Keeping Tabs on Frank

Welcome to the 6^th floor.

Today's contributors are: Ann, Sara, Tabitha, Frank, Billy

Subject: Where are you?

Ann, Sara, Tabitha and Billy are milling about the apartment. Billy is in the kitchen looking for a snack, Tabitha is pacing in the hallway, and Ann and Sara are playing Dr. Mario.

“Let's go to Catalina's and get some food.”

“You know I'm in for that. We don't have anything munchy here.”

“There's some granola bars, an apple, and a jar full of cashews.”

“Eh. How about some mozzarella sticks, French fries or something else wonderful?”

“Whatever. I didn't want you eating my cashews anyway. I don't really want to go to Catalina's tonight. I'm kind of tired, and I was there all day.”

“You were on lunch shift today? Should've said something, I could've come up for lunch.”

“It's such a long trip for you, I wouldn't want you spending too much of your lunch hour commuting.”

“Yeah, the train ride can be a bummer. No one would even miss me in the office if I was 10 minutes late though.”

“The wonders of anonymous cubicles.”

“They do have some benefits. Like making you feel mind-numbingly alone even when you're surrounded by 100 people.”

“You guys see Frank today?”

“No. He wasn't up when I went to work this morning, but I just assumed he turned in early.”

“It's hard to keep track of that one. He should have his own time zone.”

“Frank Standard Time.”

“I haven't seen him all day, and he's not picking up his cell phone.”

“When was the last time you tried him?” Billy asks, between handfuls of cashews.

“I just tried him a couple of minutes ago. It went right to voicemail.”

“Could be in the subway.”

“Maybe.” Tabitha frowns. “Do you know something Billy?”

“Hmm? What would I know? I don't keep tabs on him.” says Billy, who is now eating out of a pint of chocolate fudge brownie ice cream.

“You usually know when he disappears though. Would you get a bowl already?”

“I only wanted a couple of bites.” Billy says, putting the pint back in the freezer.

Tabitha sighs, and picks up her cell phone again. “I guess I'll leave him a message. Not like he'll call me back anyway. Oh! It's ringing! Goody!”

Tabitha has a short conversation with Frank, and then hands up.

“Well! At least he's not dead. He says he's at the Trop, but he wouldn't elaborate.”

“The Trop? He's either at a casino in Atlantic City, or at a baseball stadium in Tampa Bay. Since the Devil Rays are no longer playing, I'd go with AC. Of course, maybe he's in on these Yankee meetings to decided Joe Torre's fate.”

“His fate? Are they hanging him?”

“No, his contract is up and they have to decide if they want to give him a new one for next year.”

“And this is a big secret meeting?”

“It's the Yankees. They try to make everything into a production.”

“He hasn't been to Atlantic City in a while. Did he say when he'd be back?”

“Nope. He rushed me off the phone, said he had to get back to his hand.”

“He's probably been playing all day. Okay, I'm done Sara.” Ann says, putting the controller down.

“I crushed you that time. Annihilated you!”

“Lucky. Don't let it go to your head.”

Guy's Night In

Welcome to the 6^th floor.

Today's contributors are: Frank, Billy and Scott.

Subject: Guy’s Night In

I was playing Dr. Mario with Ann when Tabitha came and got her, and then they left. They said they were meeting Sara somewhere. I noted to Scott and Frank that the apartment was girl-free at the moment, so we decided to do some guy things while we had the chance.

“Why do we still drink crap like this? Who bought it?” asked Frank as he handed out some of the Coors Light in the fridge.

“Tabitha I think. We don’t have anything better?”

“There were some Bacardi Silver’s. I think that would be a blow to our manly guy night though.”

“Put something better in then. Dr. Mario is seriously not a man’s game.”

“MLB: The Show? Or we could just watch SportsCenter.”

“Skip SportsCenter. Look, there’s a poker game on.”

“That’d be like watching you work. How lame is that? Watching poker is totally not manly. Playing poker might be, but I’m not playing poker with you anyway.”

“So video games it is then. So where do you think the girls went anyway?”

“I heard them say something about Sara.”

“Must be. She’s usually asleep by this time. I wonder were she went.”

“Maybe she snapped under the pressure and killed someone.”

“Maybe they’re bailing her out of jail then!”

“I don’t think you get out that easily if you kill someone. She’s probably just at a co-workers apartment. I don’t know why Tabitha and Ann had to go find her though.”

“Action movies! Billy, pop in one of those shoot-em-up films and I'll get us some snacks. We do still have snacks right?”

“I think we do. You live here too, just check. Or did you forget how to use the cabinet?”

“I just leave everything I need on the counter so I don't have to use the cabinets.”

“Doesn't Tabitha yell at you about that all the time?”

“He has a cabinet full of half-eaten stuff, because Tabitha gets annoyed and puts them away, and then if he asks she won't tell him where she put it.”

“Oh yeah, that's where those moths came from that time. The half-used tin of hot chocolate that Scott had forgotten about all year.”

“I'm just an opportunistic eater. If it's not right in front of me, I usually don't want it that much.”

“First cabinet to the left of the sink, there are some pretzels and potato chips in there. Lets start watching.”

“There are some bowls in the cabinet next to the fridge.”

“Bowls? Who needs bowls? Just for that comment, you're writing the next blog entry to get Ann to stop bugging us for a while.”

Sara Drinks

Welcome to the 6^th floor. Today's contributors are: Ann, Sara, Tabitha

Subject: Sara and her friend Jack

It was 10:50 Tuesday night when I finally got concerned enough to call Sara. Usually she tries to get to bed by 11. I thought that maybe she'd gone out with some people from work and felt bad about leaving early to goto sleep, but it was getting late. I figured at least she could use the phone call to find an excuse to leave.

I dialed her cellphone and was greeted by the unmistakable roar of a bar in the background.

“Tabitha? Hey! What's up!!”

“Sara? It's 11pm, are you coming home? Where are you?”

“Relax Tabby! I just went out with my friend Julie from college.”

“Where is she now?”

“Oh probably asleep. She went home an hour ago.”

“And why aren't you doing the same?”

“Because I'm having fun!”

I found out what bar she was at and then went and got Ann from the living room, who was playing Dr. Mario with Billy on our old NES, and the two of us decided that Sara probably shouldn't be drunk and alone at a bar on a Tuesday night. We grabbed our coats and headed downtown to meet her, hoping she hadn't left for another bar on a whim.

We arrived at the bar and went in, searching for Sara. We found her at the end of the bar, engaged in a discussion with a good-looking guy about ways to improve the subway system. He stuck around for a little while after we showed up, but soon he lost interest and we took his seat. Sara was still reluctant to leave so we made the hard choice of ordering something to drink.

After we'd been there a little while, Sara opened up a bit and explained why she was completely drunk at a bar on a weeknight. She had had a rough day at work, falling behind on one of her projects, and getting yelled at by her project manager. She tried to explain to us what the problem was, and why it was taking her longer than was expected, but we didn't quite get the programming concepts she was outlining. In addition, she was pronouncing 'class' like 'cwass' and Ann, who apparently had forgotten to eat dinner while she was playing Dr. Mario and was finishing her second beer, giggled every time Sara mispronounced it. Ann joined in and complained about her job, and I just smiled and nodded. Sara started cheering up a bit after that, and we took to analyzing the rest of the people in the bar, trying to figure out what brought them here at this hour. There were the handful of college students, a couple of people who looked like they were probably here most nights, the guy Sara was talking to when we came in who Sara said works evenings in a warehouse nearby, a couple who we imagined were having an affair, and two people who had just walked in that looked like waiters.

It was almost 2am when we finally convinced Sara it was time to go home. I helped her down the subway steps as Ann was having enough trouble navigating them on her own, and we made our way back home. We gave Sara some water, and sent her to bed. Her last words before she crawled under her covers were, “Getting up is going to suck tomorrow.”

Frank, who was still up when she left for work tells me that while she looked miserable, she did manage to get ready for work and leave without stumbling, and that she did start to look a little better by the time she left. He told her to stop and get some coffee on the way, which I hope she did.