Blaarrrp!

A client was coming to visit our office. A British bloke, he had taken up our project very recently and was scheduled to visit his off-shore offices to check how the work was progressing here. Project excel sheets, slideshows were prepared, a cube identified for the man to come and sit right beside the manager (to shield us poor developers, that is) and the general mood of the whole project team shifted into a jumpy gear with the singular objective of getting the guy to be a little happy. Besides, with the client visit, there was definitely a party happening down the line: so the general mood was upbeat.

Along came the spider... err, sorry... the client. Hairy and bearded dude, this man seemed to have a permanent scowl on his face. Our team had been doing better than the other teams at other global locations, but still there seemed to be this nagging dis-satisfaction on his face about everything. We had the regular client meeting, and our manager here introduced him and gave a general overview of the team. This man was sweating continuously as though someone had a gun at his head all the time. When his turn to speak came, you could almost see the misery in his face, and somehow that translated into a really jarred voice and a foul temper. Thickset glasses, dishevelled and stubbly beard with a coat that he had to wear because of his "business" status made a totally hairy appearance: nothing short of Hagrid's spiders.

The man had brought along some weird PPT (I think he was recycling an age-old PPT anyway), and so half of what he said made little sense to us. Who was interested in that blabber anyway? We were rather looking forward to the mmmmmm-ing pizzas whose smell was floating in from the corridor outside. When he finally finished, the atmosphere of the room wasn't exactly a cheerful one: like you had one of those Dementors nearby that had sucked all happiness out of the room (no points for guessing who, though! :P). And boy did those spicy chicken tikka pizzas make the man's face contort!! We had huddled into groups and were talking in hushed tones, somehow the man's overall body language had intimidated us!

Food was quickly over, since the usual chatterboxes were silent. I went into the men's restroom to wash my hands and contribute some liquid to mother earth when I saw my friend S there. A brief nod, and we got busy with our jobs --- men's restroom golden rule: don't make a single noise or utter any word. I was almost done and zipping up when guess who walks in? Hairy-man!! Oomph, that ugly look from his eyes as he went into the comode stall made me want to slink away as soon as possible! Why the hell could I not get another project? S too seemed to be having similar thoughts as he finished drying his hands.

I was about to dry my hands and S was headed towards the door when it happened. A monstrous, upheaving, thunderous "blaarrrp" sound came from the stall where the magical creature (errmm... I mean the client) had disappeared. It was a combination of a downward windburst, a sudden explosive dumping of semi-solid material into water and a belch. And add to that the acute cry of "Aaaargggh" that the man had shouted from the stall --- S and I were flummoxed as we looked at each other. And that bugger S, without a single care of the world burst out laughing right in the middle of the restroom, after which that &$#**% ran out!! And the laughter was so infectious... I stood there with water dripping from my hands while I desperately tried to control my laughter: going "Hmmp, khee khee khee... hmmmppp..." and I too ran away from the loo as fast as my legs could carry me! I ran and ran, straight on to the project bay!! And there S and I laughed our guts out. It took us 15 minutes to settle down properly before we could narrate that incident to the others. Apparently when our manager was told this and he went for another session of meetings with this Spider-Man, he had a tough time keeping a straight face. Thank God we didn't come face to face with this hairy "blaarrp" beast again --- I would've totally lost it!! :D :D