Office Rule #33: Avoid Office Parties

I hate office banter.  Call me cynical, but I really can’t stand being trapped in a room with my co-workers for any extended period of time.  Today, someone on my floor, who I don’t know but have always said hi to, graduated from something.  I’m not sure what exactly she graduated from, but everyone seemed to get very worked up about it.  I think people were mostly excited about the idea of getting away from their computers and eating bad cake for 30 minutes.  People were crying and hugging and it was a big hoopla.  For all I know she just got her GED, but the way they were acting she’d just done her dissertation on “How to evoke emotion out of your co-workers with minimal effort and a cake from Ralphs.” 
So we all passed around the cake, usual fashion, where you see all the good pieces of chocolate go by you, and finally you get one and it’s white cake with a smeared “s” from congradulations in frosting on it.  That’s when the banter started.  The laughing about people’s husbands (“What am I gonna do with him?”) or about how excited they are for Friday (“It’s almost Friday guys!”)  Not that anyone in my office has exciting plans.  What are you doing this Friday, I sometimes ask my co-worker.  “I’m going to do laundry and play with my calculator!”  These people need to stop working for a little while. 
Then there’s the co-worker with the annoying laugh.  You can hear her around the whole floor.  Even when in a bathroom stall, plugging you ears, you can hear her laughing.  And she has a name that sounds like it belongs on an episode of Doogie Hauser – Rhonda.  So during the office party, while we all stifle a laugh at boring stories about someone’s non-existent home life, this girl’s laugh trumps them all.  Which is probably good because then I don’t have to laugh as hard.  Too much fake laughing is harmful.  So instead, anytime there’s an office party, I make sure to sit next to her.  Then I can just kick back and eat cake while she laughs for the both of us.