The Business Trip

I was watching a rerun of "The Office" tonight -- the one where Michael Scott was sent on a business trip to Winnipeg. The one in Canada.

As you know, "The Office" takes place in Scranton. The one in Pennsylvania.

The flight attendant told Michael that there would be no meal on the flight since it was less than two hours in duration. I then got to wondering what route this trip took.

Would he have driven the two hours to New York and taken a direct flight? Would he have flown from Scranton and connected through New York? Maybe he flew on Northwest Airlines from Scranton and connected through either of their hubs in Detroit or Minneapolis. Knowing Northwest, it probably would have been that convenient Scranton-Detroit-Minneapolis-Winnipeg jaunt.

I tried to think of all the possibilities. I couldn't stop wondering about this.

So, I paused the Tivo, hopped onto Orbitz and requested a flight from Scranton to Winnipeg.

Duh. . .

United Airlines -- connecting through Chicago's O'Hare. My own back yard.

If I'd known that I would have popped out there to say hello during his layover.

I Love Casual Fridays

The Office

My favorite TV program is, hands down, The Office. I think I relate to it because I see parts of myself that I don’t like in characters such as Dwight and Michael.

The receptionist where I currently work even mentioned to me that our workplace seemed to have every character from The Office working here. She said, “You know, we have a Pam and a Jim and, oh my god! you remind me of Dwight!” (In my defense, I was trying a new hairstyle where I was sort of parting my hair in the middle and I had just come out of the rain.)

I wanted to respond with, “You mean cow!” But my actual immediate thought was, “Who here is Jim?”

And I did away with that hairstyle.

I realized that I have 30 years of experience working in offices. Well, minus that three-year escapade into restaurant management when I was young and foolish. Oh, and there that seven-year escapade into the monastery when I was a little older and still not very wise. So, basically, that comes to 20 years of office experience that I’ve under my belt.

So, dear puppies, here are my words of wisdom gleaned from many years of trials and errors:

1. When the boss says it’s ‘crunch time’, continue to work as normal but just walk really fast down the corridors and hallways.

Okay, that’s about all the advice I have for now.

I’m bizzy and have lots of work to do.

It's Pat!

Yesterday when I was at the gym, I was minding my own business while torturing myself on some upper-body machine when a very strange person walked over in front of me.

For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out of this person was male or female. This person was around sixty years old I’d say, not very attractive at all, and sort of reminded me of the androgynous character from Saturday Night Live named Pat.

Do you remember that character? In every skit about Pat, the guest star would ask Pat a number of questions trying to get Pat to divulge a gender.

Anyway, this person was wearing baggy short-shorts and proceeded to plop down on the floor directly in front of me, laying on his/her back. Then, this person proceeded to perform some quick leg-raises, crossing and un-crossing the legs really wide, back and forth at the knees. . . in these baggy short-shorts . . . facing me.

I quickly averted my eyes, looking upward. I think I had an expression on my face resembling Jim Halpert from The Office - - you know, when he looks at the camera with that wide-eyed, alarmed look on his face.
The leg-raising-and-crossing continued, unabated, in front of me.

I still kept wondering what gender this strange person was.

Male? Female? Maybe intersexed?
I really didn’t have a clue.

The raised leg crossing-and-spreading continued. . . .

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. The curiosity got to me. I just had to know. Surely, just a quick glance toward the baggy shorts would tell me what I wanted to know.

I did it.

I stole a furtive glance into the netherworld of those baggy shorts directly in front of me not ten feet away.

And you know what? . . .

. . . For the life of me, I still couldn’t tell.