The Horrible Monster

Today I'm going to write about a subject that is near and dear to my heart, and by "near and dear to my heart" I of course mean

"ggggggrrrrruuuugghghHHHHHHHHHHHAUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Also available in picture form:

I'm providing visual aid today.

So which subject brings about this open mouthed, head grabbing FURY? The subject of Office Gossip.

Office Gossip, which I will hereby refer to as "the OG-asaurus", is an interesting beast because it seems completely impossible to avoid. Much like the psycho murderer from a slasher film, there is nowhere you can run, nowhere you can hide and just when you think you're safe the OG-asaurus bursts out from the woods and stabs you in the face. Even the act of avoiding it means that you are inadvertently taking part in it because everyone else in the office thinks you're aloof and starts to chitter and chat about you!

GrrrrraughhhFUCK!

Now, to clarify, the mere existence of gossip itself doesn't make me mad unlike, for example, the existence of Sarah Palin. What makes me mad is the fact that, no matter how hard I try to avoid it, it still wraps its unbelievably slimy tentacles around me and sucks out my happiness, my soul, and even my pocket change.

Kinda like Sarah Palin…

I'll provide an example of how The OG-asaurus got me. I found myself at work a few days ago and there were very few people around, in fact, just myself and another coworker. We were chatting, shootin' the shit, when the subject of the dreadful OG-asaurus popped up. I immediately expressed my distaste for any gossip in the office, citing the fact that "I DON'T GIVE A fabulous flying FUCK about any problems anyone has with anyone or anything!"

She responded by saying that she too hates that bulbous monster and asking me if there was anyone at work I had noticed who was really bad about it.

"Yes," I shouted. "Megan is such a freaking gossip! She is always whining about so and so and... and..."

… and that is when it hit me. Did you see it? Did you blink? I HAD STARTED GOSSIPING about Megan's GOSSIPING!!!

Again:

The real destructive force of the OG-asaurus comes from its insane degree of infectiousness. Talking about people injecting heroin in between their toes doesn't mean that heroin suddenly starts forcing its way between MY little piggies. Most of life doesn't work that way, but GOSSIP does! It is impossible to TALK about gossip without starting to gossip yourself. It is like this gigantic hideous Mobius loop of pain and anger and it is COMPLETELY UNAVOIDABLE.

Office Gossip is the everyday equivalent of the zombie apocalypse. There is nothing you can do to stop the unrelenting onslaught of zombies and the people who do try to stop it, the ones that fight the good fight, well they usually end up infected anyway! The only real difference between the zombie apocalypse and office gossip is a lack of shotguns and barricaded farmhouses in the latter of the two. Office gossip has no shotguns!

But if it did you can bet everyone on the fifth floor would be complaining about the way Megan holds her shotgun… and did you hear she slept with Brandon? She's such a skank.