This Week at the Looney Bin

Maria: "I need to find my wax strips. I'm getting chinny hair. I feel like i'm getting a beard."

Deafening silence from the other cubicle monkeys. What do you say to that? "Really? What about your bikini area? Please be sure to keep me informed of any and all progress made w/ your body hair growth, because I AM interested."

Another tidbit to give you some insight into Maria. Her ringtone for the longest time was "Down with the Sickness" by Disturbed, a song which takes me back to the summer I turned 21 and listened to rock, due in part to loser boyfriend at the time. Reminder, in case you've forgotten: Maria is at least 50. I guess she really liked this song if she's still listening to it 9 years later. Anyhow, me thinks that having Down with the Sickness coming out of your cubicle at full blast no fewer than 10 times a day at work is not so appropriate, but what do I know? You'll be glad to know that she has seen the error of her ways and has now changed her ring tone to the one on the Geico commerical. http://www.geico.com/about/commercials/?video=Ringtones Ringitty dingy ding ding dong, ringatty ding ding dong, ringy dingy ding ding dong! And she laughs hysterically every time it goes off and allows it to continue to ring for awhile before answering, so that we can all get the full effect.

God, I love my life! TGIF!

Highlights from the past week

1)Maria: God, I love the way this hand sanitizer smells.....Smells like alcohol."

2) Trixie: "That would be hard for me. I get the days of the week wrong."

3) Trixie: "Guys are lucky. You never know if they're wearing the same pants five days in a row or not."

4) Trixie, serious as can be: "The first time I got a leg cramp, I was swimming in high school and I thought I'd broken my leg."

Hmm.... broken leg

vs. leg cramp

Easy to see how the two could be

confused. :)

5) Last but certainly not least....

Suzie, from time to time, likes to brag about how she worked for HEB, a grocery store chain whose headquarters is in San Antonio. http://www.heb.com/aboutHEB/history.jsp

She had just gotten done talking about how wonderful it was to work in HEB's office, though I'm not sure what she actually did for them or why she's no longer working there since it was just heaven on earth, when Trixie asks if HEB stands for "Here Everything's Better," which has been the store slogan for awhile. Suzie promptly replies, "Oh yes."

The group lets that marinate for a minute and finally Sheila, another cubicle-monkey who is generally too articulate to be mentioned speaks up, "Ummm no. Doesn't it stand for H.E. Butt, the man who started the store?"

Suzie, "Oh, that's right."

The voices in my head: "I love my job, I love my job, I love my job."

It's always appropriate to talk about...

Jell-o shots in an office.

Highlights from last Friday:

Maria: "Oh my God. My godson's birthday is today and he called me at 7:30 (a.m.) asking me to make jell-o shots for tomorrow night."

Audrey: "Tonight?"

Maria: "Oh good grief, no! The only way I could do that is if I had liquid nitrogen!"

Audrey can't help but think that Maria has probably made jell-o shots on short notice at some point in her life.

More alcohol-related blather: Maria at approximately 5:15 p.m. on Friday calling her various credit card companies to see how close she is to her limit so that she knows how much she has to spend on margaritas at Taco Cabana after work.

Maria: "Only $2?! Dang, they're all about the same. I've put them in my wallet in order of the credit card limit left."

Wow, just wow.

Money can't buy you brains...

The Setting: Corporate America
The Location: Any Cubicle, USA
The Characters: Audrey - wonderfully charming, yet short on patience, almost 30 year-old who was meant for more than a paper-pushing job; making it through the day by planning her pending nuptials (if her mother doesn't drive her crazy in the process), watching Real Housewives on hulu, and G-chatting w/ her equally bored, office-occupying brother, Chaz.
Maria - A 50-something who I know intimately due to her penchant for sharing every thought that enters her brain over the cubicles on a daily basis. She's also been known to knock back a few jell-o shots w/ her 20 year-old son & his friends from time to time.
Suzie - Late 50's, recently promoted based on no merit of her own other than her ability to suck up and talk incessantly and with no thought whatsoever to what comes out of her mouth.
Trixie - Finally! Someone born in the same decade as me joined the company a few months ago! Sweet as she can be but not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Laughs at everything.

More to come soon!