HE HAS PUT ASIDE ALL WORK TO PONDER THE PAGE
HE IS ROTATING BACK AND FORTH IN HIS CHAIR, SHEET IN ONE HAND, MARKER IN THE OTHER, DEEP IN CONTEMPLATION
"i didn't even notice it...."
"?"
"look at this! 7/9? 10/22? they put the saddle, and then the guy... I didn't even notice it! did you?"
"i didn't notice all that, no!"
"i know it's not you, now. huh. goddamn."
i can barely make out their words.. something about the camels, and retirement, and pension
"no fun!"
"...."
"all I know is that horse is mine! taking it with me!"
"-inaudible-"
"taking it with me!"
"that's a good retirement gift right there, it is"
"not giving them the chance! not-"
"yeah, that'll-"
"-inaudible-"
"--make the announcement, then maybe--"
"All I know is that'll maybe force the situation, working from home all the time"
"somebody knows! somebody knows!!"
i know he's planning to go on vacation for the next two weeks, but maybe he plans to work from home full-time next year until retirement ... and he thinks somebody is gonna take the horse back while he's on vacation
LITTLE DOES HE KNOW
THERE'S TWO MORE HORSES
AWAITING
"who was standing by my cube today?"
"nobody!"
me: "carlos came by"
"CARLOS CAME BY???"
"Carlos came by! He was here!"
"IT'S CARLOS. ITS GOTTA BE."
"WE GOT THE SUSPECT"
"so look, here's today's horse. so the thing is, i got the plain horse in july.... but then..."
"HE'S BEEN DOING THIS THE WHOLE TIME!??"
"YEP. YEP."
"you know, i THOUGHT that looked different... i didn't remember the little guy on there..."
"i THOUGHT it was Tom, but he was at lunch WITH me today, and i got horsed!"
"it's CARLOS. he's always in town on wednesdays for that meeting..."
"this is every TUESDAY though"
"is it? i thought it was wednesday"
"nope! nope! every tuesday. it's like a... pre-humpday."
"maybe he's in early for that meeting?"
"I dunno, I dunno. Now we gotta go back and check if Carlos was in town on these months..."
"i'm telling you, we got him. we got him. the suspect has been caught."
it is all i can do to face away from them and hide my laughter right now oh my god
focusing on transcribing their S-tier detective work is the only thing keeping me from cackling like an insane banshee
i'm so hungry
i think he only accused me earlier to see if I'd crack and give away the game
BUT MY PROFESSIONALISM IS BEYOND REPROACH, GOOD SIR
I TAKE GREAT PRIDE IN THIS, THE ONLY WORK I PUT ANY EFFORT INTO,
"CARLOS. ____. he was here last tuesday, he was here today. Horse."
"it's him!"
"did you notice the horse changes???"
"oh my god"
"no saddle. not even the saddle!"
"this note shows up."
"have you perchance checked the date recently! i'm not following"
"guess what DAY it is"
"and then HE shows up (rider?)"
"7/19 the horse, 10/22.... So the person who was doing this took the time to take pictures historically...
"CARLOS."
"that horse is mine! it's coming down to my house after i retire"
"i SWORE it was Troy, lying to me, but NAH, it's CARLOS."
......
......
"now CARLOS is saying it's YOU."
"he's lying. he's lying. where would i get a horse from??"
"hell yeah he's lying. it's fuckin him -laughing-"
"Carlos is going to the iron throne!!! (???)"
"he's so full of shit. we got him. we got him."
THE TRIBUNAL IS IN FULL SWING
"well Carlos says it ain't him. so SOMEbody's LYIN."
"he was here last tuesday, he was here today! Tom was at lunch with you... it sure as hell ain't me. it's carlos!"
"he's mad about getting pranked all the time and this is his attempt at retribution"
"i still can't believe the saddle wasn't there...."
🚨 THE TRIBUNAL HAS DISCOVERED THE EXISTENCE OF SANDWICHES IN THE BREAK ROOM 🚨
THEY ARE SOON TO DEPART, ON A MISSION TO, "CHECK OUT THE GOODS"
NOW IS MY CHANCE TO FIND WHAT HE WAS WRITING WITH THAT MARKER
they haven't left yet
"...yeah, see, this one came with a message that 'i ain't all that observant', pictures of all the horsings"
"yeeeehaw, pardner..."
"the whole damned time. the whole damned time."
"i can't believe he's pulled this off so far"
"WE GOT HIM NOW, WE GOT HIM NOW"
"of course it was Carlos the whole time, of course it was"
THE FIRST ONE HAS PEELED AWAY TOWARDS THE SANDWICHES
IS IT TIME???
LOCKED AND LOADED FOR WHEN HE RETURNS IN JANUARY
LOCKED 🐎
AND 🐎
LOADED 🐎
our team's holiday lunch is tomorrow
Carlos previously declined the meeting
BUT, I JUST CHECKED, AND HE'S SINCE REVERSED AND ACCEPTED IT
WE'RE IN FOR A BUMPY ROAD TOMORROW FOLKS
I MIGHT GET RUMBLED
"okay so back in July, this horse is sitting here. Without the girl or the saddle. No explanation."
"no saddle?"
"and then on Wednesdays, I put up these signs... Humpday."
"and then THESE started showing up. have you perchance checked the DATE. guess what day it is. perhaps you missed it. and then THIS ONE shows up."
"hmmm"
"yeehaw partner, guess ya ain't all that observant. they took the TIME to take pictures every time..."
"oh my god"
"i REALLY thought it was Tom. But it ain't."
"Yeah that smells like Tom"
"he was at lunch with me!"
"he's got an accomplice. hey Tom, you got an accomplice?"
"they talking shit about you back here Tom!"
"Carlos is still denying it??"
"yeah he's blaming it on ME."
"he's blaming it on Steve"
"still denying it. Just remember y'all, one day you're gonna get CAUGHT."
"well i ain't have to worry about that"
"what's gonna happen when you go on vacation? they gotta do something big"
"Tom's gonna send a real horse to your fuckin house"
"you needa set up a camera to record them"
"I did!! I did!! I've got my tablet set up with a timelapse to watch! but i didn't put it up today! i didn't put it up today and i got HORSED."
"doesn't matter. we know it's carlos. just a matter of time now."
"i'm TAKING this horse home with me. he ain't gettin this thing back. nuh uh. no way. it's MINE now."
"it's a pretty nice horse actually yeah"
"wait, is the rider a girl?"
"yup! yup!"
"oh damn i never even noticed that..."
"Carlos..."
"yep"
"Denying?"
"Yep! Says it's Steve."
"he's in town all week, huh, cause he's going to lunch with us!"
"yyyyyep!"
"we'll break him down tomorrow. we'll get it out of him"
"tell him we dusted the hoofprints. tell him he left the EVIDENCE behind. he'll fall for it."
AAAAAAAAAAAA TOMORROW IS GONNA BE ROUGH I KNEW IT
the fact that they've been discussing this nonstop for the last 2 hours with anyone who happens to wander past tells you exactly how much work gets done in this place
i think next time i'll have to stay late on a monday, and leave the payload there after everyone else goes home -- he's never here on mondays, only one of them is
i'll miss the initial reaction but i'll get him discussing it with the others all day once i'm here
HMMMM
plenty of time to plan it out, at any rate
THE NEXT HORSEDAY OPERATION WON'T BE TIL JANUARY 7TH, DUE TO HOLIDAY INTERFERENCE
MARK YOUR CALENDARS, FOLKS
HAPPY FUCKIN HORSEDAY Y'ALL
OVER AND OUT, HOOOOOO RAH
the horses are a frequent topic of conversation at every team meeting
he suspects everyone around him
all of them suspect someone named Brent who works on a different floor
very little suspicion is directed at me
jokes about Carlos doodling horses in his notebook are common, and expected, but i don't think anyone seriously suspects him at this point (they probably grilled him yesterday morning)
we all know where he lives, so he says he's expecting a severed horse head on his doorstop while he's on vacation
🚨 HAPPY CRIMBUS Y'ALL 🚨
i snuck into the dark creepy building with no power on xmas for this
HOO RAH
walking up unpowered escalators is fuckin creepy in a dark ass lobby btw
i went back again folks
🐎🐎🐎 HOWDY CHRISTMAS AND A CLOPPY NEW YEAR 🐎🐎🐎
(
)
the sad thing is
he's gonna get back to work on the 6th
unaware that horseday shenanigans have happened on both holiday Tuesdays
and he's gonna get in at like 5 or 6 AM like the lunatic that he is
so we don't get to witness his initial reaction to any of it
i'm at a cracker barrel and i'm quite certain that my co-worker could use a nice candle to brighten up his desk
"you got any horse stuff?"
me: "probably not, eh? no one's been here for three weeks"
"yep. yep. remember my note? 'leave cash next time'? they left THIS."
"...where do you even get stuff like that?"
"i have no idea. no clue."
"amazon?"
"and they bought me a $20 book too! somebody's willing to spend MONEY on this prank."
"the perfect horse..." (he snorts loudly)
me: "is that a note?"
"yep. yep."
"handwriting. that's evidence!"
me: "you gotta compare that to people's handwriting around here"
"looks like a lady's handwriting to me... dudes don't write like that. look at the a's. right zoey?"
me: "yeah, looks like it. don't recognize it though"
"yeah exactly, no one writes shit these days, it's all electronic. this doesn't help"
"i bet it's Donna."
(skeptical, pointing) "Donna???"
"no, not that Donna, prankster Donna."
"hmmmm. yeah, maybe. i dunno when she's even been up here though."
"i still say it's Carlos."
i had Lux write the note (@dubsteppenwolf) and she intentionally wrote differently and carefully, he'll never find someone to compare it to cuz it's written by someone he's never met
lol
godsdamnit i just heard him shouting "DONNA. DONNA." and realized that the big heated discussion for the last hour I've been ignoring with headphones switched from work to horses at some point and i missed it
woops
they're talking about the horses
"[...] heck, i was a little disappointed yesterday, when nothing appeared. i was waiting for it. waiting for it."
"it *was* tuesday"
"yep. yep. somehow someway donna or brian know i'm onto them. i ain't stressed about it, don't bother me none."
"well *I* think it's Brent."
"Brent?"
"Brent."
"it couldn't be! here, look at this handwriting. you think *that's* from *Brent*???"
"hrmmm."
"why didn't i get horsed yesterday? i swear they know when i have the camera up and they don't come anywhere near here. they know."
"but how could they know?"
"cuz one of YOU are an ACCOMPLICE."
laughter all around
OH GOD HE FOUND IT IMMEDIATELY I CAN HEAR THE WRAPPING PAPER CRINKLING
I CAN HEAR LOTS OF CRINKLING AND LOTS OF TEXT MESSAGING
THE TEXTS HAVE NOT STOPPED
HE HAS NOT APPROACHED
I HAVE PUT IN EARBUDS AND HAVE A SCREENSHOT OF A CONFERENCE CALL ON MY SCREEN SO THAT HE BELIEVES I'VE BEEN BUSY THIS WHOLE TIME
I HAVE NOT CHANCED EVEN THE SLIGHTEST OF GLANCES BEHIND ME
WHO IS HE TEXTING? WHAT ARE THEY REPLYING? I AM TYPING GIBBERISH INTO NOTEPAD BETWEEN POSTING THESE UPDATES BECAUSE I AM A DILIGENT EMPLOYEE WHO CARES VERY MUCH ABOUT HER WORK AND HAS NO TIME FOR "PRANKS"
to be honest i don't really have a clue what i'm supposed to be doing right now or most days
do i have tasks today? i sure as fuck don't know, and no one else seems to know either
what do i do here? what even is an office? who the fuck knows
HE MOVED IT TO THE FRONT OF HIS DESK AT SOME POINT
THE TEXTS CONTINUE, UNABATED
HE DIDNT UNWRAP IT??? WHAT WAS ALL THAT CRINKLING????? WAS HE SEARCHING FOR CLUES? DID I LEAVE A LONGASS ZOEYHAIR AT THE SCENE OF THE CRIME????
I don't think I mentioned this in the thread earlier, but they found one of my hairs a month ago when I added the rider to the horse
my hair goes down to my waist, it's incredibly long, and the single black hair they found was about 4 feet long .... YYYYYEP THAT'S ME
this is when they had formed The Tribunal and these donkeys immediately ruled me out because "WELL THE HAIR'S NOT RED, SO IT CAN'T HAVE COME FROM ZOEY" because they have zero idea how hair works (to be fair, most of them don't have much hair left i guess)
they instead starting teasing the target "EY YOU BEEN HAVIN GIRLS COMING OVER TO YOUR CUBE BUD?"
i sat over here in disbelief the entire time
oh i forgot the picture to accompany the entry before last! Here You Go
anyway how they came to the conclusion that 100% of my hair is dyed red when i very obviously and very intentionally did a black and red thing, and was sitting RIGHT HERE IN EYESIGHT WITH PLENTY OF BLACK HAIR, continues to be beyond me
they've never brought it up again
they all immediately wrote it off and forgot
OKAY WHO IS TEXTING HIM, WHO IS HE TEXTING, WHAT ARE THEY PLOTTING, WHAT ARE THEY SAYING?????? THE TEXTS STILL HAVE NOT STOPPED
IS HE IN A HORSE DETECTIVE GROUP CHAT??????????
OKAY GANG WE'RE SAFE
he just called me over to show me the candle
he has no idea that it was only there for like 47 seconds before he found it, he rarely pays attention to that shelf but went for a salt shaker to put on some eggs and went "AH SON OF A BITCH" when he immediately noticed the lurking horse
he doesn't know whether it showed up last week or today
"IT CONTINUES"
me: "where the hell do you even get a horsehead candle???"
"I DUNNO, I DUNNO. -laughing- look at this damned thing"
🚨 TARGET LOCKED 🚨
ONCE PER MONTH, THE HORSE WILL BECOME INCREASINGLY LARGER, CLOSER TO THE FOREGROUND, WITH THE PEACEFUL MEADOW GRADUALLY INCREASING IN CORRUPTION
here is a rough mock-up of the planned payloads (NOT FINAL DRAFTS!!!), sans background corruption fuckery
PAGE ??? OF ??? (the finale) will be a gruesome sight to behold, and its appearance will herald the arrival of ADDITIONAL HORSE FIGURINES
the target has returned from lunch, and is sitting in his desk. the HORSE PAYLOAD is two inches behind him.
fairly certain he has not noticed its presence
i think he noticed it while i was in the bathroom
he's convinced that this was the work of "Donna", who apparently came by earlier
i made sure to run a horseday operation today because Carlos (his former prime suspect) and Brent (his other prime suspect) had both been in town and around the office yesterday... but i think i inadvertently cleared Carlos, as he's working across town today. woop
it was gonna be one page per week and the escalations were gonna be super gradual but i'm going on vacation in 2 weeks and my dad refused to be my accomplice for an AIRTIGHT ALIBI of horse sightings occurring while i'm on the other end of the country
so
once per month is the only non-suspicious plot i can go with
@killeveryhetero is the jig up???
@killeveryhetero GET INTO THE HORSE DETECTIVE GROUP CHAT
@killeveryhetero it's gonna escalate to the point where you're gonna need like a pinup horse calendar soon
@wobin fuck there's no way this doesn't already exist
i could pin it to his cube wall behind his monitors
@killeveryhetero @wobin I feel like a horse calendar would be topical, given the connection to Day Of The Week that started all this...
@infernusgoatus @killeveryhetero oh god, you could -highlight- each Horseday with a sharpie
@wobin @infernusgoatus horse and star stickers
@wobin @killeveryhetero HAHA I was literally in the middle of typing a follow-up saying, "Bonus points if you go through and circle every Tuesday."
@killeveryhetero UGH the airtight accomplice thing wouldve been so GOOD
@killeveryhetero Clearly your company's best people
@killeveryhetero screenshot of a conference call?! You're a criminal mastermind
@killeveryhetero this has to be one of the best threads on fedi holy shit
oh god he's back already that was way too close