Marketing Boss: Terry.
Me: Yes?
Marketing Boss: We need to talk, you’re scaring some of the marketing people.
Me: How?
Marketing Boss: Well, someone saw you running around in a lab coat with a large knife wearing protective glasses.  And with your headphones on you looked kinda menacing.
Me: Well, I brought in fudge today and people were having trouble cutting and I didn’t want the crowd to disperse so I suspend my lab testing, grabbed the spare knife I had stored and started walking over there.  The building was chilly so I went back and put my lab coat on, and was in a hurry so I moved faster than usual.
Marketing Boss: So, this was all for brownies?
Me: Yes.
Marketing Boss: Ok.  Try not to do this on non-Mondays.
Me: Got it.

I regularly bake and bring cakes and such to work and on Wednesday I brought peanut butter brownies but forgot to take the knife I used home.  I use a large chef’s knife because well, I bought an extra during a buying binge brought on by a combination of Amazon Prime, One Click Purchasing and 20% off homewares.  The knife had been cleaned by someone (thanks, anonymous coworker!) and placed rather plainly on my desk, where I imagine it’s sat for two days scaring and peaking the curiosity of passersby.  I put it in the pen slot in my desks center drawer and later scared the shit (figuratively) out of a coworker who rooted into my desk to borrow a pen only to find the knife sitting there.

In the discussion afterwards we decided to put a label of some sort on the knife and these recommendations fell into some general categories:

  • Warning: “Don’t touch my pens!” or “The cake is a lie!”
  • Women’s Name: Either something cute or mellifluous “Becky” or “Samantha”
  • Women’s Name: Creepy or Crazy “Mildred” or “Ophelia”
  • Title: “The Lasseratrix”, “Razor’s Envy” or “Truthbringer”
  • Emotion: “Passion” or “Desire”

Tell me what you think.