Misfires and ball-busting

First and foremost, it's time to recognize 2 notable accomplishments. Today is the 1 year anniversary of Paul's metals fund. Good for him (and good for me, as it ensures that I remain gainfully employed). I taped two balloons to his computer monitors. One offered congratulations, the other said "happy birthday" and collectively, they confused him for a good twenty minutes. It's a good thing I didn't grab the random ear of corn balloon, or the one that says "it's a boy!" He'd still be sitting there pondering the whole situation. May he enjoy continued success.

Secondly, I have posted a blog entry for five consecutive days which qualifies this as my most successful "diary" attempt ever. I guess that makes me an overachiever. Which, as far as I'm concerned should compensate for being an underachiever at work this week (Note: a majority of this was written on 7/21 and I fell asleep with the computer on my stomach prior to pressing "publish").

Anyway, as you've likely caught on by now, I work with men. Actually, according Dave Barry, they should be categorized as "guys". In the introduction to his book, Dave Barry's Complete Guide to Guys, (ladies, this is NOT a dating how-to manual; it may actually encourage the collection of cats) he proposes the following characteristics as differentiating "guys" from men:

Guys like neat stuff. We have 2 very nice TVs with 5 remotes. Only one of us knows how to use all 5 of them, and he can only figure it out 50% of the time.
Guys like a really pointless challenge. Have I mentioned that Rich blew his knee out in a softball throwing contest? Or that Greg accepted the challenge of eating 10 Devil Dogs in 15 minutes without a beverage to wash them down? Or that they've placed bets on David's date of resignation? Or...I think you get it.
Guys do not have a rigid and well-defined moral code. Moral code: don't kill anyone on purpose. They should consider rewriting the whole moral turpitude section of the employee handbook.
Guys are not great at communicating their intimate feelings, assuming they have any. I feel better thinking that they have 3 basic feelings: 1) I'm hungry 2) I'm thirsty 3) I feel like throwing something.

Definitely guys. As can be expected with most guys, their age is in no way, shape or form indicative of their maturity level. As a consequence, we have a vast array of balls (bouncy balls, golf balls, wiffle balls and even a dodgeball) laying all over the office ready to be picked up and launched at any given moment during the day. Typically speaking, there is an unwritten "cease-fire" during trading hours. Katie has made a concentrated effort to acquire all of the balls in the office and hide them in her car trunk for fear of being hit, but this is only a temporary solution. The following day, one of the guys will disappear and return with a bag full of balls.

I never take place in this ongoing game of catch, mostly because I don't want to hear about how I throw like a girl (which, by the way, is totally the case and explains 50% of my softball problems). For those of us who choose not to play, it's really more of a game of dodgeball. Greg is particularly bad at catching, so I'm always prepared for the occasional deflection. I'm not sure if it was my tomboyish childhood which included hitting and/or being hit with various objects or my general apathy at work, but I'll take one for the team. They never throw the ball too hard, so getting hit is more of an inconvenience than anything else. I shake it off, and then (pitifully) throw it back and carry on with my work. Katie finds the whole situation distracting, so if a ball happens to fly/roll/bounce into her territory, she promptly stuffs it up her shirt before walking out to her car and locking it in her trunk. The guys will always plead with her, "It didn't even hit you! It won't happen again!" but their pleas fall on deaf ears, and they watch defeated as she dumps their losses in her car.

She'd never been hit. Until today.

The moment I felt the ball whizz past my ponytail, I figured the situation was not going to end well. I turned around just in time to see the ball hit Katie directly in the headband. Keep in mind this was not a good week to be hitting anyone. She grabbed the ball completely disgusted, and carried out her normal routine. "THAT'S IT!" she cried as she stormed toward the door, "I'M IN FULL-ON BALL EXTERMINATION MODE!!!" Frankie winced.

"WHAT are we going to do about this?!?" asked Eric.

"Does this qualify under moral turpitude?" jested Rich.

"No," I replied, "But I do think there's a section about retrieval of property."

And there is: "Occasionally, XXX may be required to conduct internal investigations pertaining to security, auditing, work-related matters, or retrieval of XXX property."

XXX Law is on their side as technically, the balls belong to XXX. Now it was just a matter of strategizing. "We just need to steal her car keys," concluded Kevin.

"I wouldn't recommend going through her purse," I advised.

"Why not? We go through yours all of the time," said Rich.

"That's fine. You won't find anything good in there, anyway."

"We know."

After rolling my eyes, I decided that I'd lend my scheming capabilities (which are definitely underutilized) to the Dark Side. Particularly because Katie drives me crazy. The remote door-unlock function on our keys works from inside of the office. I know this, because once I spent a solid ten minutes locking my car (resulting in a honk) while a serviceman was working on his computer in the van parked to me. He'd ignore it, peek his head outside of the van and then get out of it altogether to investigate the situation as I laughed indoors. Very entertaining. I digress...back on track here. My solution to the problem...drumroll, please... Katie leaves her keys on her desk in the morning once in a while. What they need to do (to avoid searching through her belongings and earning themselves a potential lawsuit thanks to playground equipment) is to plant a receiver outdoors with a trash bag. When she gets up to go to the bathroom, the closest guy must take the keys and hit the pop trunk button to enable te receiver to empty her trunk of their seized goodies. The whole operation should take 2 minutes tops, and the element of surprise gives them an extra 30 seconds or so.

When the stars align just so and the keys are present for the pressing, the guys will take the offensive. Until then, they wait.

Happy weekending, all.