When you're ready Tony...

So you're at work and you sit next to a bloke who keeps mithering on about how he wants to retire and at some point in the past he's told you that he's going soon and that you can have his chair when he's gone.

And thats quite a big deal to you because in the office hierachy he's got the best and newest chair, the cup that he keeps his pencils in is better than yours is and you've got your eye on his waste paper bin too because it doesn't smell of sour milk like yours does since that day you threw away a McDonalds milkshake thinking it was finished whereas in fact it was only frozen hard in the bottom.

So all year long you've put up with his sighs as he sits down in a morning and his gentle moan "not long now" as he sits down every morning, and the way he crosses off each date with glee on the calendar every morning and you really thought that by now he'd be gone and you'd have the chair, the pencil cup and the non-milky bin.

So for the last seven days you've been pushing him, gently at first , just prods really, you started last week with "Not long now eh ?" but all he said was "No you're right", so the next day you tried " Be putting your feet up soon eh ?" and he just gave a non-committal "Aye", and on Friday you pointed out that he'd be having a good lie-in very soon now, no more number 19 bus to catch at 8.16 every morning, but he just smiled at you.

So this week you got a little bit more serious, involved some of the other office dwellers, got them to nag him a bit to try and prise a retirement date out of him, he was having none of it, just smiled at them and said "Aye, not long now".

So yesterday you waited at the lift door down in the entrance lobby and as he arrived you held the lift door for him and then shoved that fat Mrs Workington out of the way when she tried to get into your lift, telling her "its full" when in fact there was only you and your non-retiring collegue in there, and as the lift door closed and started its ascent you grabbed him around the throat and told him in no uncertain terms that if he didn't step aside very soon, like possibly next week very soon, even this Friday very soon, then you'd be tempted, sorely tempted to open the office window and howk him out yourself, laughing as he fell, all fourteen floors worth of laughter.

He stared at you with saucepan eyes and promised that he'd make a statement to your boss tomorrow and you released your grip and nodded in agreement, that would be a good course of action you assured him as you straightened his collar and tie.

And today when he arrived at work he went straight into the bosses office and spent a half an hour in there talking to him, then came out and went straight to the photocopy room and while he was in there your boss came out and said that he had something to announce to the room.

At last you thought, at last you get to see the back of your miserable bas'tad of a colleague, he's off, he's retiring, and you shuffled a little closer to his desk so that you could have first dibs at his chair.

"As you know" your boss had started, "Tony has been talking for some time about his retirement" and you all nodded your heads in a tired acknowledgement of the fact, "and this morning we've been discussing a date for that retirement...."

This was it, here it comes, he's got to go now, no later than tonight, the weekend at the very latest, and you reach out and take a hold of the arm of his chair so as to drag it towards you as soon as the boss finishes his speech.

"...and we've concluded that the best time for Tony to step down and retire is ..."

Yes, yes, come on man, out with it ...

"...is sometime in the next year"

What ????

"...or so..."

Or so ???

"...thank you for listening"

And you find yourself searching in your desk for a key to the window in the corner...