Salamander
Fire Walking

The Mouth in particular has outdone herself this time. She's lonely, and I do feel sorry for her sometimes, although she creates her own loneliness by making it hard for people to have normal conversation with her. She has poor social skills, and will often simply step into other people's conversations and just start talking (not necessarily keeping to the topic being discussed). She has a nervous laugh that frequently punctuates her discourse, as though she's afraid people may not agree with her and wants to provide herself with the excuse that she's only joking if common sentiment doesn't swing her way. I feel sorry for her but just being around her makes me nervous and then agitated as she dominates the conversation without allowing anyone else to speak their turn.

Now, I work for what is for the most part a very conservative company. People have Bush bumper stickers and American flag decals on their cars. Religious pamphlets sit on a table by the main employee entrance. We have a prayer room set up every Wednesday for people to go and meditate in during lunch hour. Folk around here are nice, but I try to watch what I say (that one day at lunch when I made the crack about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse appearing in our parking lot was a major exception). The Mouth, being nice conservative church-going lass seemed to fit in quite nicely to this mold, and while the quantity of her speechifying was unpopular, the content had never been taken amiss. Granted, all she talks about is her work and her dog, but that's just boring, not controversial.

It appears that last night she decided to branch out in her chosen topics of conversation, and we who know about it are waiting to see what happens because of it. There is one technician in our department that works second shift. The Mouth frequently stays after first shift ends, hanging around the office talking. I think she does it because she's lonely and doesn't want to go home yet. Apparently it was just the technician and The Mouth left last night when the Mouth decided to open up a bit about her life before she came to our company. From what I understand leather, dog collars, nose piercings and a whip figured heavily in her discourse. The tech, as prim and proper a girl as you'd ever hope to meet, was offended and mortified by this information being volunteered by The Mouth, which puts The Mouth at odds with our sexual harassment policy (a policy which every person in management, included her, had to go to orientation meetings about just two months ago).

At lunch the Big Boss told me he had to speak to the Mouth. I could honestly say I hadn't seen her all day (she's running tests elsewhere in the building and probably won't emerge from the bowels of the plant until I'm getting ready to leave). It is unlike the Big Boss to say he wants to talk to someone without giving at least a hint of what the topic of discussion will be, so we suspect he knows.

Now frankly, I don't care one whit how The Mouth spent or spends her free time from work. But on the job a certain ... shall we say "decorum"? ... is required. I'll admit that I'm just as annoyed at the busy bodies who have been cracking jokes and making some unnecessary innuendoes regarding The Mouth's off-duty activities. I suspect I'll end up hashing that out with at least a couple of them at a later date, if it doesn't cool off soon. But I mostly have to wonder what in the world The Mouth thought she was doing last night when she started detailing her hobby to someone in the office that she barely knew.

On a not-unrelated topic, The Minion is going into the cooking business, and has been pouring over related catalogues at his desk on break. Late this morning he announced, in that tone of voice, that he'd just seen a picture of a groom and groom cake topper. I quipped that he might as well get used to it, because that was going to become more and more commonplace. Which puts me into a similar position with The Mouth: I need to learn to keep my mouth shut.

The ensuing morality discussion wrapped around The Minion's philosophy of "The Slippery Slope." Apparently, if we allow gay marriage, then polygamy is next, and the next thing you know it'll be legal for old men to marry thirteen-year-old girls. This whole gay marriage thing is just the foot in the door for the inevitable moral decline of America.

I've already spent way too much time detailing The Mouth's dilemma, so I won't detail my too-long debate with The Minion. Suffice to say that neither of us convinced the other of anything. Admittedly biased key-points were as follows:

-He brought up the tired old bit about the intent of the founding fathers, so I countered with the Constitution's separation of church and state. His reply was that the founding fathers were Christians and that they never intended morality to be separated from the state.

-I then less-than-cleverly pointed out that morality could not be legislated. His counter was that standards were sliding, and the law had to set standards before they went any lower. I said that the law already sets minimum standards. I told him that so long as we were a nation that was proud of its compassion and tolerance for different ideas and beliefs, then we couldn't stop dictating standards because they ran counter to someone's religion.

-I tried to convey that everyone has their own standards, but so long as certain principals of law applied, such as nobody being hurt and no one's freedom being abrogated, then people should be left to find their own way. I pointed out that the law could never be drafted to suit each and every person's standards, so it had to be written to allow everyone to follow their own standards as best they could. He protested that his rights were being trampled on because this went against his gold standard, The Bible. At that point I'd had enough and told him that if that was the way he interpreted the Bible, then he'd better get used to it.

I do not believe I am cut out for religious debate.

Do I get to pick and choose the stuff I think really applies?