Things to Never, Never Do

Steve came in complaining about flu-like symptoms. Yuck. Todd asked him if he had the Swine Flue. He said 'maybe' and I informed him to stay far, far away from me.

A few minutes later I got an instant message from Steve explaining that he isn't sick, but he likes to talk loudly about being ill to tease Marion.

Marion is the woman who sits on the other side of Steve. She is going through chemotherapy and is working the entire time because of money and insurance concerns. She will take Friday afternoon off, get her chemo for the week, then be back in on Monday morning.

It is amazing that she is there at all, and then Steve comes in every day, claiming a new strain of virus has besieged him.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin

It happened at work on Friday. My chin itched. I scratched it. There was a little bit of dry skin where I scratched, so I slowly scratched again to remove the peeling skin. That skin didn't come off. Then I realized it was a hair. It was 2 inches long. It was incredibly thick and wirey. It was growing out of a mole. HOW DID IT GET SO LONG BEFORE I EVEN NOTICED IT??

When I say I am looking forward to aging, this is not what I mean. It is enthralling is the clarity in direction and purpose that I often see in older-middle-aged women. Is there some way to get that power without extra hairs growing in unauthorized places??

(This isn't actually a picture of my hairy mole. That hair was gone long before I thought about taking a picture of it.)

I Think He Might Be Drunk

Lucas was upset one day last week. He told me that he thought Steve might be drunk. I asked why he thought that, and he said that he could smell it on him. I asked him if it bothered him, and he said, "sorta." Then came the real question. How long have you been working here?? A MONTH AND A HALF?? Is this the first time you have noticed it? Yep.

Sheesh Lucas....you aren't very observant, are you?

One thing I can say about this job is that I have learned what alcohol smells like when it is seeping through someone's pores. It is not a pleasant aroma.

A Tall Drink of. . . . NOT WATER!

Bad things usually happen when I am sitting at my desk minding my own business. If I am preventing someone else from doing their work, there is no problem, but if I am being a productive worker, all heck will break loose. Thankfully it is a rare phenomenon.

I have a drinking problem. . . the liquid usually ends up on the front of my shirt instead of down my throat. So, I grabbed a straw and took a large gulp from my water bottle. . . and then there were something papery on my tongue.

What the heck? I couldn't figure out what it was. . . .until. . . .

Ugghh...the straws had an infestation of those bugs that get into wheat. What ARE those things? At any rate, I had just had the privilege of tasting one of the empty cocoons left behind after it turned into a flying pest. Kurt helpfully said, "Let's call it a Monarch butterfly because that will make you feel better. . . . EVEN THOUGH WE KNOW THAT IT WASN'T."

Excuse me for a moment....I'm feeling a little ill.

What a Ham

Yoga was especially hard tonight. About halfway through I was soaked with sweat and there was a strange smell that I couldn't quite place. It was familiar but what exactly was it?

Then it hit me: it was remarkably similar to the spiral sliced ham that we have been working our way through. Hmmm.....who votes for me eating less ham?

One Burger Murdered

With the vain hope of grossing out someone [i.e. everyone] at work, I brought my burgers in this morning. I was so proud of myself that I was already boasting to Todd as I dug them out of the bag. Then I realized that disaster had struck. *Gasp* *Whimper* *Sob*

Yes, it is true. Although my November 23rd burger did not have a speck of rot on it, it had gotten knocked around in my bag and parts of the bun had broken off. Todd said that it wasn't going to work to keep it for show if the bun was falling apart.

Desperately, I pleaded with the burger I bought on December 18th. Would it consider taking the lead role in "how long will a fast food burger last?" Since I like to come up with really creative names, we're going to call him "December 18th."

Luckily, December 18th gladly rose to the occasion and is now the lead star in the drama of the fast food burger.

Move over, November 23rd! December 18th is the new star of the show.

In other news, I haven't eaten a burger at McDonald's or Burger King since November....Can you believe that these burgers and the buns are still looking so good? They are dried out but otherwise in pristine condition. Food should rot. Bread should grow mold. Is it pumped full of preservatives or is it made of something besides food?

Barely Used

Used can be as good as new. You save a little money and nothing goes to the landfill. A used car can cost thousands less than a new one and run just as well. A used pair of pants are already faded so you know the color will stay after several washes. As a kid we once went to the dump with Dad and found a teddy bear. Mom wouldn't let it into the house, which was utterly baffling because it was the best thing I had seen in a long time, and of top of that, it was free.

But the "why buy new when slightly used will do" rule just doesn't hold true when it comes to chap stick. This morning I walked into my cube to find a present. During the bitter cold Minnesota winter, a little lip balm may soften my parched lips, but it absolutely will NOT be anything that has already been used by anyone but me. Or maybe Kevin. In fact, having it used just one time is enough to make it completely off limits.

Gingerly, I picked up the offending tube and pranced it into Steve's cube. "Is this yours?" It wasn't his. Was it Kurt's? Nope. Was Todd the offender? Not him, either. It would be a shock to my system if it ended up being someone outside of the "Pentagram of Trust" so I sat back down in a perplexed stupor.

Finally, Steve fessed up to the surprise offering. He had found it in the lab coat of a visitor after he had left. He did not have any open sores on his lips, or in any other publicly obvious place, so Steve figured it would be a wonderful surprise for me. Just to make sure I knew it was only one hair shy of being brand new, he labeled it with the "Barely Used" note.

A closer inspection of the tube reveals that someone had once viciously ripped into the security wrapping in a dire effort to access the soothing relief that only chap stick can provide. Could I ever really trust a tube that broadcasts a history of abuse by such an obviously desperate man?

The Burger that Lasted Forever

Have you watched any of the interviews claiming that fast food burgers last forever? They just won't rot. Check it out on YouTube if you are interested. Well, I saw something with a 12 year old burger and had to find out if it was true.

I went to Burger King and got a Whopper Jr. on 11/21/2008, and the picture was taken on 11/22/2008. The lettuce was already getting old and gross, so I took it off and wrapped the burger back in its original wrapper.

Here is the burger at day 2. It still smells just like it did yesterday....

(more to come in the coming weeks)

A Talented Family

I am part of a talented family. Yes, it is a heavy burden to bear. Here we are demonstrating one of our talents - being able to put our tongues on our noses. A surprising number of people in our family can do it. Out of the 100 or so family members at Grandma's funeral, we enticed 16 to demonstrate it for us in the picture. Some lost the ability to do it as soon as the cameras started snapping, and 3 families left before the funeral dinner, so there may be even more who can do it. At any rate, it is quite a high percentage of Grandma and Grandpa Neves' family who can do it.

The most surprising thing of all is that some family members had never even heard of such a thing. How can that be? Is our family hiding our talents under a bushel instead of sharing them with the world? What a shockingly selfish thing to do.

Another common family talent, but, sadly, one I don't possess, is being able to wiggle your ears. Maybe we just like to do weird things with our faces. When Dad was in Kindergarten his teacher thought he had a deformed ear because when he got nervous he would tuck the outer ear into the inner ear, and it would stay there.

Mystery Goo

Steve brought in sunflower seeds today. I got in late, and Steve, Todd and Kurt are all eating sunflower seeds VERY LOUDLY when I get to my desk. My headphones are turned up as high as they go, but I can still hear them constantly crunching those damn seeds. Gross.

Then - horror of horrors - I have to work with Steve on a file, and he comes to my desk and hovers over me while I look at a file. Alcohol is permeating his pores and it is hard to breathe, so I force myself to take shallow breaths until he goes back to his desk, the floor of which is now littered with sunflower seed shells. Most of them have at least been tossed towards the garbage can, even if they missed it by a few feet.

Today is the one day that I am thrilled to have a process meeting. I get to spend the next hour and a half sitting in a calm room, slowly breathing to the sound of program managers droning on about the program. Being able to get away from my desk today was a huge, huge blessing.

I finally sneak out of the meeting at 11:45 when I absolutely can not sit for a minute longer without peeing my pants. Dang those two cups of herbal tea. It is lunch time so instead of going back to the meeting I grab my stuffed acorn squash and sit with Ed and Susie.

Back at my desk something weird has found it's way onto the floor next to my trash can. It is a piece of a plastic pouch that has been cut. Weird. Was that mine? Huh. I toss it into the trash and sit down. About 20 minutes later I notice something brown on my scissors. Do I dare smell it? Roasted garlic. What the heck? I look around, and find that in Steve's trash there is a Thai Kitchen roasted garlic noodle bowl. He must have come over to my desk, used my scissors, put them down covered in his garlic sauce and then thrown part of the sauce packet onto my floor. Kurt and I ponder on how much grossness we have to put up with. We don't want to be responsible for getting Steve fired. We like him. We just wish he would clean up his hygiene.