The Intern and the Candy Jar

We have an intern here at my thankless day job who’s probably one of the more stunningly beautiful women I’ve ever seen. Tall, with thick dark hair, and a body that defies genetics. No accident of birth here, this woman’s body was devised by an advanced, time travelling AI using nimble factory robots from a thousand years in our future. She’s a construct, and I want her. But, even knowing her android nature, I’m unable to talk to her.

This is largely because my trousers are always stuffed full of candy.

The only time we cross paths is in the breakroom, where she’s usually preparing her healthy lunches and I’m always taking whatever junk food is in the communal bucket.

One thing I haven’t been able to shake since college is a twisted hunter-gatherer survival compulsion. Living in the dorms without enough money to do anything, I was on a limited meal plan that ended with breakfast on Saturday and didn’t pick up again till Monday morning. My habit was to stock up on supplies Saturday morning and live off of bread, fruit, and water each weekend. If I wanted coffee, or a soda, it meant sacrificing coins from the laundry fund.

At parties, I would fill my pockets with finger food. There were nights where I walked home with pockets full of turkey, ham, and cheese, more giddy than someone who had just found a chest of gold.

Now, when someone leaves out communal food, I still give in to the impulse. Candy, boxes of crackers, cookies… I’ll stuff my pockets, shamefully glancing around to make sure my gluttony isn’t witnessed, then go back to my desk and horde my treasure.

But then there’s this uber-hot intern, who must have planted a tracking device on me because she always glides into the breakroom just as I’ve finished stuffing my pockets.

I’ll freeze, mumble something to her in a gibbering, dead language, then stare with glazed eyes as she goes about her business. Even the slightest movement sets off a chorus of plastic wrappers and sheaves of crackers, so I try to stand as still as possible. To me, when I move, it sounds like I’m wearing a big, crinkly diaper. I’m certain that’s what her first thought would be. Or, perhaps, she’d figure out that my pockets are stuffed with junk food and she’d judge me based on that. Either way, my tactic is to stand still and hope that she’s like a T Rex and not able to see me unless I make a run for it.

For her part, she’s a cold and distant woman. That might be for the best, because getting embroiled in a conversation and sounding like I’m wearing a diaper just doesn’t work for me.

Once she leaves, I stiffly walk back to my desk, trying not to crinkle too much as I pass by the cubicles of my fellow indentured servants.

My awkwardness and outright fear of the intern is soon becalmed by Jolly Ranchers, or tasty crackers, or whatever unhealthy treasure I have stuffed down my pants.