Coworker: Well, how many pizzas should we have for the meeting?
Coworker #2: Normally, 5 feeds the core group.
Coworker: Does that include the guy that transferred from R&D?
Coworker #2: No.
Coworker: Seven it is.
Normally I can confidently crush 3/4 of a pie at work, but somehow the person thought that my appetite would spur further consumption through either imitation or diffused fatness.
During the staff volleyball bananza I was panned for not exerting enough effort to return the ball. I wasn’t being lazy, simply efficient. Getting me, to a point 3 feet in front of me in a period under 1/10 of a second would induce an impulse equivalent to a V-2 rocket so flailing wildly is by far more effective.
After one jibe I decided to show my team-mates the error of their ways. I went after every ball. No matter the direction, number of people in the way, chances of return or risk to person or equipment I went after it. A few minutes of near decapitations, skylight-bound shots, fistballs, and some Braveheart-like cries of fear Nick Gramiccioni pulled me aside saying, “Terry, I’m sorry. I never thought I’d say this to someone but, please stop going after the ball and just stay still.”
Victory!
There was a safety training and safety training means food, usually. I skipped lunch in anticipation of pizza, brownies and the obligatory salad. The meeting was moved from the normal meeting room to the executive conference room (which should have raised a flag). I arrived, and there was no food. We stared daggers at the meeting coordinator who waved her arms to the recessed overhead lights, the hi-definition projectors, the hardwood tables and the high-back leather chairs.
You can’t eat a leather chair.
I spent most of the morning today mocking a blacksmith in work who had made his own forged belt buckle. Â References to the LLBean Christmas 08 anvil catalog, the My First Anvil playset and the web 2.0 compliant e-Anvil and its corresponding Facebook group flew furiously.
Later that day, my belt buckle broke and I replaced it with the new Boy Scout web belt. It’s a fine belt with a quality latching mechanism and less “a small child threw up on my belt after eating peas” green. I was worried that people at work would catch onto the fact that I was wearing a Boy Scout belt until I had to lift my dunlop to show a fellow campmaster the new belt. What the dunlop giveth, the dunlop taketh awayeth.
Day 1
Coworker: You have a stain on your shirt.
Me: Yeah, baja chalupa, always gets me.
Day 2
Coworker: Did you change your shirt? There’s a stain on it again.
Me: Yeah, baja chalupa strikes again.
Day 3
Coworker: No stains. Did you find a way to navigate the baja chalupa?
Me: It was cold today, the stain’s on my jacket.
Somehow, after setting up for a night in Palmer Lodge, I trapped a bee in my sleeping bag. I left the main room after Nick Gramiccioni began snoring like a 10cc buzzsaw and moved to another room. While walking in, I felt a stinging on the bottom of my bare foot and assumed I stepped on something pointy. I lay down on a WW2 era spring cot and I feel a poking into my belt-area flub, assuming it’s a pointy bit from the down comforter I roll over and realize it’s a bee. There’s a bee in my bed. I start shifting wildly after being stung in the shin I kick the bee against the wall, killing the bee, and making my foot hurt like hell.
So of the four stings, the flub sting is by far the worst. It hit the part of my dunlop that goes over the left side of my best, so it gets aggravated as I walk and shift back and forth. I’m both angry and proud that I nearly smothered a bee to death with my gut.
Me: Well, that explains why I couldn’t find my belt. I was already wearing it.
Normally I’m weary of people who combine two dissimilar foods with the intent that they’ll get better and today my theory was confirmed. A unit leader enjoyed his stay and sent us a bag of plain/cheddar/caramel popcorn and I’d been picking out the cheddar ones to eat through out the day. An office mate recommended I try all three at once and I did.
Curse him.
Cheddar and caramel don’t strike me as a good combination and they were not. I put this combination in the same category as a brownie covered in barbeque sauce, the chocolate covered slim jim and steak ice cream as foods that are an afront to a just a vengeful God. While I’m normally opposed to segregation, keep the whites, coloreds and yellows separate, when it comes to popcorn.
While sitting at dinner today someone mentioned that they had orange drink and rice pudding together so I immediately had a bowl of orange drink mixed with rice pudding and began downing it. At first it felt simply like I was eating a melted creamsicle that had been attacked by a Korean padi farmer and thought nothing of it. The kicker was the aftertaste. Much like a combination of vinegar and dime store marmalade with a hint of rancid mayonaisse. I later found out that he’d merely drank the orange drink after eating the rice pudding. I should listen more closely.
Meetings at work have slowly become more common and the arts of foraging (taking food after a meeting) and poaching (the daring taking of food before a meeting) has returned. Today, a meeting ended and there were about 30 cans of various colas left so I grabbed 12 or so (two in each front pocket, one in the back pocket, two each in the front pockets in my lab coat, and one in each of the other three pockets.) I was walking back to my desk when:
George: Did you take any of the sodas from that meeting down the hall, I have a meeting in there afterwards.
Me:Â I can’t lie, *looks at lab coat* no.
George: Did you at least leave the regular cokes?
Me: Yeah. Just took the diet iced teas
George: Good, the diet gives you cancer and the tea gives you kidney stones.
Me: Worth it.