The richer you are, the more stuff you get for free.

I received a photo radar ticket in the mail here at work. I didn't recognize the person driving the car so I had to do a little detective work. The result was pretty depressing. It was the son-in-law of the millionnaire who drives the car. It's an expensive car, given free to this particular executive. All expenses including gas, car washes and maintenance are paid by the company. With all those freebies, you'd think he'd fork over the cash to pay the ticket. Not so. It was paid by the company.

And then there's me. I'm not a millionnaire. I could use the hand outs way more than this guy. But does anyone give me a brand new free car and then pay for all my gas and maintenance? Nope.

All I can say is, three cheers for Ed Norton for taking away the free $50,000 goody bags given to all the already rich and famous at the Academy Awards. I may be a capitalist, but I don't have to like it when people give free stuff only to those who can afford to buy it themselves.

I'm going to start talking in third person.

The very large and important responsibility of keeping the RSVP list for our company holiday party has been given to me. With this weighty responsibility comes receiving many emails from company employees RSVPing for the party.

Today, I received one that read as follows:

I just wanted to make an update to the recent RSVP that we had sent. In case you need to know guests last names, Harold's last name is Rogers. He will be escorting Kim Anders to the party .

Thank you,
Kim Anders

*Names have been changed to prevent me from getting into any trouble at work.

Pizza Wars

There are 2 guys here at work - you know them. They're young, bachelor, party-going types with big egos. Ambitious, smug, with a tendency to patronize. Sometimes they order pizza. They don't ask anyone if they'd like to be in on the order.

There are a bunch of other people here at work. Whenever any of them orders lunch, they send around a menu to see if anyone else wants anything.

Then one day there was a meeting. Most of us attended, but not the 2 pizza guys. It was a lunch meeting so we ordered pizza for it. There was a lot left over, but due to the non-sharing that had occurred many a time in the past, we quietly tucked it away in the fridge without telling them. They asked a couple of people if there had been any leftover pizza, and these people lied and said no.

The next day when it became obvious that there had indeed been leftover pizza since everyone was eating it for lunch, they were not happy.

Today there was a reckoning. The pizza guys ordered pizza, just like they have so often in the past. However, today was different. One of them came around and asked everyone if they'd like some and collected their money. The skies cleared and there was light.

The owner's new car.

He lives in Europe, but he's here about 2 weeks out of the year so he needs a little car to drive around while he's here.

Politics on Halloween

I'm reading the book Democracy by Henry Adams. I just read this statement that pretty much sums up my political ideals:


I believe in democracy. I accept it. I will faithfully serve and defend it. I believe in it because it appears to me the inevitable consequence of what has gone before it.

Democracy asserts the fact that the masses are now raised to a higher intelligence than formerly. All our civilization aims at this mark. We want to do what we can to help it. I myself want to see the result. I grant it is an experiment, but it is the only direction society can take that is worth its taking; the only conception of its duty large enough to satisfy its instincts; the only result that is worth an effort or a risk. Every other possible step is backward, and I do not care to repeat the past.

Harmless phrases that really aren't so harmless.

So today, a girl at work was talking about a wedding reception that she has to go to this weekend that is on the very outside edge of town. "It's clear out in BFE," she said. Everyone chuckled except my boss who asked "What does that mean? What does BFE stand for?"

Uh....

The girl who said it asked "You don't know what BFE means?"

"No, what does it mean?"

Here's where everyone started to slowly slink away. Someone told her to ask her teenage daughter. I was worried she'd go up to every employee and ask them what it meant so I told her "You probably don't want to ask people what it means. Forget you ever heard it!" I was kind of wishing I had pretended I don't know what it means.

Another thing I stole from someone else's blog.

This is a great little game.

This is my suit. Color it gray or I will lose my job.

Mr. Nosker, Executive Director of the American Indian Christian Mission sent out this letter recently:

“As you may know, the primary language spoken in the homes of our students is either Navajo or Apache. English is a second language for most of our kids and this makes for some very interesting conversations. Today, Malissa checked two little girls out of their dorm and took them to eat in a newly opened Asian food restaurant. Upon their return, I flagged them down and asked the girls where they had been. The girls informed me that they had eaten “China food” and had learned how to eat with “chapsticks”.

They further informed me that tomorrow they intended to eat breakfast with their “chapsticks”. The immediate mental image of a child using a Chapstick as an eating utensil is unusual to say the least. Personally, I am looking forward to tomorrow morning and seeing how well the girls progress in consuming their oatmeal. Hopefully the oatmeal will be lumpy.”

First of all, who likes lumpy oatmeal? Please stop torturing the children!

Second, Mr. Nosker this is you. Let’s have no more making fun of these kids for their language mistakes.

You, too.

When I say to you, "Have a good day" the correct response is not "I will."