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Lame Adventure 183: The Rusty Nail Incident

Posted on May 2, 2011 | Leave a comment

While I was walking across the ancient wooden floor in my company’s warehouse to recycle a piece of paper, my heavy soled motorcycle boot caught onto a rusty nail emerging from a floor board.  Fortunately, the nail did not penetrate my boot nor did the g-force of my foot lift it off with the ferocity of a rocket launch.  Then, in its descent it could pierce through some soft, exposed tissue on my being such as my D-cup nose.  A rusty nail protruding from my nose; what a humiliating injury that would be.

Questioner:  What happened to your nose?

Me:  It got hit with a nail at work.

My closest friends would probably lie through their teeth and insist:

My Closest Friends:  It doesn’t look that bad.  From certain angles, you can hardly tell.

Translation of  “certain angles” means the back of the head.  Overall, I am grateful that I dodged a bullet (or nail) and did not suffer any harm physically or emotionally.

Had I been wearing flip flops, swim fins, or been walking barefoot, and proceeded to step onto that nail, I would have been hightailing to the doctor’s office for a tetanus shot instead of trekking to the recycling can to alleviate the immense boredom I endure daily at my desk.  My sidekick, Greg, witnessed this incident.  Before I could dramatically bark:

Me:  Remove that nail before someone gets killed!

He grabbed a claw-tooth hammer and was ripping it out of the floor.

No-nonsense Greg getting the job done.

How someone can sacrifice his or her mortality to a single rusty nail in the foot (or nose) would take effort, but it can happen.  If that nail were implanted deep in the victim’s foot (or nose), and that victim, a stoic idiot named Og, was compelled to ignore his or her excruciating pain completely, that would allow the wound to be a breeding ground for Clostridia bacteria, a bacteria that produces toxins that attack the central nervous system.  Once that happens, it’s checkout time for Og.  At the risk of sounding a tad hard-hearted, maybe the world would be a better place with one less doofus.

My sister, Dovima, is currently suffering an ingrown toenail.  We have emailed each other so extensively about it one might think she had stage four cancer.  Yet, I think maintaining one’s health should be high on the “to do” list.

The building where I work was probably built sometime in the 19th century, so it’s possible that that nail was around when Abraham Lincoln was president.  How impressive.  It’s likely that it was produced from bar iron on a nail cutting machine that looked like this.

Nail cutting machine used in Charles Dickens' day.

When Greg showed me our nail, I was compelled to remark:

Me:  That looks like something used in a crucifixion.

Realistically, I’m certain that the nails used in crucifixions were much larger. From where I was sitting I might have had a slightly distorted perspective on our nail.

In your face nail.

Our nail with its historic past.  If only it could talk, what would it say?

Nail:  I’m a nail, you moron.  I’ve been stuck in the floor for 150 years until today.  If you’re so interested in the past, read a history book.

Greg then proceeded to trash it, so it’s final resting place will soon be a landfill – better than anyone’s foot (or nose).

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Lame Adventure 166: Bait and Switch or Just Bait?

Posted on March 2, 2011 | Leave a comment

Now that it is March, Elsbeth, my superior, is planning a mid-month business trip to a tile show in Las Vegas.  Actually, how Elsbeth plans her trip is that she tells me to plan her schedule.  If the economy were not recovering so sluggishly, I would accompany her as I have on these trips many times in years past.  She usually enjoys this trip immensely while I play mush hound, panting hard and towing the load.  That trip is the hardest I work all year, so the fact that I am not going and she is, is almost a vacation for me.  Yet, if I were tagged to don my mush hound guise, that would also mean that my dismal wages would have finally increased exponentially.  In that case, I would gladly embrace complete mental and physical collapse with uncharacteristic gusto and glee.

Here I am taking it easy leashed but master-less.

One of our tile vendors forwarded me an invitation for my lord and master to attend a private viewing of their new products away from the convention center where this event is being held.  Posted below in the graphic that decorated the invitation.

Invitation also known in some parts as, "WTF were they thinking?!"

Ling instantly voiced her objection to it the second she saw it on my screen from both a graphic design and self-esteem perspective.  Next, I shared it with Elsbeth, who suggested maybe she should don the same getup as the model when she visits.  Some years back, this vendor tossed a party where attendees were encouraged to dress as rock stars.  I was asked who my boss would be.  I deadpanned:

Me:  Z. Z. Top.

Next, I shared the invitation with my colleagues and Coco.  I asked Coco to don her Dr. Ruth hat and explain it to me.  My fellow N(ot) Y(et) U(seful) graduate succinctly surmised:

Coco: Forbidden fruit balanced on a stiletto with a woman fisting her ass.

I shared this insight with The Quiet Man and Greg.  Both appreciated the Coco-ian wit, but The Quiet Man added:

The Quiet Man:  Can I keep this picture?

Apparently, the more he stared at it throughout the course of the day, the more certain he was that he was looking at an image of Charlie Sheen’s next wife. He has yet to explain to us how this image can possibly sell tile.

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Lame Adventure 164: Earwax or butterscotch?

Posted on February 24, 2011 | Leave a comment

It’s the usual dull days of winter at work.  The afternoon was crawling along so anemically, it was if the sands of time fell grain by grain.   I stared slack-jawed and bleary-eyed at my computer screen reading editorial copy written by my Lord & Master, Elsbeth.  She had repeated “traditional” three times in the span of seventeen words.  As Elsbeth struggles to write her prose, I struggle to maintain consciousness while editing that prose, but often I fail and my mind wanders.  While reading a sentence about glaze character, I can just as easily find myself wondering what I’ve lost more – change in couch cushions, socks at the laundromat, or sight of my life’s goals.

As Elsbeth’s handpicked assistant, emphasis on first syllable pronounced with a short a, and an alleged wordsmith, (pronounced with a loud, “Ha!”) one of the many hole-riddled chapeaus I don is as my liege’s editor.  Generally, how we write together is Elsbeth writes the copy first, I edit her, and she edits me.  This goes on and on until one of us collapses, enters a coma, or cries uncle.

As I sat multitasking — scrutinizing my superior’s text and counting the minutes before I could make my escape in the direction of something alcohol-infused, my sidekick, Greg, crept softly over to my desk and announced confidentially:

Greg:  Earwax.

In slow motion I roused out of my stupor, and looked over my shoulder preparing to fire back:

Me:  Is that your password, the name of your favorite band or your Twitter handle?

Standing before me my right-hand-and-left-middle-finger-man proudly displayed the thick coating of dark orange glue saturating a sheet of mesh-mounted mosaic.

Ta da!

Confirming Greg’s eagle eye for the repulsive, Ling declared:

Ling:  Ew that does look like earwax!

Encouraged by Ling’s disgust, Greg entered Elsbeth’s domain and again delivered his announcement.

Check this out!

I tuned out their discussion but Elsbeth followed Greg back into the sleepy minion pit merrily announcing:

Elsbeth:  Butterscotch!

My leader stood before my desk, eagerly awaiting my vote, but I lacked the energy to feign agreement.  I didn’t buy that copy, either, and frowned.  The cheer drained from The Boss’s face.

Elsbeth:  All right, it’s earwax.

Deflated, The Boss returned to her office.  I dropped my head atop my keyboard’s space bar while impersonating the hum of a weed whacker until quitting time.  Then I regained full consciousness, ambled my way down to the uptown express train fleet of foot, but made sure that the spring in my step did not catapult me into the track’s third rail.

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Lame Adventure 146: Back to the Daily Grind

Posted on January 5, 2011 | Leave a comment

Tuesday was my first day back at work following my seventeen-day hiatus.  Due to the mountains of garbage bags piled high on the sidewalk because trash collection has been hindered since December 26th’s epic snowstorm, there was a very narrow lane to walk enroute to the 72nd Street subway station.  I could have done what a guy in a trench coat did – walk in the middle of West 73rd Street, but this is New York, where oncoming traffic speeds up even if you’re in the sidewalk with the walk signal on your side.  I had zero desire to wind up road kill on my first day back at the grind in the New Year.  Therefore, I was stuck walking up the narrow swath of sidewalk behind a drip of woman with a little less sensuality than Olive Oyl – no thought provoking fantasies playing in my head there, unless trampling her counts.  She walked so slowly, she could have been a Yugo stuck in park.  I felt myself feeling a tad anxious:

Me (what I wanted to scream):  Move your boney ass, girlfriend!  I’d like to get to work before the weekend!

Me (thinking):  Calm down.  Don’t set off your gastritis.  So you might be a little late.  It’s not the end of the world.

I entered the subway station – just as the packed express train heading downtown was pulling out and a local with empty seats had entered.  I hopped on the local.  This I only do when I’m not running late, but today I thought, “Screw it.  I want to read my New Yorker.”  I worked my way over to two guys hogging four seats – the death defying dude in the trench coat and a chub built like Buddha.  I could feel Buddha reading over my shoulder, but when I opened my magazine to the massively wordy The Talk of the Town section, he re-focused his gaze on material more suited to his interests, a discarded Kit Kat wrapper lying on the floor.

With the theme from Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon playing on my internal iPod, an orchestration I would appreciate played at my funeral (click the link; it’s well worth a listen), I exited the train at my Tribeca stop and low-tailed to my place of employ a full ten minutes late.

When I enter, who do I see standing at the front desk, leafing through her pile of mail?  Elsbeth, my boss.  Since I have been the middle finger of her right hand going on seven years, and this is the first time she has seen my scowling face in eighteen days, if she’s aware that I’m late, she doesn’t mention it.  I approach her.

Me:  Happy New Year, Boss.

Elsbeth:  Looks like someone went through the mail while I was away.

I normally retrieve her mail when I enter.  My Lord and Master hands a stack of junk to her husband to discard.

Elsbeth:  Happy New Year.  Did you have a nice vacation?

Me:  Yes.  Did you?

Elsbeth:  Yes.

It is evident that my leader is feeling as morose as me about being back.  Comforting.

Elsbeth and I are given an elevator ride up to our fifth floor office, so I’m spared having to climb five flights of stairs; the highlight of my day.  We enter the office where we greet the staff.  Everyone looks dour.  I mingle with my two closest buddies, Ling and Greg, and although I’m truly happy to see them, we’re all in agreement that it sucks to be back.

By early afternoon, the bane of my existence, the printer, has begun jamming incessantly.

Did you miss me?

By day’s end, I’m ready for another seventeen days off.

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Lame Adventure 119: What is That?

Posted on November 1, 2010 | Leave a comment

For the past two weeks, the usually ignored generational divide in the office has reared its head in a most peculiar way.  For my colleagues with the combined age of 76 – Ling, Under Ling, and my sidekick, Greg, their computers have been constantly malfunctioning.  For Elsbeth, The Quiet Man and me, combined age of 155, our computers are working fine, if Elsbeth’s inability to download email attachments is ignored since she forwards her emails with attachments to me to open.  I am unsure if my superior’s difficulty is hardware or PEBKAC (Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair) related.

Approximately two weeks ago, Ling was no longer allowed access to the server via her Mac, the problem traveled to Under Ling’s Mac and it pretty much went downhill from there for both of them for a while.  Our Graphics department was essentially crippled.  They were both frustrated.  Elsbeth was all over Stu, her husband and our company’s founding father, to jump all over Aaron, our IT guy, to do something about this immediately.  Stu body-slammed Aaron, Aaron did respond, but he’s not a Mac guy.  Often, when Ling was on her break, Aaron would sit at her desk and appear to be doing something, but afterward, as the problem continued, we deduced that what he did best was shed his beard all over her keyboard.

Ling was so repulsed, she considered going home sick.

Just as Ling and Under Ling’s problems seemed to subside for reasons that are clear as mud, Greg’s problems with his vintage PC began to escalate.  He alternates between two CPU’s under his desk, one worse than the other, but he had jury-rigged a system for himself that I don’t try to understand, but it seemed to work, and he seemed content.  Greg is not a complainer and knows to only get me involved as a last resort.  Since neither of his malfunctioning ancient CPU’s were allowing him access to the server, he mentioned it to me, and I suggested he call Aaron.  Thinking about short and curly beard droppings littering his desk, Greg performed emergency life support on one of his CPU’s and it regained a pulse.  Unfortunately, his first term Clinton era monitor blew out.  Greg announced:

Greg:  I know where to find another monitor!

Me:  Okay, find it.

Greg went on an archaeological dig in our warehouse and returned with another decrepit piece of hardware.  He hooked it up and proclaimed that it worked fine.  Super.  Problem solved.

Later that day, I was returning from a meeting I had with a member of the Accounting department.  As I walked past Greg’s desk, his new old monitor caught my eye.

It appeared to be splashed with dried blood.

Greg was sitting, typing his tile labels.  I gasped:

Me:  What the hell is that all over your monitor?

Greg (defensive):  I didn’t put it there!

Animal, vegetable or dried gore?

Me:  I’m not accusing you of putting it there, but look at it.  It’s disgusting!  Should you be wearing a HazMat suit to read your e-mail?

Everyday is Halloween Greg-wear.

Me:  Seriously, I want to know what is that?

A voice from the back of the room reads my mind:

The Quiet Man:  Arterial spray.

This observation brings to mind the classic “I Shot Marvin in the Face” scene from Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction.  If you’re squeamish, don’t watch.

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Lame Adventure 105: Tile and the Packing Peanut

Posted on September 29, 2010 | 1 comment

Anyone who works on the serf-side of the tile and stone world will tell you that this is a material where, if it can go wrong, it is guaranteed that it will because tile, a product that is often beautiful, is also synonymous with mental anguish.   Hand crafted artisan tile in particular is essentially a bitch goddess.

For example, a customer approves a sample of a ceramic tile that is white, the material is ordered, but what the customer receives looks yellow.  The sales associate is asked to explain this phenomenon.  A flurry of phone calls are made, samples are shipped back and forth, the customer grows increasingly frustrated and the sales associate descends into the second coming of Ray Milland in The Lost Weekend.

Or, something can go terribly awry with the installation.  The customer that paid a king’s ransom for a gorgeous stone goes irate, and even though the material was perfectly fine, he screams it is defective when it was the sub-contractor that did not supervise his crew, five brothers named Clem, that lied through their missing teeth to get the job.

My role in the tile universe is to oversee the tile samples displayed in all of my company’s retail showrooms.  Our showrooms are shrines to tile so it is imperative that what we display looks perfect.  The second I sniff the scent of anything peculiar, I hop onto my Acme brand pogo stick and propel myself into my superior’s office.  Recently, I noticed that a color code differed between a sample and a tile vendor’s literature.

Many times when I contact our vendors what I spew is the first they’ve heard of the situation.  My company has a reputation for being insanely anal.  In this instance, the vendor is a guy I’ve known for many years.  He is not sure if our sample has since been reformulated or the label was mistyped.  He offers to send us a mini-sample kit with a condensed version of his entire line at no charge.  Free is my liege’s second favorite four-letter f-word.

Liege brings to mind a quote from Shakespeare’s Henry V, “Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin as self-neglecting.”  I must urge my sidekick, Greg, to reference that bit of poetry to Elsbeth, our boss, but it might prompt her to ask me confidentially if Greg has masturbation on the brain.  I could suggest that she must have he and I confused, and also remind her that he is the one with the longer sideburns and I, the flatter chest.

I am sitting at my desk crunching numbers for a sample order I must place.  This task is so underwhelming that I fill the concert hall of empty space in my head with my total recall of Tennessee Williams’ masterpiece, A Streetcar Named Desire.  Greg approaches me.

Greg:  Hey, Elsbeth’s mini sample kit arrived.

Me:  Stella!

Greg:  Should we open it?

Me:  Sure.

I follow Greg into our warehouse and see a large box.  He slices it open with a box cutter.  We are now staring at a massive pile of packing peanuts that reminds us both of Cheese Doodles.

Packing peanuts for all!

This inspires us.

Me:  Let’s melt one!

The chosen one.

Greg scoops out a peanut, pops it into a drinking cup, and then pours hot water from the water cooler into the cup.  It dissolves instantly and our office reeks of corn.  All of our colleagues rise out of their stupor.

"I'm melting!"

Ling:  How bored are you that you’re melting packing peanuts now?

Under Ling:  I want to see the melted peanut!

Under Ling eye view.

The Quiet Man, the rock star working in the back of our office, removes his headphones and speaks for the first time since last Thursday.

The Quiet Man:  That biodegradable packing peanut you melted there is made from cornstarch so that explains why it smells like corn.  Technically, it’s edible, but I wouldn’t recommend you eat it since it’s unlikely that it was produced in food-safe conditions.  I’m sure they have no nutritional value, either.

Greg and I absorb this speech.  We resist the urge to applaud.  The Quiet Man reinserts his headphones and resumes ignoring us until October.

Me:  I’m sure they taste better than that bowl of organic twigs I called breakfast.

Looks like breakfast to me!

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Lame Adventure 75: The Ceiling Tumor

Posted on July 21, 2010 | Leave a comment

It was my favorite time of the workday, quitting time.  I enter the office of my boss, Elsbeth, to say goodnight, when I notice she is hunched over her desk at a peculiar angle.  In the almost six years I have been this woman’s dedicated Middle Finger Assistant, I have familiarized myself with her quirks quite well.  Therefore, I have a pretty good read on most Elsbethian situations. I instinctively know that something is averse.

Me:  Why are you sitting funny like that?

Elsbeth:  Look at my ceiling.

I look up and see an appalling protrusion that bears the distinct resemblance to an adolescent girl’s breast but with a weeping nipple.  I don’t know whether to vomit, put a bra on it, or photograph it. She’s positioned a tall garbage can under the leak to catch the rust color drip.

Dual purpose trash can

Me:  I don’t like the looks of that, Boss.  I don’t think sitting under that’s such a good idea.

Elsbeth:  Don’t worry about me.  I’ll be fine.

Me: “Don’t worry about me.  I’ll be fine.” What are you, the ultimate Jewish mother?  Elsbeth, your ceiling might cave in!

My colleague, The Quiet Man, jets into Elsbeth’s office as if transported on Acme brand spring shoes.

Elsbeth:  Hi The Quiet Man.

The Quiet Man:  What’s going on?

Me:  Look at her ceiling.

The Quiet Man looks up and gasps.

The Quiet Man:  Elsbeth, how long has it been like this?

Elsbeth: For the past hour or so.  I made a call.  They’ll look at it tomorrow.

I leave, enter our warehouse and bark at my sidekick, Greg.

Me:  Greg, get in here and bring plastic sheeting!

Greg comes empty handed, reinforcing my impression that my supervisory skills leave something to be desired such as a scintilla of effectiveness.

Greg:  What?

Me:  Elsbeth’s ceiling is growing a breast.

Greg:  What?

Me (confidentially):  I’m dying to photograph it.

Greg (confidentially back):  Hold off until tomorrow.

Translation, “Control yourself until she’s not around.”  Greg walks ahead of me.

Me (muttering):  Do you think it could look like the Planetarium dome by then?

I follow Greg into Elsbeth’s office.  He looks up.  His eyeballs pop out of his head.  The boys decide they’re going to investigate what’s leaking on the floor above us.

Elsbeth:  Can you do that?

Considering that the The Quiet Man has the intellectual capacity to build a space ship from a paperclip and Greg is an audio engineer, I have complete confidence that these two giant underemployed brains can find a busted pipe.  Two minutes later The Quiet Man returns.  They have discovered the source.  He claims it’s an “easy” repair, but all Elsbeth hears is the word “copper” and equates that with expensive in her mind.  Meanwhile, Greg remains on the floor above us positioning a steel drum the size of Omaha over the source of the leak to stave off seepage.

Elsbeth:  It’s so nice that our guys would do this for me.

Me:  “Nice.”  We all have visions of standing on the unemployment line if anything happens to you.

Elsbeth:  Nothing’s going to happen to me.

Greg returns.  I give him the eyeball shove so he holds off entering Elsbeth’s office.  I walk over to him.  We speak sotto voce as if we’re bit players with under five lines in The Godfather.

Me:  Am I crazy?  I think she should get out from under there.

Greg:  Use a scare tactic.  Mention the mice in the ceiling.

Me:  Brilliant!  Everyone’s seen Ratatouille.

I reenter Elsbeth’s office.

Me:  You know, Boss, if your ceiling opens up, think of all the mice that could come pouring out.  You don’t want to be around for that.  Oh no, you don’t!

Elsbeth:  I can’t imagine that would happen.

That’s because Elsbeth did not see Ratatouille.  It was now 5:45.  The company closes at 6:00, so I figured the worse that could happen is that her ceiling could buckle and fall after she leaves.  Therefore, I said the last thing on my mind.

Me:  Can I take some pictures of this for my blog?

Target Elsbeth

Ceiling Tumor

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