What I've Got For You

Lunchtime! I walked out of the office to a nearby Subway. Good times.

The guy on the right. Two of him. Work with me!

I was headed back to the office with my to-go bag when I passed Large and In Charge. The two of them were skipping across the street like half of Laurel and Hardy twice.

I said hello. Large eye'd my bag and grinned. "What have you got for me?"

"Love," I replied. "And respect."

"You've never had either of those," said In Charge, poking Large in the ribs. His finger sank in to the second joint.

Large slapped him away without looking. To me he said, "I will gladly pay you Tuesday for..."

"No deal," I cut him off. I was tempted, but Large's mustache is too small to pull off that impression.

"Hey, he's not as dumb as you look," said In Charge, giggling.

They wandered off, bickering. It's a pretty normal state of affairs for those two.

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Chim-Chimney

At work, our health insurance is changing. Thus, we all got health screenings.

They brought in some "Traveling Nurses Association Of Mobile Nurses Traveling" group to handle the particulars. It was just a bunch of ladies with smocks and bags of cotton balls. Seriously, that stuff was flying around like confetti. It was a little wild, but at least the atmosphere was festive. They even had clowns.

The last step involved sitting down with a nurse to talk over my results. She was wearing a vest with vertical red and white stripes. "Step right up!", she happily squealed.

She went over my numbers. "This is good, this is good," over and over. Apparently I have very good numbers. Then it got weird.

"If you were a lady," she said, "I'd compare you to Mary Poppins! Perfect in every way!"

There was a brief awkward pause while I searched for a silver lining. My falsetto just improved... Spoons as blunt force objects... that trick with the umbrella would really cut down on the morning commute...

The nurse continued. "I guess since you're a guy I'll just compare you to Bert the Chimney-Sweep."

I blinked and grinned. "Did you just compare me to Dick Van Dyke?" "Yes." "I'll allow it."

I got up to leave. The nurse looked me hopefully. "Can I guess your weight?"

"Sure, go for it." She looked me over. "16 pounds?"

She's good.

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Freight Elevator KABOOM

There's a Freight Elevator behind my desk at work. Well established fact. Nothing but a 5-foot fabric-covered wall between me and it, sort of thing. It can get noisy, but most of the time the noises are pretty easy to ignore.



Last week, there was an exception. There was a crash so loud that the floor shook. "Did part of the building just fall off?", P-Ziddy asked.

After a few silent moments, we heard a voice from inside the elevator. He was calling the front desk to report that he was stuck.

Before long, the party started.



Building Maintenance and Security both descended on our floor. "You OK in there?", they shouted to the trapped guy. "Yeah." "Not feeling claustrophobic or anything?" "No."

One of the Maintenance guys chuckled. "Need us to get a doctor for you?" "Sure!", the trapped guy responded. "Make sure he's got a pretty nurse."

Back in the peanut gallery, Big Dawg turned to the rest of us and grinned. "Yeah... He's fine."

P-Ziddy waved his arms in comic desperation. "I'm trapped in an elevator! Send beer!"

After a few attempts with a crowbar, they realized that the elevator door was simply not going to open from the outside. They sent somebody up to the next floor.

Ho. Ho. Ho.

"He's gonna go in through the top of the elevator," Maintenance explained. "We'll get the trapped guy out that way, and then we'll send John McClain... uh... I mean, we'll send *somebody* inside with some tools."

K-Too sniffled and wiped a fake tear from his eye. "This reminds me of Baby Jessica."

Eventually they got the door open a few inches. A Security guy stuck his nose close to the gap and sniffed. "What's that smell? Is that a motor burning?"

M16's eyes nearly bugged out of his head. "Don't let them burn the building down!"

"OK everybody," I explained. "The good news here is that all those existential questions about the meaning of life aren't gonna bother you any more."

They eventually got the mess cleaned up and mostly sorted out. It was a bit like a Die Hard movie, but with less shooting.

Hey, it's never dull. :)

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Memory Lane

Last weekend, I got to play trucks with my nephews!

Even better? They were *my* old trucks!



What can I say? I was a fan of really big wheels. Don't judge.

As a kid I had these awesome metal Tonka Truck toys. They had a spectacular layer of filth on them, so we had a little Clorox party first.



I remember most of these toys. It was incredibly fun to see my nephews playing with them.

After we emptied out my old toy box, my dad brought out another one that I didn't recognize. It was one of *his* old toy boxes. It had wood blocks, Tinker Toys, dominoes, plastic "Cowboy and Indian" figures, and an arm-less freakish baby doll that would give Chuckie nightmares (Dad had sisters).



The U-Shaped bandy-legged guys had me in hysterics. But look deeper... there's so much more to enjoy. The horse in the upper right has no tail (my oldest nephew called him "No-Tail Charlie"). The ambiguous farm animal in the middle had an unfortunate run-in with an unspecified vehicle (Mom called him the "Axle-Pig"). And the little seated Army guy in the lower right has an expression of sincere concentration on his face...



I call him "Constipation Dan".

There was also this wonderful little plastic ukulele / guitar thing. One of the pegs is broken, but you're supposed to stretch rubber bands across it like so...



If you like the ukulele lady, the ukulele lady like-a you!

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Paunch

At work, most of the folks in my department are involved in the same project. One of our managers is keeping a list of things that remain to be done. He's also started keeping a list of things that will need to be done after the deadline.

He brought out the second list at a recent meeting. "That's OK," he said (talking about an item that wasn't critical), "We can add that to the paunch... p-pp... POST-launch list."

He shook his head sadly. There's just no way to walk back a verbal snafu like that.

"The Paunch List!", we all shouted. "That's what it's going to be called forever."

"OK, OK," said the manager, admitting defeat. "It's the Paunch list."

Big Dawg grinned. "Everything that doesn't fit in the belt!"

Thank goodness, not all meetings are dull. :)

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Party On

P-Ziddy had a birthday party for his little kiddo. Here are few samples of the fun that was had...

No sleep 'till Brooklyn

There was a slumber party the night before. P-Ziddy blearily confirmed that Kiddo was the ringleader in the "No sleep tonight!" attempt. Her gramma thought this was hilarious.

When Kiddo came to Gramma for a hug, Gramma was ready. "I heard you stayed up very late last night," Gramma said. Kiddo nodded guiltily. "I was tryin' to go to sleep," she fibbed.

Gramma nearly fell out of her chair laughing at the audacity of that one.

A cryin' shame

One itty bitty boy started crying. Up past his naptime, most likely. "I'll cheer him up!", his grandpa optimistically claimed. He picked up the boy. "WAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

A little old lady came up to the pair. She coo'd at the screaming boy. "Let me get a picture of you crying with Grampa, OK?"

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Surprise me

Metacow was there with his clan. His oldest daughter jumped on him out of nowhere. "SURPRISE HUG!", she shouted. She nearly knocked him over.

"Aw," I said as she skipped away. "That was a lot sweeter than this one is going to be."

Metacow looked very confused for a second. Then, he was outright horrified as I shouted "SURPRISE HUG!" and lept at him.

I'm not sure which one of us was more injured in the melee that followed. It was totally worth it, though. Metacow's a passionate hugger.

Basket Case

One little boy strapped a pink pointy party hat to his wrist.

"Well," I commented, "If he puts on 2 or 3 more of those and paints them black, he could pass as an Oakland Raiders fan."

The boy was chasing some other kids around the yard. He put his hand to his head so the pointy top of the hat was facing forward. He shouted, "I'm a unicorn!!!"

Metacow was impressed. "Wow. I wish I was a mythical creature."

"You're not?", I countered.

In the meantime, the boy had already found a new use for his wrist-hat. He pointed it at the kids he was chasing. "It's a rainbow gun! Pew! Pew!"

I'm not exactly sure what a Rainbow Gun is, but I think I want one. It sounds mighty.

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Paintball 2: Electric Boogaloo

You may recall, last year my nephew had a Paintball birthday party. Naturally, the experience went bad for me.

This year, he wanted to do it again. With panic-y eyes and trembling knees, I once again put on the mask and limped timidly toward my doom.

I had a huge advantage this time, though. I knew in advance that I'd be playing, so I didn't wear orange. :) I actually did OK. Two bruises, both from shots I took after declaring, "I'm out!". Surrender is frowned upon, it seems.

Still, it could be worse. Much, much worse. 4 seconds into the first match, my dad got shot in the tenders. He didn't participate much after that. At the pizza place afterwords, my sister asked him what happened. Dad told her, "Dirty Dingus McGee took a shot to the head."

The look on my sister's face as she parsed out that statement was magnificent.

My 6-year-old nephew was also allowed to play. He got a flack jacket that went to his knees and a wrap-around helmet. His dad followed him around to make sure he was OK. After one of the matches I saw him with a grin so big that it looked like his head might split. "How'd you do?", I asked.

"I shot a guy in the FACE!", little nephew gleefully squeaked.

"Well," I said, "Today you're a man."

"YAY!"

I'll probably end up out there again next year. I figure as long as I never surrender and always wear a cup, I should do OK.

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