Tim & Chuck

CH. 8 *Sigh* Kind-of-Days

"I don't suppose you have any spare sanity lying around, do you?"

As a rule, Tim wasn't a superstitious person. He believed that everyone had complete control over, and therefore responsibility for, their actions. Actions generally tend to influence the outcome of circumstances.

Tim was also a religious coffee consumer, ergo he would often have roughly between 2 to 4 cups a day, and the concentration of sugar and cream depended heavily on the time of day. But Tim most always needed some kind of kick to get him moving in the morning aka a early black coffee with five French Vanilla creamers and three sugars.

But by sheer misfortune, Tim began his Tuesday following the long weekend with Hanah and Carly, without his "out-of-bed coffee".

Tim woke up at 7:25 AM per usual, after hitting snooze on his alarm three times. Tim always showered and brushed his teeth before 8am, which left him roughly 45 minutes to change, eat, brew coffee, and hit the road to work. While the weekend had been extremely enjoyable and smooth much to his surprise (with a little bit of pride mixed in), this week was a big one and he had spent the whole day previously stressing over it. So it was imperative that Tim had his coffee to get him on the right track.

But on this particular Tuesday morning, Tim realized very quickly that neglecting to lay out his morning attire the night before was a terrible mistake. He had been in the office very late and had been much too tired to lay out his wardrobe for the following day as he normally did. "You should've just taken the extra five minutes last night Timothy, you really should have." He grit his teeth and muttered curses to himself, trying to comb his hair and brush his teeth simultaneously.

He scrambled to find a different white pressed shirt, a tie color closer to teal than turquoise, and a well-pressed navy pair of slacks from his closet. Unfortunately he also forgot that he had left his best pair of work shoes in the downstairs landing all night, due to them becoming drenched from an unexpected storm the afternoon prior.

Tim spent a full 15 minutes looking for them, before realizing where he had left them, and this caused him to shower later than normal.

By the time he had successfully completed his shower and located his still damp but usable work shoes, Tim hurriedly fed Chuck and threw out the bowl of cheerios for Frederick, realizing only then that he had absolutely no time to brew coffee. Why on earth did he only have one pair of good business shoes? The truth was that he had several good pairs and expensive ones at that, but Tim had preferable shoes for particular days and the ones he wanted just so happened to be damp.

Oh well, the sludge at the office would have to do for his routine morning caffeine kick.

Upon arriving at the office, two things immediately greeted Tim as he entered the top level of his building and offices. The first was Mandy who had in hand his entire work itinerary for the day, including his all-important meeting with Philip Morris International. The second, and most alarming of the two, was the lack of coffee aroma as he stepped off from the elevator. "Good morning Mandy, would you be so kind as to snag me a cup of coffee while I settle in, please?"

"Good morning, Tim. Sadly our coffee machine is out of order this morning, and the maintenance man has yet to arrive and fix it. But I can perhaps grab you a soda from the break room or water? Keep in mind that you have a conference call with your midtown Manhattan supervisor and assistant managers in ten minutes."

Tim sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling the makings of a headache coming on. This was already looking like a long day and he was only four minutes in. "A water bottle will do, thank you Mandy."

● ● ●

Three hours, two conference calls, an advisor meeting, and an endless pile of paperwork later, Tim was already very done with the day. In addition to running on absolutely no caffeine in his system, Tim had already sent five emails with typos which he had to correct, and he accidentally bumped his water bottle into his own garbage bin while reaching for a legal documentation binder.