"Joe."

"Ms. Harris?" asked Joe, turning around with a sour look on his face. There she was, the non-believer, standing in the entrance to his cubicle. What timing—dorito had just responded to his comment. He wanted to read the response, and now he was being drawn away. Stupid Harris just got in the way of everything.

"How are you this evening?" his boss inquired.

"Just fine," replied Joe, itching to get back to his computer.

"That's great," Ms. Harris said with an affectation of relief. "I wanted to discuss something with you, Joe. Do you have a second?"

"Don't I always?" asked Joe, referring to times in previous weeks when Ms. Harris had berated him for being a slacker.

Ms. Harris sighed.

"Yes, Joe, okay. Look, your attitude the other day—"

"Is something wrong with my attitude?" Joe snapped.

"Y—"

"Is there?" 

"Yes, Joe."

"What?"

"What do you mean, 'what,' Joe?"

"What's wrong with my attitude?"

Flabbergasted, Harris turned around and walked away from the cubicle. Joe snorted victoriously. <i>See who has the attitude problem now, stupid woman.</i> Joe wasn't afraid of getting fired—Ms. Harris couldn't work anything that big out on her own without consulting upper management, and no intelligent person in upper management would listen to her side of things. Joe winced slightly. The probability of there being idiots above Ms. Harris in the hierarchy of his company was very high.

Joe turned back to his computer. He'd had his share of idiots for the afternoon. It was time to read this dorito fellow's reply to his comment.

"Um... I'm not sure what you mean with that last part. Less on photography and more on art? That doesn't make much sense to me. It seems a tiny bit like a contradiction... could you elaborate, please?"

<i>Ugh, the idiots! They're after me!!</i>

Joe furiously typed in a reply.

"There's photography and there's art, boy-o. Your CG demon there is <i>art</i>. Your shots of the sky are <i>photos</i>. The former is worthwhile and cool. The latter is neither. Get it?"

As Joe scrolled back up the page, he realized that the demon looked a lot less cool than it had. He shook his head. <i>I can't let the kid's stupidity interfere with my perception of his art.</i> Joe looked back at the images, stared at them a while, but they only grew uglier in his eyes. Finally, he reached out and switched off his monitor. He needed a break.