Random Esquire

It occurs to me that I may be the unwitting accessory to a crime being committed by Fresh Express.

Fresh Express knows that I like technology and gadgets. I often return to my office to find articles about different technologies she has clipped from a magazine or newspaper on my desk. I thank her and this makes her happy. On Monday, I thanked her for the latest article she’d left for me and she beamed and said, “Oh, I just love it when I find those. I love clipping them. It’s addicting.” Sure, that’s odd but it’s friendly enough so I just smile and go about my business.

Today, I walked into my office and found an article from the New York Times on my desk. I picked it up and paused mid-sip of my coffee as I noticed that across the front was stamped, “Do not remove from the Reference Section. CHICACO PUBLIC LIBRARY.”

Fresh Express has been clipping the articles from the newspapers at the library. I occurred to me then that what she found addicting was the excitement she got as she was clipping them in the reference section and sneaking out with them. I picture people at the library, opening up a newspaper and looking through a rectangle in the newspaper to the person across from them. What do I do? Return the articles in the book drop? Call the library and leave an anonymous tip? I can’t even imagine what I’d say in that phone call let alone what the heck they’d think of that call.

I’m not going to do anything. It’s just too interesting.

I’m on my Treo. Trying to look engaged. Because I’m at Victoria’s Secret and Boss is looking at bras.

With her mother.

There’s a Rock Paper Scissors World Championship in Toronto. The mind boggles. Apparently, sometimes the competition is…heated.

Just how much strategy is involved in this?

I stand corrected. Professional Rock Paper Scissors strategy? That is truly messed up. The website actually says, “How to kick some a**.”

I was up until 2:30 last night, reading reviews on Trip Advisor and looking at hotels to put some structure to this Puerto Rico vacation. It isn’t easy when you want to do it all. I woke up at cockadoodle dark because Little Filthy licked my eye. Hmm. I suppose by leaving that in my journal, Boss will be able to confirm what she already suspects -that I let him sleep in the bed. I’m sure this won’t shock her.

There is a kleenex on the coffee table and Little Filthy is circling, circling the table like a shark; he goes so far as to give the kleenex a test bump with his mouth to see if I am watching. I just leaned over and gave his butt a little pinch. Didn’t faze him. Rotten meatball.

Must get coffee. We have no coffee in this place. I thought we’d have some beans in the freezer but I already had my moment of coffee panic while emptying the freezer on to the counter top. I’m off to kill and drag home some coffee.

1. I said something shockingly rude today which made Boss gasp and then laugh, in spite of herself. We were watching television and something prompted me to say, “Nothing sadder than a fat girl getting her nails done.” The thought seriously made me melancholy and I was being sincere but I know that I say ridiculously offensive things sometimes. I’m a sin just to tolerate.

2. Boss went to bed at 8:30. That’s what 19 kindergarten kids will do to you. Don’t ever have nineteen-uplets.

3. I received a request via e-mail at work yesterday at about 3:45 p.m. I was on a conference call. I looked at it at 4:30 and said that I would not be able to address the request until the next day and I asked to be sent a document so I could complete the review. I received said document at 1:30 today. At 1:40, 1:42, and 1:49 respectively, I recieved e-mails that roughly translated into, 1) Are you done yet? 2) what about now? and 3) how about now? I wrote back and said, “Everyone sit still.” I envision my sales people as a bunch of children in the backseat of a car, bouncing up and down in their seat roughly, screaming, “Are we there yet? Now? Now?” And similarly, I want to reach over and slap them a little.

I get Blank Face. Sometimes, when I am about to say something and I don’t want to attach any emotion to it, I get Blank Face. I can’t help it. I void out the physical look on my face so that it does not compound what is about to come out of my mouth. It happened this morning.

A co-worker and I went for a cup of coffee. There was a woman in line with us and she grabbed both my co-worker and I by the elbow and said, “I need you both to be brutally honest with me – brutally honest. I’m going to ask you something.” I almost blurted out, “I hate your hair.” I thought it might be funny to assume her question in such a rude way. I often think these things would be funny but they rarely are. Anyway, I remained silent. She didn’t appear nervous – she was grinning. Co-worker and I looked at her. She said, moving her hands up and down the front of her body, “Am I dressed okay for an interview? Do I look okay?” It was very clear that she thought she looked fantastic. She did not. I know fantastic. I wake up next to fantastic. I said, “Are you doing the interview or being interviewed?” She said, “I am being interviewed.” I said, “What kind of position?” She said, “Adminstrative assistant.” I said, “Yes, you’re fine.” She then babbled on about how she wasn’t feeling it and hoped it would be okay. I turned back to order coffee. She went on to say, laughing, “Like, what, I wouldn’t be dressed okay to be a CEO?”

And then I got Blank Face.

She wanted me to be brutally honest but I couldn’t very well say, “Not with those Bass Weejuns, ma’am.” (Have I mentioned before that I hate penny loafers?) So I blanked out my face and gave the most straight answer I could. I looked at her with my dead eyes and said, “No, not for a CEO.”

She looked a bit stunned but chatted some more, preventing me from turning away to order my coffee. She ended me by asking, one more time, “You sure I look okay?”

I said, “I’m changing my mind.” She laughed and said, “Good thing I’m not interviewing with you!”

I need Blank Face. It keeps me from compounding the rudeness that comes out of my mouth with a look of utter astonishment or disgust.

1. My sore neck continues. Shim saw me and noticed that I turned to face him a bit like Frankenstein and he said, calling down the hallway, “Oh, have ya got a stiff one?” Meaning, of course, my neck. But I froze in my spot and looked at him until he realized what he said before he then whispered, “Ohhhh, I didn’t realize how that sounded.”

Fresh Express also noticed my less than fluid movements and expressed her great sympathy for me, topping it off with a generous offer to rub my neck and shoulder. Second time today that I froze in my tracks. I told her thank you for her kindness and I would let her know if I needed a rub down.

2. Kennedy and I share an office wall. One day, after I’d been on a long conference call, he asked me about one of our co-workers who was on the call – a co-worker neither of us had met, actually. Kennedy could hear his voice on the speaker phone through the wall. Kennedy said, “He sounds…hmmm…I can’t put my finger on it….he sounds black.” I stared at him and said, “You are seriously the stupidest person I know.” He grinned. I said, “He sounds black?” Kennedy nodded. I started laughing and said, “He doesn’t sound black! He sounds gay!” He said, “Noooo, really?” I said, “Yes.” We asked Instigator, who works with said co-worker, and she confirmed that he was a gay, white male. I told Kennedy that his gaydar needed work. A few days later, he came into my office and whispered, “I think….I think the guys who work at our Starbucks….well, are they….black?”

Interestingly, Shim thinks Kennedy is rather cute. If only Kennedy were black.

3. Little Filthy has taken on a whole new sense of boldness. We knew he was a kleenex junkie and that any open trash can was declared, in his eyes, fair game and open season. However, he was, for the most part, limiting his occasional intake to used tissues carelessly left someplace. (And yes, I am the guilty culprit. I don’t know why I do this but it makes Boss near certifiable.) But as of yesterday, he seems to have branched out and I walked into the living room in time to see him with his front paws on the coffee table, neck straining and delicately pulling a kleenex right out of the box with his front teeth. I yelled, “HEY!” and he immediately released the kleenex and stared at me. This dog doesn’t even have the good sense anymore to scoot his pug butt under the couch. In addition, he used to be on the catch and release system by which we’d catch him eating a kleenex and he’d immediately release it and look guilty. Not anymore. Now when he realizes he’s been caught, he grabs that kleenex in his mouth and takes off, tucking his pug butt under his back legs, eating as quickly as he can. What are we raising over here?