Who would think getting a new job would be so stressful on the mind?  As I was driving to work, I couldn’t stop thinking about what all had come up in the past few days.  First, I get thrown into a job with a blunt woman that scares me from a look.  Then, she disappears and the goodness deep down in me is worried and wants to talk to someone I know scares me.  Finally, Rebecca starts getting in on the delusion that I’m getting shorter.   How did my life get so stressful and messed up in just a few days? 

I walked in the front door and expected to see no one at the front desk.  As I turned and went in I saw the chair turned towards the opposite wall and there was something odd about it.  I tried to focus my eyes on it as I walked, but it took some time to finally realize.  There was a coat hanging off the back of it.  A small slowly began to curl into a smile as I realized and reassured myself.  ‘I knew it’, I thought.  ‘I knew she was still here somewhere.’  As I walked closer to the chair, though, I realized it was still empty.  It almost disappointed me.  But there was some reassuring fact that she had used the chair.  Someone had, at least. 

The rest of the day seemed to fly by with much more comfort than the previous day.  My mind had been so worried about that crazy receptionist that just a coat on a chair was enough to brighten my spirits about the whole thing.  Without much time having gone by at all, my phone went off, signaling that it was time for me to go on my break.  I thought about going out to the lobby again to see if she was there, but the events prior had been enough for me.  So I just took a snack out of my bag and stayed in the office as I twiddled around on the computer. 

By the time lunch came, though, I ended up leaving the office.  I’d received an email about an hour previous from whom I assume to be the Doctor.  She said she wished to meet me for lunch again.  Being in the office for several hours straight had made me a bit tired from sitting all the time, so I’d accepted the invitation and headed to her lab right at the time. 

By the time I walked in and sat down, she already had a cup of tea ready for me, almost feeling like things were getting into tradition-status now.  Go to work.  Meet Doctor and have tea with lunch.  Go home.  As she sat me down and passed me the tea, she began discussions about our little “missing person case” from the day before.  “Sorry, but I wasn’t able to find her.  Maybe she just took yesterday off”, she said as I took my first sip of her tea. 

It took me a moment but I looked back to her and nodded, letting her know to stop looking.  “Don’t worry about it”, I said.  “When I came in today, I saw her coat on her chair so I’m sure she’s here somewhere.  I’ll run into her eventually.”  This was mostly to clear things up and get things off of the topic.  That woman had stressed me out by being missing, so as long as she was there, I didn’t need to focus that much on the topic of her.  We then proceeded to talk about a lot of different things as we ate.  Mostly the Doctor talking about her work and how she was originally a day shifter and requested to work nights. 

By the time I got up to leave, I had downed almost half the tea and stopped in front of the table.  For some reason, at that moment, I had thought of and remembered what Rebecca told me last night about being shorter.  “Excuse me, doctor, but can I ask you a question?  Can you stand up, please?”  She looked at me with an almost confused look on her face.  But, she proceeded to stand up and bring her petite form right in front of me, asking what I needed. 

“Well…” I began.  “Do I look any, well…shorter to you?  Compared to when we first met?”  My cheeks started to flush, realizing how ridiculous all of this sounded.  She looked equally embarrassed making a few hesitant sways as she listened to me.  After a moment, though, she placed her hand around my forehead and shook her head.  “No, I don’t think so.  Why…would you think you were shorter?  I’m not feeding you coffee or anything!”  She let out a laugh, clearly having been brought up with the same “Coffee Makes You Short” myth that I had. 

Still being drawn out, I continued.  “Well, last night, my girlfriend was sure that I looked shorter to her.  I’m not sure I believe her, but she sounded very serious.  So, I thought it couldn’t hurt to ask you since we’ve been meeting these past few days.”  She then stopped and looked me over.  She stepped back a moment and let out what sounded like a sigh.  “Oh.  You’re, uh…girlfriend….She thought that?  I see.  Is she, um, short?  Like me?”  She then looked back at me with an almost annoyed look in her face and I almost felt bad I’d even mentioned it. 

Both of us had a short moment of silence before she broke it, talking a little quicker about it.  “No, you don’t look any shorter!  So you just stop listening to whatever this…girlfriend, of yours is saying okay?  I think you look just as tall as you did the day we met!”  The way she talked was a little odd, but I just shrugged my shoulders and went back to the office…