Mark's Last Day at Work

A story about Mark's last day at work

I. Mark at Work

Mark’s last day at work was like most of Mark’s other days at work. Despite it being his last day, he still had to do a lot of very normal things—

1. money from cash register to safe

2. toilet clean and sink clean

3. chip on left shelf.

4. candy right shelf.

5. fill promo cooler with energy drink.

Also, Mark didn’t know it was his last day. He had had other days that he thought felt like his last day at work, but he always ended up coming back.

The reason he came back was pretty simple. He came back because he wasn’t fired and he didn’t quit and so he ended up on the schedule.

Sometimes Mark would say “Man I’m so tired of this job, what I would do to not work it,” and depending on who he said that to, he would hear different things—

Girlfriend: “Mark! We need the money! Don’t you quit like a quitter would. Stay and work! I love you!”

Mom (supportive): “Good job Marky-poo, I love seeing you stand up for yourself. I hope you quit on exactly the exact day that you want to quit.”

Mom (scared): “Oh no please Mark don’t quit. You need the money from the job! Remember? You have bills to pay. You are an adult with a girlfriend!”

Coworker: “Yeah man, I agree. Working is tough. I am making the rich richer by doing this.”

Almost everyone in Mark’s life thought he should stay at work except for Mom (supportive). This is another reason Mark stayed. Because he really trusts his people.

II. Mark is Really Happy

One of the reasons for Mark’s strong convictions in life are his “people.” That’s what he calls his family and friends. When he’s only talking about one of them, he calls them his “person.” A typical exchange between Mark and one of his people would be something like this—

Mark: *walks into room*

Mark: “My person!”

Person: “Hi Mark! Still working that job?”

Mark: “Yeppers.”

And then the conversation would vary, depending on whether or not Mark was speaking to Mom (supportive) or not.

When Mark is in a group of his people, that’s when he’s feeling best. You could catch his smile from across the room, and you can tell that it is real.

For example, if Mark is at work with his coworker and they are standing out front getting ready to leave, Mark will be happy. But the times when he is really happy? That’s when his car isn’t working so his girlfriend picks him up from work. For a brief moment, while he’s standing there with his coworker, and his girlfriend has arrived in the parking lot, it doesn’t get better than that for Mark. Those are his people, and they are both there.

Still, a night like that can be tough for Mark, even though its filled with happiness. That’s because he’s always happier with his people. When he’s with his coworker, and then briefly with his coworker and girlfriend, and then with his girlfriend only? That is going from being happy, to really happy, to happy again.

For Mark, that mood swing can be tough. It had always been Mark’s opinion that humans were never meant to handle mood swings like that.

He talks about it in the car with his girlfriend—

“Man, that can be tough, going from being with my person, to my people, to my person.” Mark says.

Mark’s girlfriend says “I totally get it,” and they don’t really talk for the rest of the car ride because Mark is processing how he feels and his girlfriend has run out of good advice to give.

III - I. Mark’s Idea

Mark is about to go to bed but he has a really good idea. He is thinking about getting his people together—

1. His mom

2. His girlfriend

3. His coworker

The thought had barely formed, but he could feel it taking shape, like a puddle of mushy-goo using internal chemical reactions to form bone marrow and proteins and fats and little tiny bones. In Mark’s head he visualized it as green goo, and he laughed a little bit because it reminded him of the slime on Nickelodeon.

IV. Flashback

Mark is twelve years old and his mom (supportive) took him to Universal Studios and he got slimed for a theme park show they were doing. Mark laughed because he was going to have slime on him for the rest of the day. He wondered how he would go about normal activities like walking, eating, or walking to the car, while covered in slime. He wondered if anyone would look at him and say “What the heck happened to that kid!”

Mark thought it would be funny, if someone had happened to say that, if he just acted like nothing was wrong and pretended to be totally dry. Then he would say “What do you mean?” and walk away like nothing happened. However, Mark knew this would be impossible because he thought the slime was too funny. If anyone had said that to him, which no one did, he would have immediately burst out laughing. Even just walking, eating, and walking to the car was testing his limits of being able to hold in laughter.

III - II. Mark’s Idea (cont.)

So Mark is remembering the slime incident from Universal Studios, and has briefly forgotten about his idea, but then he remembers and is back on track. He’s thinking about getting his people together.

This would fix his problem where he has to go from happy to really happy then happy again. “Well,” he thinks to himself, but also says out loud. What follows is him realizing that this actually doesn’t fix his problem. The happy, really happy, happy sequence would still happen if everyone gathered, because he would be around before and after the gathering, since he’s him. He tries to think hard for a solution, so he sits in his chair.

V. Mark’s Chair

Mark’s chair is from Ikea. It used to be white but has been stained blue by his blue jeans. It creaks a little bit but has never caused any problems with sitting. It has fabric and padding on the backrest. It also has fabric and padding on the seat. The padding on the seat is very worn down, though.

III - III. Mark’s Idea (cont.)

Mark realizes that if he woke up to all of his people already there, and then fell asleep while they were still there, then he could have a full day of being with his people. Then this could be its own memory and he could think about it whenever he wants to smile.

He calls all three of his people and they all answer the phone except for mom (supportive). Instead, mom (scared) answers the phone and says “Who is this?” in a way that sounds like she doesn’t know who it is. After Mark says that it’s him, she becomes mom (supportive) and agrees to his plan.

Also, everyone else (girlfriend, coworker) agreed prior to the phone call with his mom.

VI. Mark Gets Ready

So now Mark needs to get ready. He told everyone that he would do this tomorrow, so he’s going to do it tomorrow. It’s night time and he is looking at his shirts.

“Not this one. Not this one. Not this one.”

He says this as he pushes each consecutive shirt down the clothing rod.

“This one’s perfect.” he says, because he found the perfect shirt. It’s a t-shirt, and he knows from experience that it’s comfortable enough to sleep in and also talk to his people in. Mark thinks its funny that he “knows this from experience” because wearing a shirt is a funny thing to claim to have experience with, because everyone has shirts and experiences wearing them.

He tells his girlfriend about this before they go to bed.

She says “That’s really funny!” and then turns off the TV and turns off the lights and they lay down to go to sleep.

Mark says “I’m so excited for the gathering tomorrow.” and his girlfriend says nothing because she is asleep. Mark is kept up for about fifteen more minutes because he is thinking about how funny it would have been if his girlfriend had replied while fast asleep, and if they had had a conversation in between her snoring. He imagined her waking up, and then he would say something like “Great conversation we had there,” and she would say “What do you mean?” or something like that like she always does, and Mark would laugh his head off explaining the situation to her. It would probably keep him smiling all through the next day if it happened.

VII. Some Things You Don’t Know Yet

There are two things you don’t know yet. One is that Mark hadn’t told anyone why he was having this gathering. This was because Mark didn’t have a particular occasion in mind. Mark knows his people, though, and he knows that his coworker would come with plenty of questions locked and loaded. His coworker was “as curious as a cat,” Mark often thought.

Mark also thought that if his coworker didn’t work at the mini-mart with Mark, then he would make a really good private investigator. One of the things that Mark really liked to do was imagine the stories that his coworker would tell him about his job as a private investigator. In one of the imaginary stories, a woman fell out of a window and into a bush trying to sneak out of a house where she was having an affair. Mark’s coworker would tell him something like “That woman—I couldn’t believe it. She fell right out of that window trying to sneak out of the house. Guess that’s what happens when you have an affair.” The thought of that just cracks Mark up, especially the way his coworker would have said it.

The second thing you did not know yet was that Mark and his coworker both had the day off from work because some contractors had to fix a leak in the main room. Mark even said “Are you sure I shouldn’t come in anyway?” and the contractor said “There’s no way you could work around us. The whole ceiling is gonna have to come down. It’s gonna be a mess.” So Mark handed him the keys and said “Alright, here’s the keys then. Don’t make too much of a mess.” and Mark laughed. The contractor laughed too and said “Just doin’ my job, Mark.”

This caught Mark off guard, being called by name by someone he didn’t know. Later that same night, Mark had told his girlfriend about it and she said “Some people have done that before to me.” then she turned off the TV and turned off the lights and went to sleep.

VIII. Mark’s Last Day of Work

Mark woke up and heard chatter in the main room. It sounded like his mom (supportive), girlfriend, and coworker. This all made sense to him since he had invited his mom, girlfriend, and coworker to his home that day.

He got out of bed and said “Great to see you all here!”

Everyone said “Good to see you too, Mark! Thanks for inviting us!”

Mark’s coworker patted him on the back and his mom pointed to a coffee table with chips on it and said “Chips!”

“Thanks mom!” said Mark, then he tried to think of a chip joke.

“Hopefully there’s enough for all of us!” he said because there were two bags of chips, and he figured they could probably only get through one of them.

It worked. All of his people laughed.

“So what’s the occasion, Mark?” said none other than his coworker.

Mark had a feeling this was going to happen. He thought about it before he went to bed the night before. His coworker is so curious and he’s definitely the type of guy who would wonder.

Mark grabs a chip and holds it to buy himself time.

He thinks to himself.

1. Maybe I could make a joke?

2. What if they don’t believe me?

3. What if I tell the truth and they think it’s a joke?

Mark realizes that his third thought is not realistic because there is no truth. There is actually no occasion at all. Mark wonders if that is a good enough reason to just not answer at all, but he’s now been standing with a chip in his hand for over thirty seconds, and he knows that he’s running out of time to keep this interaction believable, otherwise he will have to go with Option 1.

He looks at the clock which has now turned over to 9:43, when it had previously been at 9:42. He tries to remember if he also saw it turn from 9:41 to 9:42 since he picked up the chip.

He decides enough is enough, and says in his own head “Enough is enough.” and then says out loud “Enough is enough.” then he drops the chip, which surprises him because it seems that he had become so expressive that he forgot to continue holding the chip.

Mark sees everyone staring at him, and they’re definitely still happy and having a good time, but he knows he’s going to have to answer for his actions. He knows how out of hand this is.

He thinks back to Universal Studios and how funny he thought it would be to confuse people after he got slimed. He wondered why he felt so averse to sitting in that same discomfort from his youth, to allow others to shoulder the awkwardness rather than him. To simply say “I don’t feel awkward or weird at all right now, do you? That’s weird of you!” He wonders if the slime mindset is juvenile, something that he has grown out of. Why did he feel this gigantic burden to not only answer the question, but tell the truth?

But he knew. Deep down he knew.

It was because these were his people.

“I brought you here because I’m quitting my job.” Mark said.

IX. The Aftermath

Mark didn't actually mean to say that. In the background of all the noise in his own head, he had started a ten second countdown and promised to say something at the end of it. He hadn't realized that he was counting down until he hit two, at which point he knew he had to say something, because Mark wasn't a guy who broke promises with himself. He knew that whatever part of his brain had started this countdown had done it for a reason, and he knew he had to respect and honor it.

So with one and a half seconds left, he thought of the first thing that came to his head. That’s when he said “I brought you here because I’m quitting my job.”

The rest of the day was pretty amazing for Mark. All his people were there, and they stuck around until around lunch time, when Mark’s coworker had to meet up with his own girlfriend. Before his coworker left, Mark said “You should bring your girlfriend around sometime. I’d love to meet her.”

His coworker smiled and agreed. Mark knew that it was a great idea to ask even before he had said it. He had had a lot of fun, and he knew that he wanted more people. He thought of future opportunities to ask other people, people who may not be his people yet, to spend time with him and his people. He briefly imagined the contractor at his work, and wondered if he’d ever see him again. He decided that if he ever did see the contractor again, he would want to invite him to a future gathering.

Then, in his head, he thought “I only have so many jobs I can quit.” thinking that it would be funny if he only arranged gatherings to announce that he was quitting jobs. Then he thought “I’m going to need to make a really good resumé.” and laughed again, mostly to himself. A third part of the joke almost surfaced, but fizzled out. He didn’t want to take it too far, he already thought it was pretty funny as it was.

Mark got into his bed and closed his eyes. It was around 1PM but he wanted to fall asleep before his people left so that he could follow through on his original plan.

Mark isn’t the kind of guy who breaks promises with himself.

Mark had a passing thought before he fell asleep. He thought “What if I just got out of bed right now to go meet up with the contractor because otherwise I’ll never see him again?” He decided that it’s best not to tempt fate. Things would happen as they happen, and he still didn’t want to break a promise with himself. He figured “Hey, it’s okay to have a great day and just leave it at that. Not every day needs to be some big adventure.” Then he fell asleep thinking about getting slimed at Universal Studios. He thought about how getting slimed at Universal Studios and his gathering today were probably his top two best days. He thought about how he would tell his girlfriend this if she were there, but she wasn’t because she was eating chips with Mark’s mom (supportive) in the other room. He decided that he will tell her tomorrow and then fell asleep for real this time.