
Waitaminnit.
Are you saying that Thorn was asking me what "reimbursable" meant?

Ouuuuuut. I want ouuuuuuuuut.