That Looks Good

I learned something about myself today. I can't stand having someone stop by my desk and make a visual assessment of my lunch. Lowflow stopped by, captivated by the sight of my cafeteria fare. "Oh, that looks nice!" he gushed about my French Dip and onion rings. Thank you, you bacon-eating glutton. I've now been validated in my cafeteria selection - may I eat in peace?? Mind you, this is the same person who ON A DAILY BASIS gags on their lunch because they are eating it too fast. I'm not sure that I have to tell you just how repulsive it is to attempt to eat while someone 5 feet away is dry-heaving over their trash can.

Honestly, the obsession about food in this office is disturbing. Not a day goes by that I don't hear yet ANOTHER of LowFlow's disgusting tales of quantitative eating. You have never truly been charmed until you have listened to another person tell you that they have eaten so much pork that they're "moisturizing their skin from the inside out." It puts the lotion in the basket.

Todd the Cyst

I have a confession. At one time in my life, I had a cyst on my azz named "Todd". It all began with some swelling next to my tailbone, which soon blossomed into some kind of H3llish lump the size of a grape along side my butcrack. Driving into work one morning, the pain got to be too much and I decided to go and see a doctor. It was also a good excuse to get out of the office for a few hours.

I don't have a steady relationship with any one doctor - I've never seen the point. It's not like they're going to remember me anyway. So I've always been kind of a clinical trollop, traipsing through doctor offices all over the midwest. This time was no different - I carefully selected my physician by Googling the closest clinic and calling for an appointment. Thankfully, I was able to get in right away, and within 45 minutes I was showing my lily white azz to a total stranger.

After thoughtfully taking a 2-second glance at my crack, the Doctor concluded that I had a pilonidal cyst (which he proudly announced to be "a textbook example", as if this were something that I had carefully cultivated like some kind of azzhole cyst topiary). He explained that the cysts are caused when a bed of hair folicles becomes ingrown and infected and they are fairly common in men with hairy azzes. Thanks, Doc, you fcking hearless pr1ck. I appreciate you throwing that in there for my plummeting self esteem.

Unfortunately, while he we very adept at crushing my feelings of self-worth, this particuar physician was deficient in actually being able to practice useful medicine. So he bundled up both my cyst and I and sent us on to a specialist about 20 minutes away. And here's where it starts to get weird.

All my life, I've technically been a female. This means that the concept of a procto table has never even entered into the realm of possibilities. So I innocently walked into this office, not suspecting a thing, even when the Doctor had me kneel next to the examining table instead of laying on it like I was used to. The men reading this are already familiar with what I'm going to explain next. Ladies, I am not fcking kidding you here, this particular type of table pivots forward and suddenly your azz is hoisted skyward until you are in the perfect position to share an intimate moment in prison. I will also note that this is a poor time to realize that you need to use the restroom.

So there I was, draped over a procto table with my azz in the air, contemplating my new-found respect for all men over 40. The Doctor informed me that he would be numbing the area, then "lancing it to release the pressure". The proceedure itself is mostly a blurr, mainly because I may have passed out when the Doctor gave me a shot of anasthesia in the azz. However, I did come to in time to realize that the crackling sound I was hearing from behind me was the sound of my own buttflesh being seared like a palid T-bone on a white-hot grill. My body, in an attempt to seize this opportunity for a complete coup, commanded every pore to simultaneously dump their contents all over the table. I'm not kidding, I soaked through my shirt in a matter of seconds while I lay there gasping like a carnival goldfish.

(to be continued)

Iron Chef America - a COOKING game???

In an unfortunate waste of my time and attention today, I had a coworker point out that he was eagerly awaiting the release of the "Iron Chef game for the Wii". When someone tells you something like this, it's natural to remain speechless for a moment or two, to allow for the gravity of the situation to fully sink in. This person is A). an adult male who B). claims to date women C). is not currently married and D). is eagerly awaiting the arrival of a cooking game. Also, there is, in fact, a cooking game.

Now don't get me wrong, as a woman there's nothing that I'd rather do than cook, sort socks, and do laundry. However, in MY kitchen, once I'm done slicing, chopping, mixing, sauteing, and stirring I have something to actually show for my work. What kind of brain trust comes up with sht like this??? "Hey, guys, I have this GREAT idea for a new game! It will be like the pretend cooking that you stopped doing when you were old enough to quit eating your own boogers. Only we're adding all kinds of graphics, so that will make it cool again!" And I want to know if the game makers go through the effort of making it seem realistic? Where you're half way through preparing the meal, and you realize that your husband has once again put the milk carton back in the fridge without enough milk in it to even fill a thimble. Or it turns out that the last box of elbow macaroni that you own is the one that just puked its contents all over the kitchen floor when the cat jumped up onto the counter to demand yet another feeding. Or after the meal is consumed you are faced with the task of doing a week's worth of dishes covered with what appears to be either dried on eggs or . . . well let's just hope it's eggs.

So along the lines of domestic gaming, I think that the folks at Black Lantern Studios would snap up this shovelware gem . I haven't worked out all of the details yet (like a catchy title), but players would face challenges of increasing difficulty in the laundry room. From sorting socks to removing sht stains from your husband's tighty whities, players of all ages could bring the magic of the laundry room into their very own living room. And isn't that what video games are all about?

Casting for "The Corporation"

I am now fairly certain that I am part of some elaborate network television series concept test. It's not possible that this team of azzhats could have made it through any kind of interview process. I'm not sure that some of these people could even get a job at McDonald's. So I want to see if I can get ahead of the game and predict who they will be casting where.

Corky, aka Lowflow will be played by Steven Wright. However, this is purely to capture his look. Mr. Wright will be challenged with refraining from saying anything funny while making everyone else on the cast uncomfortable with his complete lack of social skills. His understudy will be Michael Jackson.

Racecar (so nicknamed because I'm pretty sure that he still sleeps in a red racecar bed in his mom's basement) will be played by Jason Alexander. More accurately, he should be played by Frank Caliendo doing his impression of George Costanza. Racecar spends much of his time on the telephone, and he prides himself in how many names he can drop in just one phone call.

Ideally, our boss would be played by Coach Buzzcut, but I doubt that Mike Judge would agree to such an attrocity. Therefore, he'll probably be played by Brad Childress as I can't think of anyone more uninspiring.

Late to Work

I have come to realize that there are few moments in life which are more troubling than realizing just how lazy the people working in your immediate area really are. Or maybe they're apathetic. I'm too tired to care about the difference.

One of my idiot coworkers - let's just call him Lowflow (like the toilets, which *seem* like a good idea on paper . . . ) - arrived over an hour late this morning. When my boss asked Lowflow where he had been, he responded “FedEx delivered my new TV this morning, and I had to take it out of the box and watch it for an hour”. I truly wish that this were the low part of the story, and that I could now recount to you the story of Lowflow's tearful last 5 minutes in the office, but I can't. Instead, apparently in some kind of bizarre, sad way, my boss (Coach Buzzcut) has this strange kinship with Lowflow and he just nodded and walked away, like he understood perfectly well why this would be a rite of passage. So tomorrow, I'm not coming in at all. And when I finally DO come back to the office, I'm telling my boss that I had my new bed delivered.

A language of their own

J and I developed our own language while working together. The purpose was mainly to be able to still swear expressively via IM without being fired. To keep this blog NC-17, and hopefully to prevent it from being filtered too harshly, I'll retain most of our acronyms. So expect to see plenty of creative spellings of sht, fck, azz, pr0n0grafy, secks, and h3ll. Clearly we would fool only the most retarded filter, but as neither of us have been fired yet, it appears to be working. For now.

I also wish to take this opportunity to introduce the single greatest phrase ever coined by my father, which is "fckstick". I have gotten more mileage out of that word than Larry the Cable Guy has with the phrase "git 'er done". So feel free to add this word to your vocabulary - I'm certain he would feel honored.

Under control?

There is a person in my office, let's just call him Corky, who uses this completely and utterly retarded 2-word question: "under control?" I mean, to the point that the Smurfs would even say, enough already!! And it isn't something with a nice segue, either. A lot of the time it's almost used as a greeting, you know, where normal people might say "hello". And no matter who he asks, the answer is invariably "yes".

I finally figured out WHY he does this. Corky is: lazy, socially inept, and gifted in the art of looking busy (he's also got some other crazy stuff going on, which I'll cover on a different day). This little phrase is his way of cornering people into giving him the green light to screw off at work, since if everything is "under control", then they can't possibly be waiting for anything from him. It's rather ingenious, really. So, I make it my personal mission to poke holes in this little scheme.

I absolutly refuse to answer this insane pseudo-question with a "yes". I'll either say no, or request to know which area in my life specifically he'd like to know is truly "under control". And the best part is - IT'S WORKING!! My replies are met with either the wet, fishlike noise of his lips working while his brain struggles to catch up, or a look so full of confusion and social angst that I feel like I'm at prom again. Either way, it makes me feel warm inside.

The email that started it all

Here it is. My review from the annual Mud Bogs near my home town in WI.

We're in a field, approximately as secluded as the site for the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. There are two 100 yard 'lanes' of dirt being disked by a tractor (like a big garden tiller). Once disked, these two lanes are watered down to make mud (about a foot of it). Modified pickup trucks, Broncos, and even some cars are raced along these mud lanes. The local fire department is on site (to wash off the cars - I am not making this up! They would probably also attempt to put out a burning car, but mainly their purpose is cosmetic) and there is also a small fleet of EMT's in case someone chokes on a plug of Skoal. There are of course: country music and porta-potties. I literally expected Yosemite Sam to start firing his revolvers into the air to kick the whole thing off, but instead we all stood while the national anthem was played over the loudspeakers. Thankfully I did not see any cowboy hats. But there were plenty of pickup trucks, 4-wheelers, and baseball caps advertising local bars. They even had the Red/Yellow/Green light to start them off, and there was a woman calling the races over a loudspeaker. Some of the trucks had mud paddle tires (purpose: toss more mud at the crowd), and some of them were running on nitrous (purpose: ensure all accidents are fatal) (OK, it IS cool to see a truck skipping over mud at 50 - 60 MPH). One of the drivers had no arms, but he was driving his truck with his one prosthetic arm (I am NOT kidding!! He was steering with a suicide (Brodie) knob). And to end a final comedic ending, I managed to become a genuine redneck by actually sunburning my neck, foehead, and even the PART IN MY HAIR!!