The office manager in the institute is absolutely and completely insane. It must be so. His name is Julian, and one of his eyes glares out madly in a different direction, like the old man in the Poe story... the stare of his mad eye is a stare to drive one mad himself... Why does he stay every day so late into the night? Wandering around, going in the girls' toilets, wandering, peering... Listening on his phone line whenever anyone in the building is making a phone call... Trying to deny me my breakfast tickets...
-Tio, es totalmente loco... Semana pasada, tomó un martillo y clavos, y ¡bam! bam! bam! Cerró la ventana, para siempre... porque... shhhh... Vienen...
We now have a plan to push him over the edge. As he wanders and peers, whenever he passes, a whisper:
-Julian...
-¿Que?
-¿Como? No, yo no dije nada...
-Juliancito... es tu abuela...
-¡¿ ?!!
-¿Julian, estas bien? No, no he oído nada...
-Julian... soy Vladimir Putin... tengo una misión urgente y muy importante para tí...
Slowly but surely we will drive him over the edge. To what end, I am not so certain, although it was my idea to organise a golpe de estado in the oficina... Breakfast tickets for everyone!
But perhaps I should explain Lazy's position here a little. It is an institute which does intensive immersion English courses (among many other short courses in an eclectic variety of subjects) for young people from all around Spain. They have classes from morning to evening with only breaks for meals, but in order to immediately put into practice what they have learned in class, they do not even get a break then, because Lazy - as I keep calling him but shouldn't as it might be a self-fulfilling prophecy thing - eats lunch and dinner with them and engages them in (sometimes reluctant) conversation.
Both meals are generally three-course and extras affairs with coffee after lunch and too much wine to drink at dinner. The majority of the students are always girls, for some reason. Oh, and he has to twice a week organise informal English activities for the students, which can involve wandering around the old town or getting drunk til the small hours. This is a salaried position, the meals obviously covered, plus those all-important tickets for breakfast.
The main requirements for the position are:
-the ability to show up at an appointed time and place a total of 12 times per week for one hour, 10 of which are meals, 5 of which are evening meals that can stretch much longer than an hour what with the wine and sobremesa and that
-the ability to drink the same Señoría de Iniesto with dinner every night. now you think this is a joke, but this is a very red, very heavy, cloudy and tannin-rich wine, and it is destroying digestive system
-the ability to absorb more or less the same large, rich, meat- and seafood-heavy meals, on a weekly repeating menu
-the ability and inclination to actively engage Spanish mostly girls in conversation, in English, over meals and drinks
This, of course, is rather a healthy routine in the circumstances, and Lazy's brain chemistry is probably markedly improving. It leaves him a lot of time for the other writing stuff, which I will now try and make him finish.
