A while ago, for not-entirely-clear reasons (other than maybe, "I'm a dick"), I was moved downstairs a floor, and now occupy cube-space with a bunch of programming geeks. They regard me sort of with a kind of wary good cheer, like I were a pet chimpanzee or something. You know, usually pretty cute, but you never know when the little fucker will launch himself at your face. Plus, they really don't know what the hell I do in the first place: who questions the motives or methods of a chimpanzee? And that's cool, since I haven't the vaguest idea what they do either. I mean, apart from "programming," but that's just a tautology. Some of them are on "AppDev," others on "CompServ," and still others on "Helpdesk," and I can never keep straight who is who and where, but fortunately, there's no real reason for me to give a fuck, either.

They entertain me, though. They are a pretty spectacularly diverse collection of nationalities: my immediate neighbor is Croatian, and the guy behind me is a Spaniard. Across the room are a French woman, two Japanese women, an Israeli, and one Chinese gal.

The Croatian and the Spaniard are the best, because they seem to work in tandem on a lot of problems, and rocket back and forth between their cubicles, and as they get more worked up and excited about (whatever), they naturally start speeding up their speech and pretty soon neither of them can understand one another, and if I'm really lucky, they kind of wig out and start speaking their respective mother tongues. It's really great and I have to basically hunker down so I can laugh delightedly without making them stop. It just sounds so cool!

It happened a while ago, and it didn't seem that the problem was going away, so they were chattering chattering chattering! and going nuts, and I guess someone decided to call in reinforcements. So some of the others were brought in, and more heavily accented English was added to the mix, until pretty soon about half the floor was running around from cube to cube, each one straining to be heard and understood, and the cackling din was just tremendous. I was enjoying myself immensely; it was like the coolest audio collage ever, and I got to thinking, "This must be what the UN sounds like!"

For hazy reasons, this thought really busted me up, and I got a little carried away with it in my own weird head, because the next thing I know, I've stood up and while they were in mid-crescendo with the babbling, and I said, "I CONDEMN THE FILTHY AMERICANS AND THEIR UNJUST WAR!"

And they all stopped and looked at me. I was the scary chimp making unintelligible noises. I made a weak laugh and said, "Uh, never mind," and sat down. They gradually returned to their problem while I silently burned to death in my chair.

I guess it's really lucky that I didn't follow my first impulse, which was to pound my shoe on my desk and yell "We will bury you!"