THE INTERVENTION

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ONE

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The first step in recovery, they say, is admitting that you have a problem.

I don’t have a problem.

I came back home from work a few hours ago and there they were, all three of them: mom, Sarah and my best friend Adam.

Sarah is my girlfriend. We met at Borders about a year ago after we both reached for the last remaining copy of When You’re Engulfed in Flames, the brilliant memoir by American humorist David Sedaris.

It was like that one movie where the two romantic leads both reach for the same pair of gloves at the same time on Christmas eve, only in our case, we didn’t argue back and forth on who deserved it more. I let her take it, and she did. In return, she asked me out for coffee — a thank you. She had nice hair and big brown eyes the size of marbles, so naturally, I said yes.

At Starbucks, I asked if I could borrow the book after she was done reading it. It was a ruse to see her again. I’m sure she saw right through it, but she certainly didn’t mind.

“It is our book, after all,” she said and then smiled.

She finished the book in a week, and a week later we had lunch. We met again the next weekend, and the weekend after that I gave her the book back. And we had dinner. We’ve been together ever since, and even though we’ve had our fair share of fights, she’s always stood by me. Those trust exercises they make you do at work — I close my eyes and fall face-down every time because I know she’ll be there to catch me.

Except today, apparently.

“We’re doing this because we love you,” she tells me, and I feel my face smash into the concrete — metaphorically speaking.

I work ten hours a day in the IT department of a Fortune-500 company as an unpaid intern. I won’t say which company, but yes, you’ve definitely heard of us. Yes, you’ve used our products. You’ve ate us, you’ve drank us, and your baby’s bum is probably covered in one of our products this very second.

This company, they made a net-profit of $5.6 Billion dollars last year and they still keep a herd of unpaid interns spread across several departments with not so much as lunch money. No travel allowance. I paid for my supervisor’s parking last week and I’m yet to be reimbursed.

When I’m not getting people coffee and making photocopies, I’m with Bill from Accounting on the twenty-second floor fixing his computer.

Bill is odd. And weird. Redundant, but worth repeating. He never listens. I always tell him not to click on those links. Why anyone would download porn is beyond me. Stream that shit like a responsible adult, I always tell him. A responsible adult probably shouldn’t watch porn in the office, I know, but that’s a tiny insignificant detail I’m willing to overlook for the sake of making my point. I tell him the links are most definitely bogus. Malware, I tell him. Spyware. Trojan horses and worms Bill. They’ll slow down your computer. You’re putting the entire office at risk. Sir. This is a threat to security. Sir. People may die because of you. The world will end.

The whole time I’m talking, he’ll have this grin on his face. He once told me that he enjoys my “youthful idealism” — whatever that means. Maybe that’s why he never listens to anything I say, because a few days later I’ll be back up on the twenty-second floor fixing his computer.

But it’s not just Bill.

Sometimes it’s Mr. Anuar who can’t seem to figure out how to get his company-issued Macbook Pro to work with the projector in the conference room. It’s Madam Ong from downstairs who still can’t find her messages after Mail on OS X downloads them from the company’s e-mail server. It’s Mr. Raj who writes documents in Pages and then complains when they don’t open in Microsoft Word.

It’s fucking exhausting being the “IT guy” at a company making the move from Windows to Macintosh, especially if it’s full of idiots.

Imagine dealing with all this and then coming back home only to have your best friend tell you that you’re not yourself anymore.

Well, no shit.

“You’ve changed,” Adam tells me. “We hate seeing you like this.”

I don’t have a problem!

I wouldn’t have survived as long as I have in that office without any help. Help, in this case, came in the form of Nadira.
Nadira is a fellow intern on the fifty-fourth floor — R&D — who, through methods she wouldn’t disclose, got her hands on a drug still in clinical testing.

A new drug has to pass several tests before human trials begin. There are pharmacological tests to determine the drug’s effects on the human body, toxicology studies to predict potential risks, and other ones that aren’t so obvious.

Human trials usually take place in three phases. Phase one involves just a handful of volunteers to verify the safety and tolerability of the drug. Phrase three involves the largest group, and it happens just before mass production. Phase two is where all the fun is, because that’s where effectiveness and things like dosage are determined.

This particular drug is code-named BC-22 and it’s in Phase Two of its trial. From the little Dira told me, I gathered that it’s some sort of cough syrup that doubles as an anti-depressant. Or maybe it’s the other way round. I’m not entirely sure. Why anyone would want an anti-depressant cough syrup isn’t entirely clear either. All I know is that, even in phase two, it’s pretty fucking amazing. The feeling you get, it’s like you can take anything the world throws at you.

Dira needs it. She’s always on it. All. The. Fucking. Time. Not that I blame her. This place is ridiculous. It’ll drive you fucking nuts if you let it.

But me, I don’t have a problem.

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TWO

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I met Dira at lunch on my very first day at the office. I only had a fifty, so she paid for lunch. She’s really nice like that. I later found out that we live in the same area — practically the same street — but had never met.

Three weeks later, on the train back home from work, I told her how fucking exhausting working in the IT department is. My supervisors don’t respect me, I told her. I get coffee and take out the trash and do the shittiest jobs. I have a brain the size of a planet and they ask me to pick-up a piece of paper and throw in the trash. I told her I wanted to kill myself and actually meant it.

Well, probably.

That’s when she told me about BC-22.

“When was the last time you called your dad just to ask how he is?” asked my mother. “You never visit. It’s the heroin.”

Oh mom, I don’t have a problem.

I’m not addicted to heroin. The active ingredient in BC-22 is 3-methylmorphine. It’s some sort of opium, according to Dira. I think she’s the one addicted, not me. Should the situation present itself, I’ll be willing to bet good money that she can’t function without it.

I work ten hours a day with complete fucking idiots. I take BC-22 to get through my day. I take it because I have to, not because I want to. It doesn’t give me any pleasure. I can stop whenever I want to. Should the situation present itself, I’ll be willing to put my money where my mouth is.

“You think it’s helping you,” mom says “It’s killing you.”

Sigh. I don’t have a problem.

I haven’t sneezed in over three months. I was born with an over-sized adenoid. One in five babies is born with an over-sized adenoid. It’s that gland at the top of your mouth towards the back near your tonsils.

Kids with over-sized adenoids are more prone to colds than other kids. Growing up, most kids on the block my age get the flu two or three times a year. I average six. Everyone thought it was because I was reckless and stupid.

“Stop playing in the rain so much,” mom would say.

“You keep sleeping with your mouth wide open, that’s why,” my dad always says.

Those things too, but I also have an over-sized adenoid.

It wasn’t until after my first visit to the dentist that the mystery of my ever-flowing nose was solved. Well, sort of. The dentist told me that I had a swollen adenoid. I was born that way, so technically, it wasn’t swollen. That’s why I sleep with my mouth open, he told me. That’s why I talk with a lisp. And that’s why I get a cold more than everyone else.

I am special, but mom wasn’t convinced.

“He’s just a dentist after all,” she said.

Later, she arranged for me to see this ENT coming in from Egypt.

“He comes highly recommended,” she said.

An ENT is a doctor who specializes in ear, nose and throat infections. An Otolaryngologist.

“Yes, that’s an over-sized adenoid you’ve got there,” the ENT said after taking a look inside my mouth.

This man traveled all the way from Egypt — crossed the great big Nile like some sort of reverse Moses — only to tell me something I already knew. He said it wasn’t that big of a deal. One out of five people has an over-sized adenoid. He said a lot of people are living with it.

“But if you think it’s a problem, you can get it surgically corrected,” the Egyptian ENT told me.

No sir, I don’t have a problem.

Fast forward sixteen years and I’m an intern at a Fortune-500 company taking BC-22 three to four times a day and I still don’t have a problem. In fact I have it better than don’t-have-a-problem.

How can something that makes me better be bad for me? That’s rubbish. This isn’t some shit I scored off a guy under a bridge in the shady part of town at midnight. No. This was engineered in a high-tech lab by very intelligent people, most of whom went to ivy-league schools and graduated top of their class.

“I miss the old you,” Adam tells me.

“I miss the old you too,” I tell my best friend.

Remember that time we went to the bakery across the road from your parent’s house and you distracted the girl at the counter while I stole a half-dozen donuts?

“We were seven,” says Adam.

Good times.

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THREE

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“Maybe you should think of changing your work environment,” Sarah tells me. “Maybe you should try another company.”

Are you insinuating that I’m weak, woman?

“No, I’m just saying that maybe a change of environment will be good for you, that’s all” she says.

By “environment”, Sarah means Dira. I’m certain of it.

Although they’ve never officially met, Sarah knows of Dira and Dira knows of Sarah and Dira knows that Sarah is my girlfriend. That’s actually the first thing I told Dira the moment I realized we were starting to get a little too friendly, and she replied “Good for you”.

Last week, Sarah was out of town to see her brother, and Dira and I went to her friend’s art exhibition. Sarah wasn’t very happy about it when she found out. Now that I think of it, this whole “intervention” business isn’t so much about my “problems” as it is about finding a way to get rid of Dira.

“You don’t have to be threatened by Dira,” I tell Sarah. “I’m not even sure she likes boys.”

“This isn’t about Dira,” says Sarah, “We never hang out like we used to. You don’t seem to have time for me anymore.”

I’m a working man now. Well, sort of. And at that precise moment, I realize three things:

1. I’ve been standing in this living room for close to an hour. That’s got to be some sort of personal record.

2. This whole intervention business is starting to remind me of the pointlessness of my “job”.

3. It’s been six hours since my last dose of BC-22.

“Excuse me,” I tell the people in my living room and walk into the bedroom. I take off my tie and my shirt and my trousers. I tie a towel around my waist and walk into the bathroom.

I open the bathroom cabinet and my bottle of BC-22 is gone. Of course. Sarah probably threw it in the garbage disposal earlier this morning. Luckily, I have a spare — the one I carry in my laptop bag — and I go get that and take a big gulp.

Sweet silent amen.

I wash my face with cold water from the sink and walk out to the living room in my towel.

“Look, I really really appreciate what you guys are trying to do here,” I tell them. “But can we continue this some other time? I have to wake up early tomorrow morning.”

They don’t say anything, they just sit there and look at me like I’m speaking Sumerian.

“Please leave,” I say, “I have work in the morning.”

“Tomorrow is Saturday,” says Adam.

I miss the old you.

“But I live here,” says Sarah.

This isn’t about you.

“This is an intervention,” says my mom.

I don’t have a problem.

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A POLITE REQUEST:

Hi,

If you like this story, please feel free to publish it on your website or blog; e-mail it to that old friend you no longer connect with or your grandmother with Alzheimer’s; make a movie or a stage production out of it. Write songs. Adapt it. Add more chapters. Nothing would make me happier. It’s licensed under Creative Commons CC-BY-SA, and all I ask is that you keep the work free and credit me as the original author — in that order.

Thank you and stay problem-free,

- A.

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FOOTNOTE:

- A huge thanks to Victoria for finding (and correcting) 17 spelling and grammatical errors including: a missing “s”, 2 unnecessary commas and 2 missing periods; an extra space; a lower-case “o” that should’ve been an upper case “O”; a “the” that should’ve been an “a”; and many more. Thank you once again Victoria. You’re awesome!

- SIX more from Victoria. This lady is a grammar-ninja!