[It is a cold and gray morning yet the harmony of fluorescent lighting and central heat betray the idyll scene beyond our 27th floor suite.
It's early. Ten o'clock a.m. Pacific Standard Time and especially quiet as the workers buzz about making phone calls, checking emails, thinking about porn, et cetera.
This is the American Office Place. The Mecca of Mundane, the Church of 9-5 Chastity, the Temple of Ticktock.
Our hero and heroine reveal themselves as their shrill voices slash through the silent din. Day in and day out these voices inspire exquisite headaches in some, cold-sweat inducing bouts of extreme irritability in many, and good old-fashioned dislike in most.
A row of printers is perched on a ledge five feet and to the left of our heroine's work station. These archaic machines are a popular destination point for most people in the office, producing a heavy flow of unwanted traffic that plagues our poor heroine throughout the better part of her day. The printer closest to her is the one designated to print in color. This printer is the one our hero stands at the most and there are two reasons for this. For one, our hero is a flamboyant fag and we all know that fags love the rainbow and therefore prefer color printers. Also, our hero, by virtue of his being gay, prefers to infuse his spreadsheets with color. Thus his spreadsheets embody perfection due not only to their accurate content but also to their readability, which would be nothing if it weren't for the precise use of color. The point is our hero is standing in front of the printer waiting too damn long for his spreadsheet and the bored heroine has nothing else to do but look at the hero's ass when...]
HEROINE: [Spoken in crescendo. For those of you who don't know, "crescendo" means from soft to loud. In this particular case our heroine's first syllables are uttered softly because they are accompanied by uncertainty and slight confusion, but as the volume in our heroine's voice increases, so too does her resolve.] Oh my GAWWWDDDDDDDDDD!
HERO: [With a marked look of distaste on his face, our hero turns around to see what all the fucking fuss is about.] WHAT!
HEROINE: [smiling with her mouth wide open and nodding her head in deep satisfaction at delivering the news] You have a major case of VPL!
[Once again, for those who are ignorant, VPL is the commonly used English acronym for Visible Panty Line. And we must further note here that our hero frequently accuses our heroine of committing the crime that this acronym was created specifically to eradicate.]
HERO: [in mild horror]: WHAT?
HEROINE: Oh yeah. [shakes head] And it's bad. [Smiles.] Really [scoffs] bad. [Laughs.]
[Our heroine's laughter sounds like pure evil. Because, well, she is pure evil. As she continues to cackle away at our hero's ironic misfortune his prideful posture slackens, his head cocks to one side and he sighs, defeated. He shrinks around the side of her desk until he's sitting beside her. He looks into her eyes and defends himself.]
HERO: [whining but earnestly] Chicken, I can't help it if my pants are too thin and my underwear are too thick.
[Our heroine continues laughing but her evil tone dissolves into a succession of pure and innocent chuckles as his words penetrate her very soul. She loves our hero and he loves her.]
HEROINE: What did you just say? Say it again, exactly.
I have to write it down.
