Its about time I commit this story to writing. This could probably be considered my proudest (or worst) moment depending on how you look at it.
The Gospel of Paul:
Paul came to work at City Mill around December of 2002. We were both assigned to the Lumber department. Paul was a level headed and steady worker. He was an all around nice guy. I eventually learned Paul smoked weed and had led a checkered past, but was pretty much clean from all other substances. One day after he had transfered to night stocking, he came up to me and asked me if I knew a dealer who could hook him up with marijuana. I obliged him and introduced him to my friend who will simply be refered to as J. Paul routinely picked up from J and life went on.
Eventually I got fed up with being a sales associate and I transfered to night stocking. I started working with Paul again and things were going great, then one day Paul asked me if I could get him some crystal methamphetamine. At the time I couldn’t, so I told him so. Paul eventually got meth from somewhere. So Paul started smoking meth and for a while I didn’t notice. Every once and a while he borrowed some money from me and I didn’t ask what he was spending it on because he always paid me back.
After a while Paul started acting very weird. He wasn’t weird to me at first but I started to hear stories from the sales associates. By this time I new exactly what Paul was spending the money on. I just didn’t care. A little voice just told me to see where this potentially hilarious situation was going to lead. So I kept lending Paul money. Everyone was starting to talk about Paul because he went around to everyone asking them questions about “what’s going down?” and other paranoid questions.
Paul was having trouble because of his attendance and ended up getting suspended. While Paul was suspended everyone was talking about him and since I was friends with Paul everyone kept asking me about him. I flatly denied any knowledge Paul’s insanity.
Then one day out of the blue I recieved a phone call from Paul. I answered the phone:
“Hello?”
“So how was it?”
“How was what?”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“Actually I don’t.”
“Maybe you weren’t invited.”
“I guess not, what was I not invited to?”
“Apparently, they had an easter egg hunt without us.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I thought you were invited so I called you to see how it went.”
“Well, I wasn’t invited.”
“I wonder why they didn’t invite us.”
Keep in mind that this conversation took place in OCTOBER!
After this I told Paul not to call my house anymore because I didn’t get want to get hastled from my parents about strange phone calls.
Paul came back to work even more paranoid and confrontational with everyone. Paul kept missing work so he finally decided to take his vacation to get his affairs in order. Apparently the term getting your affairs in order is a codeword in the methamphetamine world for pull a gun on your mother and go to the mental health ward. Three weeks later Paul came back from his vacation sober and clean, and surprisingly didn’t have any legal issues to contend with.
Though sober Paul was still pretty on edge and a little paranoid.
One night our supervisor was talking to her 8 year old son on the phone and her son told her that he thought tomorrow was going to be a bad day. When the supervisor got off the phone she told Paul about her son saying he was going to have bad day tomorrow. Paul, who was in a decent mood all day, totally flipped out upon being told that and asked in a horrified voice, “Why does he say that?! Whats going to happen tomorrow?! Is there something I should know?!” The supervisor told Paul to calm down and go to the break room relax a little bit.
The supervisor tells me about this and I just can’t resist messing with him a little. I slowly walk up to the break room where Paul is sitting with his head down. He doesn’t look up at my approach and I quietly go to the vending machine and buy a Coke. I open the Coke, take a sip and stand still for a few minutes with my back to Paul, then I release the magic words, “I have a feeling tomorrow’s going to be a bad day.”
Paul completely flips out and screams, “Why does everyone keep saying that!?!?” I turn around and just look at him, raise my eyebrows, smile and make my way downstairs. Paul stays in the break room for the rest of the night and doesn’t show up for work the next day. The day after that he shaved off all his body hair, stopped by the store to say goodbye (I wasn’t there that day) and moved to Arizona.
