Cartoon coworkers

This is my last week at the Visitor and Convention Bureau. Sniff, sniff. It has been a great job. I love my boss, and I wish I could fold her up, stick her in my pocket and take her with me to my future jobs. (She is so tiny, I could almost do that. Slender-tiny, not midget-tiny.)

I am going to miss a lot about this job. But you know what I'll miss most? Two coworkers who have unknowingly entertained me on a daily basis. Until a few weeks ago, their identities were a mystery to me. They were nothing but disembodied voices.

These voices belong to two ladies who work on the other side of my cubicle. Together they run the operation of a big summer festival in town.

My "relationship" with the women began one morning, when I was the first person to arrive in the office -- or so I thought, until I flipped on the lightswitch. In doing so, I accidentally hit the wrong switch and turned off one row of lights. From the other side of the office, a gravelly voice erupted: "HEY WAIT A MINUTE! TURN THAT ON!"

Not only was I startled and embarrassed by this outburst (being a new employee), I was extremely alarmed by the voice, which sounded like it was the product of several thousand cartons of cigarettes. I continued to hear this voice everyday, engaged in abrasive phone conversations, office banter, etc. I grew to fear that gravelly, disembodied voice.

A few weeks after the lightswitch incident, a new voice came on the scene. This one was even more gravelly, with mannerisms just as abrasive. But my fear turned to a peculiar fondness as I came to look forward to daily conversations like this (for the full effect, must be spoken outloud, in a deep, hoarse voice):

"Hey Jan, you know what time it is?"
"No, what time?"
"PUFF TIME!"
"Let's go!"

Seems I had been working next to Marge Simpson's twin sisters for well over a month. I became convinced that if I peeked over the cubicle wall, I'd see two cartoon characters, Patty and Selma Bouvier, smoking, side by side.

It's only been in the past few weeks that I've actually seen the bodies that match the voices. They are not cartoon characters at all. But one of them does bear a striking resemblance to a certain boss I once had at the CAM, who was a little cartoonish herself. (Incidentally, she was not small enough to fit in my pocket.)