![1000008114.jpg](https://images.hive.blog/DQmcKPmovG54zugqV1FuG9iJ1scErmUrkryzrMBM9yqBv3w/1000008114.jpg)

*On you go.*

*Johnny Baw* the Security Guard ushered me past after staring at my security pass for about a minute as if he could see a map to getting out of his shitty job on it.

I made a *chubbling* farty noise with my lips as I went past. 

Another office day. A day spent in the company of *fanjanos* and bleaty fucking sheep people.

I got the lift and made my way to the hotdesk with my name on it. We had fought long and hard against the hot desking but lockdowns and home working had finally given the company the power they needed to crush everyone's souls by not even giving them a desk of their own to shit at.

Now we had to book a desk in the janky poorly coded, online booking system. 

This meant that no matter how you attempted to coordinate some good seating action with the few folk in the office you liked it rarely worked as everyone got shuffled around according to some arcane algorithm. 

I pulled up short next to the desk with my number on it and sat down looking to see what joyous company I had today. 

*Morning Morning Morning!*

Fuckity baws. It was *Campbell.* A flaccid buffoon who, like the soup, was anaemic and wet looking. 

*Mornin.*

I grunted handsomely.

More people filed into the office and sat down around us. Each and every one of them a nob.

I put my head down and tried to ignore the rancid wankery of Office politics and hoped the day would fly by.

*Hey! Are those new shoes?*

*Campbell* interrupted my freshly started Excel shenanigans.

*Huh? Oh yeah. Got them at the weekend.*

I lifted a foot and moved it from side to side to show off my fancy new trainers.
<sup><sup>I think you call them sneakers in the States... Why? Why so *sneaky* you have to have shoes named for it?</sup></sup>

*Fuck sake.*

*Campbell* shook his head and looked around the desks nearby us. he had a smirky grin on his face as if he had just picked up a shit and bit into it gambling that it might have been a *melty Snickers* and his gamble had paid off.

*I swear, mate. You spend more on shoes than my wife.*

He chuckled and bobbed his head around like a pigeon playing poker with Leonardo DiCaprio.

*That's because your wife is a Trout and they don't need shoes for their little fishy fins.*

I sniggered at the thought of his fishy wife attempting *footwear.*

*What? What did you say?*

*Campbell* jerked upright in his chair as if piloting a deep water submersible for rich tourists and hearing a strange cracking noise coming from the rear.

*I said your wife is a Trout.*

I kept my face straight and calm as I spoke in case he thought I was joking. 

*Who's wife? My wife!?!*

He seemed confused. I wondered if he was powered by AI.

*You can't go around calling my wife a trout?*

He held his hands out and stared at them then me in confusion as if he had just caught his wife's sister and was contemplating throwing her back in due to her small size.

*Why not? I've met her remember?*

Now it was my turn to smirk and I smirked it the best I could as if the famed secret council of Smirkians had just voted me in as President for a third term.

*Buh? Buh?*

*Campbell* looked bewildered and angry, like a dog who had just picked up a *melty Snickers* in its mouth in the hope that it was a shit only to find out that its gamble had not paid off.

*Boomy, stop tormenting the staff.*

*El-Jefe's* voice boomed out from a desk some three rows away. 

I opened my mouth as if to protest and then closed it. Like Campbell's wife when the water in her tank needed changing.

I checked my watch. 

Six hours left.

I looked over at *Campbell* and made a low *trouting* noise. 

*Fuck off.*

He mouthed back.

I smiled, the day lay ahead, bright with Trouty opportunities.