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The office was tight. Two desks jammed into the end of a little office trailer, with a cubicle divider between them. I had the desk on the North side, and Larry got the luxurious south side of this paradise box. We were pumping out paperwork faster than a Mcdonald’s drive-through window spits out fries.
Then they brought in the new guy, and put yet another desk in, on my side of the partition. Now I had to share my workspace with Ryan. That made three of us jammed in the end of the building.
I didn’t like Ryan. Have you ever met a know-it-all who has to one-up you all the time? He was in his late twenties but already had 60 years' worth of life experience. No matter what you did, he already did it better.
His stories were longer. His wins were bigger. His mouth was louder. A lot of people didn’t like the way he came across. He wasn’t making any friends by playing the bigshot.
But Larry and him got along great.
Larry started taking him under his wing with a tough-love approach that showed he cared about the guy. “He just needs a little direction, I’ll get him squared up,” Larry told me.
Rammy Ryan
There was nothing easy about this Guy. Every move was a rough slam: He closed doors hard, hammered on the keyboard, and squeezed that mouse as if it owed him money. Ryan tried to jam life into a box it didn’t fit in, head first and ass up.
One afternoon, Ryan was smashing his way back into the office after some field checks on the construction project. He sat down hard on that office chair. Ryan let out a funny noise, sorta like a dog’s squeaky toy. Then he jumped back up and left without saying a word.
I kept working away, wondering where Ryan ran off to. after about 15 minutes the door quietly opened and he entered the room. He looked stressed. As he tried to sit down, he groaned and then stood, leaning on his desk.
Rachael Behind the Divider
We had an intern, Rachael, learning the ropes of the operation. Ryan was, let’s say, too interested in Rachael. Almost obsessed. So, of course, she wanted nothing to do with him.
As fate would have it, she was on the other side of our divider, getting some input on a project from Larry.
You know how cubicles are. You can’t see over the divider, and the way the office was set up, you had to go stand over by our little coffee area to see Larry’s kingdom. That’s where I headed, to make myself a cup of tea.
Rachael was sitting in a spare chair with Larry going over a spreadsheet on his three-screen kingdom.
When Ryan came in, he had no idea she was hiding back there.
Ryan trusted Larry. As he stood there leaning on his desk, it looked like he didn’t know what to do. He glanced at me, but I just looked back, waiting. The guy always tried to lord it over me, so I didn’t have much sympathy.
He musta decided he had to confide in someone.
Ryan Tells a Sad Tale
“Larry, are you over there?”
“Yeah, what’s up, Ryan?”
“I got a problem.”
“Yeah, what, spill it, man. I’m busy here.”
“I think I crushed one of my balls… it hurts pretty bad, and it’s swelling up.”
There was a moment of silence.
“Larry said, “Are you sure, man? How could you crush your own balls?”
“So I sat down too hard in the chair, and I just landed on them with my leg, I guess.”
“Frack, Ryan, how low do they hang? You’re still young! They shouldn’t be dangling yet,” Larry said.
From the coffee station, I could see Rachael had her hands over her mouth, trying to hold it in. She was changing color and starting to shudder. Any second now.
“I don’t know, but I checked in the bathroom and one of my balls is huge!”
“Bwahahahahaha!” Rachael jumped up and ran out of the office, still holding her hand over her mouth. The door slammed shut behind her.
“Hahaha!” I couldn’t help it. A laugh burst out of me like a happy bird flying away chirping.
Ryan Goes to the Medic
After Ryan realized that Rachael had heard the whole thing, his soul was crushed too. He looked a little green as he stood there, obviously in physical and emotional pain.
“Larry, what do I do?” he whined.
“Well, you injured yourself at work, so you have to go to the medic, right? You gotta get this on record, in case there are long-term issues.”
“I don’t want to tell everyone I sat down and crushed my balls, though.”
“You got no choice, man. You have to get our supervisor and the safety dude and go to the medic. Then they gotta fill out an incident report and let the client know.”
“Frack!”
Eventually, we convinced him he needed medical attention. We took him to the next office trailer. Ryan was limping and unable to walk without crouching a bit. He was a mess.
After he told the safety guy and the superintendent, I thought the laughing would never stop.
“Let me get this straight,” Safety-dude Dwight said as he wiped away tears. You crushed your own balls by sitting down too hard? Swingin’ a little low?”
They got him over to the medic. She decided on a hands-off approach and didn’t administer first aid. But she wanted him to go to town and get looked at by a doctor — just in case.
So Ryan carefully slipped into a company truck and safety dude Dwight drove him to town.
Larry Orders Sporting Goods
Later that day, Larry got a text. Ryan was gonna be okay. The doctor diagnosed him with Minor Testicular Torsion and/ or impact. In other words, he slightly twisted his balls and roughed them up a bit. He was gonna be fine.
So Larry gave him a call while Ryan was still in town.
“That’s great news, Ryan. You get those painkillers in you and get back to work! But since you’re near civilization, can you pick me up something?”
“Sure, Larry. Whaddya need?”
“The rec area up here is missing some equipment. If you pick it up for me at the SportChek store, I’ll pay you back.”
“Okay, I can go over there for you.”
“Great! So they’ve got racquets, but I need one more thing before I can play this one game.”
“Yeah, what?”
“Squash balls.”
“You dirty Dog! Screw you,” Ryan yelled as he hung up.
The Super Supper Video
Larry was nothing if not merciless when he knew you could take a joke. So that night at supper, he assembled an impressive cast of food characters on his plate and staged a video. Rachael and I couldn’t figure out what he was up to at first.
The cafeteria had a wide variety of nearly edible things. Larry grabbed a fry, a mushroom, and two chicken balls. Then he assembled his little project, and used his phone to film a 7-second masterpiece of chicken ball crushing. He sent it to Ryan to show his support for the injured worker.
Larry’s Ouch My Balls Video
https://youtube.com/shorts/4EjSngDnA_0?feature=share