These Boys and Girls Are Not Spare Parts

New York is supposedly in the middle of a heat wave right now and here I am, freezing. I’ve got a thick, wool cardigan on, and I’m drinking a cup of hot tea, in the month of July. It must be at least 40 below in my office building. If you think I'm exaggerating, as I am sometimes wont to do, then talk to the woman two cubicles over from me. That is, if she can hear you through her ski cap. I shouldn’t be complaining, and I’m not. All I want to know is this: Why do they keep these offices so cold? Why?

A possible solution to the problem of getting blood circulating back in one’s hands would be to go to the copy machine and run off twenty blank pieces of paper. Then rush over to your desk and sandwich your hands in between these papers, with five sheets under each hand and five sheets over, forming a pair of mitts. Depending on the size of the stack, the transfer of heat from a copy machine to a piece of paper only lasts for about 30 seconds, 45 if you’re lucky. For environmental purposes, you should only do this a few times out of the day and, most definitely, do not forget to return the papers to the bottom feeder of the printer.

But that would take so much effort, not to mention time, and humiliation. Being parked in one place for eight hours a day makes you lazy. So instead, I just sit here, numb.