This week is USC's spring break, which means that all but a few of the pages and interns are here. For me, that means I get the morning hours, something that I actually enjoy because it is quiet and I can check my email and facebook in peace. This particular morning, there was no quiet. Lobbyists, constituents, entire organizations of people pushing their agendas stormed through my office like the hyenas in The Lion King and I was Simba (because I'm a prince(ss). duh.) except there was no Mufasa to save me. Just the soothing voice of James Earl Jones would have sufficed.
I got coffee and made some copies for The Senator then headed over to the free breakfast buffet to get a plate for Ms. Joanie, though she wouldn't arrive until 10:30 this morning. A note about the free breakfast and lunch buffets. Companies or organizations sponsor these free breakfast or lunch buffets (the breakfasts have cold sausage biscuits, fruit salad and some sad mini-muffins and the lunch is almost exclusively catered by three barbeque restaurants in Columbia) with the hope that they will get to mingle with some important law makers, but what actually happens is that staffers go get their free food while the senators send other people (read: me) to get them plates of food and bring it back to their various offices and meetings. There is the occasional senator or representative that stops by, but The Senator has never been to a buffet to my knowledge.
So, I got Ms. Joanie a plate but didn't get her orange juice. Through her clairvoyant abilities, she called to tell me that she would be coming in soon and to get her some OJ at the buffet. Trip #2 to the buffet room. There will be five trips by the end of today. Compelling stuff, huh?
My next ridiculous task was to find the peanuts in The Senator's car. No, that isn't a euphemism for anything. Get your mind out of the gutter. I was given the keys to his car and told to dig around for a pack of peanuts he had bought at the grocery store. Whenever I'm told to find something in his car, I feel such power. If this was Ocean's 11 and The Senator was the owner of a casino on the strip, I would have been paid off to slip a bug into his car by Brad Pitt. It would have fulfilled two of my dreams: to be in a heist movie and be in the presence of the ridiculously handsome Brad Pitt. Alas, my life isn't a heist movie. After 10 unsuccessful minutes and a battle with the old-fashioned mechanism on his trunk, I returned defeated by the peanuts to find that he had actually left them at home.
A few more errands and it was lunch time. Yet another buffet luncheon that featured yes, you guessed it, bbq. I walk over for trip #3 to find a line that rivals the line for the new iPad. I patiently waited while others casually cut in line. Temporarily feeling superior for not cutting, a gentleman walks up to me inquisitively to ask a question about what all the hub-bub was about. That's what I assumed. Instead, he asks me what grade I'm in. NO GRADE. NO GRADE AT ALL. I AM A COLLEGE GRADUATE. Why was he making such awkward conversation with me you ask? To cut the goddamn line. I wanted to stomp on his toes and say "I'm rubber you're glue, whatever bounces off of me sticks to you." Thankfully, these functions provide nametags which are real handy. Phil Louis from Furman University, you're on my shit list. A colleague of Phil's, another line cutter, stepped up next to him assuming he had found an in but boy did I show them. Little did Phil know, what he assumed was his ally in the battle of the line cutting would be his downfall. Just as casually as Phil slipped into line, I slipped right in front of him and his buddy while they were chatting. Let that be a lesson to you, Phil. Never let your guard down. I may look like I'm a high schooler, but you would be sorely mistaken if you want to cross me, in lines or otherwise.
I finish my pagely duties, get Ms. Joanie and Penny their lunches and head back only to find that The Senator and Bobby Caution also need their lunches. Trip #4 ensues. I trek back thinking, "I bet the line will have died down by now." How naive of me to think that. The line had not died down, but grown. So I waited patiently in line again trying to look on the upside of things. At least I wasn't at my desk doing nothing. I wasn't looking for non-existant peanuts. It could have been worse. Then I see more and more people cutting in line. Fuck. This. Shit. I find a woman further up in the line and scooch in with her using my standard, "I'm sorry, but I have to get lunch for The Senator and Bobby," which always works. I loaded up two more plates when a man next to me says "wow, you're real hungry aren't you?" I replied using my awkward Statehouse laugh, which I have had to cultivate over my time here as a defense mechanism against awful "jokes" such as these. I'm carrying two loaded plates and a drink like a waitress. Does it look like I want to make small talk, stranger?
I get The Senator and Bobby their meals and settle down to eat my sandwich in peace. No such luck. I didn't get drinks for Ms. Joanie and Penny. Trip #5. At this point, I think the security guards near the buffet room think I have some sort of parasite in my stomach that makes me eat mass quantities of food. This time, I use the back door and sneak in past those suckers still waiting in line, grab my drinks and storm out.
Five trips to a buffet line, four messages taken, three trips to the copy machine, two pots of coffee made, one pack of peanuts missing in action, and a partridge in a pear tree.
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