Another day at work, another crying fit.

The day started innocently enough.
"Here," said the secretary, throwing 1,000-somewhat envelopes at me, "postmark these."
Postmarking envelopes has become a somewhat favorite of mine. The envelope gets weighed on a scale, makes a marvelous beeping noise, and can then be slid into a slot where another marvelous beeping noise is made, followed by a marvelous whirring noise, and then the envelope is removed with a bright red postmark in the top-right corner.
Hi. I'm Paula. Did I mention I have ADD?
The people in the office have caught on to the fact that I love postmarking envelopes due to the protective noises I make when people come near the postmarking machine.
"I'll postmark those envelopes for you!" I yell, protectively shielding the postmarking machine from any harm.
"Alright!" says the person, dropping the envelopes on the floor and cautiously backing away.
Hi, I'm Paula. Did I mention I am slightly crazy?
Like I said, the day started on a fairly innocent note. There I was, postmarking like a true - er. mailman? There I was, postmarking like a true mailman, giving small little gasps of joy whenever the machine made noises. The workers in the office had taken to avoiding me like people avoid one with a highly infectious disease, moving around me but keeping within a 10 feet radius. There might as well have been a sign over my head the said, "Beware Paula. She bites and pees on moving objects."
The point is, people kept away from me, which I don't really mind. The Love Machine -as I had taken to calling my postmarking wonder - and I needed our time alone. Suddenly, a warning flashed on the Love Machine's bright 2" LCD screen.
warning - ink low.
My heart fluttered.
The Love Machine was in danger.
Hi, I'm Paula. I am in love with an inatimate object.
I rifled through the drawers under the Love Machine, desperate for a new ink cartridge. My baby needed help, and I was going to help it. Nothing could keep us apart.
"AHA!" I proclaimed out loud victoriously, my hands grasping the red ink cartridge, "My Love Machine's last claim to human - er, machine life. My Love Machine's last claim to machine life."
The sign over my head, that I mentioned before? It now said, "Beware Paula. She bites, pees on moving objects, and also displays symptoms of schizophrenia. Has been known to break out of her cage occasionally, taking her agressive tendencies out on young children."
Workers in the near vicinity scattered away, except for a young woman who was hard at working - editing her myspace profile.
"Don't open that cartridge," she eyed me warily, "I broke the last postmarking machine, and the $300 to replace it went straight out of my paycheck."
I gasped audibly, not at the notion that the $300 to replace the last postmarking machine had gone out of this young woman's paycheck [I don't even get a paycheck!], but at the fact that she had broken a machine of such -- beauty. Such amazingness. How dare she? She was now public enemy number 1 in my eyes.
"You are now Public Enemy number 1 in my eyes," I told her venomously.
She scattered, scared that I would bite her, or pee on her, or whatever.
Me and the Love Machine were alone.
"Seriously," she said over her shoulder, "it's a complicated machine. You'll probably break it."
I was torn between my love for the Love Machine, as well as my fear that I might break it, and my ADD urges to open the cartridge and grant life to the Machine once more.
5 minutes of twitching and wandering eyes led to my ripping open the cartridge.
Red ink droplets landed on the oak table and over one of the envelopes.
I used a bounty to clean them up, one eye suspiciously on the door in case one of my bosses came through it.
Once the droplets were taken care of, I opened the Love Machine.
There, deep in it's chest, was the empty cartridge. The Love Machine's heart - the center of all of it's activity. And I, Paula, was getting offered the chance to refill the empty vessel.
Well, to be honest, no one had told me to refill the cartridge. In fact, I had been strictly warned against it.
But let's face it. I owed it to the Love Machine. If we let silly things like jobs and money matter more than true love - well. We'd be where we are now. But things were changing. And I was needed.
I gently pressed the unlock button on the top of the cartridge, and it popped out of its place. I gave a squeal. That noise had been heaven to my ears.
Once the old cartridge was out of place, I tried to stick the new cartridge in, and encountered an itty bitty, teeny weeny, little problem.
The new cartridge refused to go in.
After many futile attempts, I faced the truth: a specialist had to be called in. Or, in my case, an office worker.
"Help!" I cried, "Help!"
"What happened?" said Martha, the same girl who had warned me against opening the Love Machine. Upon seeing what happened, she shook her head and smirked, "Told you so."
Then she proceeded to walk over to the Love Machine and unceremoniously bang the cartridge into place. Red ink spilled everywhere, reminding me of blood. This specialist was killing my patient!
"Stop!" I cried, "You're hurting it!"
Martha dropped the cartridge on the floor, and I lovingly scooped it up.
"You are CRAZY," she told me, not jokingly, "You are crazy, and you scare me, and I don't know why they hired you. You are crazy, you scare me, I don't know why they hired you, and I am staying away from you!" With that, she stalked out of the room.
I felt bad for Martha, I really did. She was jealous of the connection that the Love Machine and I had. I could understand, I had been jealous last week of the fact that the kids on the Barney show got to sing with him, and I didn't. But I had moved on, and so would Martha.
"What's going on?" yelled my red-faced boss Richie, storming into the room, "Why is Martha telling me you're crazy and broke my 600$ machine? And why is there red ink everywhere? You!" he pointed a finger at me, "WHAT. DID. YOU. DO. THIS. TIME."
And then the sobbing began.
"I didn't break it," I babbled, "I just ... wanted to save it. I wanted to put in the ink so it would keep working. I didn't break it, Martha banged it. Martha banged it and she made it bleed, and I didn't do anything."
I was a mess. Truly, a mess. Love had turned me into a mess.
Richie's eyes softened as he took in my decomposition.
"Let me see what I can do."
And then he snapped the cartridge back into place, and my Love Machine gave a delicate purr, and all was well again.
The end!
*based on true events.