You know you're in trouble when a co-worker comes up to you and asks "did you move my stickies?"  No matter how innocent this question sounds, remember:  the answer is always "NO. I DID NOT MOVE YOUR STICKIES."

The document had made the rounds, and had seven or eight stickies on it when it reached my desk.  I added two more of my own.  Did I move a stickie or two to make room? 

"I might have."  That's what I told him, with a little chuckle.

You cannot imagine the fit of wrath this wrought.  I thought, no, he can't be serious.  I'm being punk'd.  But it went on and on, and Aston Kutcher never popped out to punk me *sigh*.

And while the stickie mix-up was minor and easily remedied, when I offered to fix it, he kept going back to "but why would you move my stickies?  Anybody could see they were where they were for a reason!"

By the time I realized that the point was not really the documents, the project, or the stickies, but that I was a moron we were already too deeply embroiled.  All I can say is, if I were an idiot, he would have to be a bigger idiot to try and convince me of it.  For my part, it was easy enough to argue that he was being a grade-A, first-class asshole.

When finally he sputtered out and returned to his office down the hall I was like, wow, what was that about? 

One of my coworkers, who was around the corner listening to the whole thing, shouted: "tag, you're it!"

I was like, whuddya mean?

"He probably had a fight with his wife this morning, or something, left the house in a huff, and had to unload some of that excess anger and frustration on someone."

I'm like, well, now what do I do with it?

"You can either obsess about it, and go over the whole scene in your head endlessly, and plot a long-term revenge strategy, or you can just find someone to unload on too."

I'm like, gee, that doesn't seem fair.

"Well, have a good rest of the day obsessing then!"

And that's just what I did.  I plotted my revenge.  Sometimes it was just being sarcastic with him all the time, or ignoring him when he needed something from me, or moving his stickies whenever I could.  Other times it was walking down the hall and busting out some jujitsu on his ass. 

I had about two hours before leaving the office at this point, and I couldn't get a thing done.  I'd hear him down the hall laughing gaily, while now I was grumping and grousing because of him:  "that fucker tagged me.  I'll tag his ass.  I'll show him who's tagging who.  He thinks he tagged me!  He doesn't even know."

After work I rode my bike over to my garden.  By now I was chastising myself for letting him ruin the rest of my afternoon.  But this led to a vicious cycle:  "Ruin the rest of my day, will you?  You think you can just walk into my office and ruin my day, bitch? I'll ruin your day.  I'll ruin your life!  I'll rip your lungs out.  You'll be breathing from a tube.  You'll look like Stephen Hawking by the time I'm finished with you! You'll have to communicate by stickies for the rest of your life!"

Then I would lament how stickies, one of my most beloved office supplies, were now forever sullied with the memory of this unfortunate incident.  Never again would I carelessly adorn the pages of books I was reading, or decorate the edges of my computer monitor with little color-coded messages to myself — in pink and blue and neon green — and that indelible pale yellow.  Never again would I jot a post-it note to a coworker with "thx!" and a careless little smiley face.  Now, I knew, my smilies would seem a little more pensive.  It was the end of innocence.

Finally I said to myself, this is off the hook.  Just find someone to tag already.  Thankfully, a game was on and there were lots of folks out and about in the fenway, and traffic jams and taxis. A target-rich environment, as they say.  I barked at a couple taxis edging into the bike lane.  They barked back, but I didn't care. With each bark I felt myself returning to equilibrium. 

A feeling of peace descended on me.  I breathed a sigh of relief as I began plotting my revenge calmly.  It is, after all, a dish best served cold.  Like a stapler in a jell-o mold...