Remembering Nellie

When I was still working as a floating assistant within the company of absolute hell that housed Mr. Panty-Waist, SBAS and Cruella, I did stints as assistant to pretty much every ne’er do well the place contained. One guy was a youngish, extremely highly strung man who would turn the color of a ripe, red raddish when he got agitated, which averaged about ten times an hour. The most inane and absurd things would irritate him into apoplexy. Someone talking too loudly outside his office; a client not calling him back about five seconds after he placed a call; anyone having a differing opinion from him. It could be anything. One time the Evil Queen and myself, knowing his predilection for the Boston Red Sox, snuck into his office while he was out at a client’s and stuck Yankees posters and cards all over his bulletin board which sat behind his desk. It was a full half day before he noticed them, at which time he got all hot and bothered because he’d had two meetings in his office since we’d placed the offending items there, so someone might have seen the enemy colors, radiating from behind his giant, soon-to-spontaneously-combust head.

The man had several very real nervous breakdowns during the time I was with the company, one of which caused him to shave off all his hair and don a huge pair of Coke-bottle spectacles that turned his image instantly from “smart company executive” into “nervous, sweating pedophile”. Coupled with the fact his cheeks were generally the same shade as a baby’s bottom if that baby had chronic diaper rash, he was quite a worrying sight.

He worked hard however, which was more than could be said for Mr. Panty-Waist and his ilk. Nervous Nellie would work 78 hours a day if it were possible and then spend another day checking everything twice. He was a big favorite of the beastly Anti-Christ Cruella de Ville, who summoned him most days to her lair to discuss his taking care of her dastardly deeds. He would emerge an hour later, scarlet as a stop sign and exhausted from sticking his tongue down the back of her Prada pants, to bark urgent commands at his meager team of writers, while mopping his brow with a handkerchief.

He could be humorous and cordial if you met him in the corridor or he could be a fire-breathing, foul-breathed dragon from the bowels of hell. It was like pot luck which you got. Luckily, it was easily decipherable by the hue of his face. If a giant, glowing, red moon was facing you from the other end of the corridor it might be wise to change your route immediately.

I heard Nervous Nellie left the Company of Absolute Hell recently for greener pastures and moved to another state. It only remains to be seen if he finds serenity or destruction there.