Book Spotlight: Golda’s Hutch

He noticed it immediately. As the woman at the lectern spoke, she prefaced each new tidbit of information with a soft monotonic “Okay” followed by a prolonged pause. He found that itself sufficiently irritating, but she also never quite finalized the offending word’s concluding diphthong, so it sounded more like “Okaah.”
Craig Schumacher closed his eyes and inhaled slowly. He was in the back row of the small room—its twelve plastic chairs facing the woman in front. He wondered if anyone else had observed the facilitator’s vexing semantic tic, and if they had, if they found it quite as annoying as he did.
He opened his eyes and looked around. As he expected, no one else appeared particularly bothe Craig tried to ignore the woman’s voice, and instead studied her visually as she spoke. She was very pretty—with a svelte, wispy frame of the sort that had become so trendy.
Craig acknowledged that such women were certainly nice to look at in a hazy mesmerizing sort of way—but for him, they inevitably conjured up a frail and hesitant aura—not at all sexually arousing. He needed strong, robust, assertive women for that. Preferably tall and big-boned—but a more petite woman with an especially powerful personality could obviate his need for that specific anatomical preference. He realized his mind was wandering.
He looked away and gathered himself for a moment, then shook his head and flashed a barely discernible self-admonishing grimace. Judge her as a person…she’s trying her best… she seems like a sweet woman…maybe she’s new to all this…give her a chance…Part of him was concerned that his peers might observe a supercilious facial expression he let slip, and use that to affirm a negative impression they might already have formed.
But more important was his sincere aspiration to dwell permanently in the side of him that was gentle, ethical, and compassionate—especially with respect to his treatment of his staff—or people performing a service for him or his department.
He believed that the associates with whom he worked most closely knew him to internalize and manifest those qualities at all times, and he was gratified that they did. The problem was this place.
Craig was certain of it. This situation. Being thrust into these oppressive, artificially concocted days of captive bonding exercises—anathema and useless for a shy introvert. It rendered his higher-self moribund, while it unshackled his derisive dark side.
He reminded himself that while his shadow certainly needed to be restrained, it was far better if it could be refocused positively, rather than just willfully suppressed. But how exactly to accomplish that was not always immediately evident.
Craig realized he was again losing himself in thought. He endeavored to refocus.

Golden Hutch