Hotdog waffles and the Mafia

Because of the increasing tardiness in our department, me and my officemates came to an agreement one day while we were having a meeting a couple of months ago. I don’t exactly remember who it was, but one of my officemates suggested that from then on, the person who would accumulate the most number of lates at the end of the week should be made to buy the whole department some hotdog waffles. We all roared in laughter, and agreed. It was, after all, for the good of the whole team. And besides, who wouldn’t want a free hotdog waffle at that?

After the end of the first work week, we had a waffle-buyer. We had all expected her to buy us the waffles that Friday, but for some reason, she didn’t. Monday came, and still we didn’t have the waffles. A few days later, after a minor argument with another officemate and much prodding, she finally bought the waffles she owed us.

The next waffle buyers after her didn’t need prodding or cajoling, thank God. I think we had three straight Fridays wherein we munched happily on waffles during our afternoon break. I washed down mine with office espresso (my own personal recipe) or some black tea or just plain water. Life was good. The waffles were even better.

Then, for some reason, the waffle-buying stopped. One, two, three—five people owed us waffles. And again, it took some arguments and some trading of minor insults before the five of them finally shelled-out some money. This time, we didn’t have waffles— all five of them chipped in and bought us some food from McDonald’s. We relished the food, but, for some reason, it left a bad taste in my mouth.

I couldn’t understand why some people should need to be prodded, insulted, or forced just to abide by a certain pact. One of them even said that she’d only buy her share after the others have bought theirs. Why this attitude of waiting for other people before giving your share? Why do some people find it difficult to go by the natural order of things?

While munching on my cheeseburger, I joked to one of my colleagues that if these guys were members of the Mafia, they would be at the bottom of some river by now, bound, gagged, and weighed down by a bucket filled with hard concrete. He chimed in that if they were members of the Yakuza, they would be missing their pinkies by now, or worse, their heads. We laughed aloud mirthfully.

They should be mighty glad that Don Vito Corleone only exists in Mario Puzo novels.