Reason #1 to Dropkick My Boss

OK. You people know me. Some of you know me better than my sister. Some of you know me maybe even better than that. Lots of you know me well enough to be fully aware of my greatest phobia in this life of mine. Hopefully, some of you know and care for me well enough to be willing to cough up some cash for bail money when I'm arrested and slammed into jail for drop kicking my boss all over this office for about half an hour or so.

He finally got me back for the mind-bendingly maddening repeated loop of “It’s a Small World” coming from a mysterious location in his office after he spent a week with his wife’s entire family in Disney. He got me back for re-wallpapering his entire office with post-it notes. He got me back for replacing his law school diploma with a photo of Alex Karras as Mongo in Blazing Saddles. If he knew that I planned to come in here with three rolls of plastic wrap and a hairdryer and shrink wrap his entire office when he next goes on vacation, I suppose it might have been worse. As it was, it was bad enough. In any case, this is how my morning went.

I was cranky and I was tired. It's tax season and while that is seldom a good season for much of anybody who owns their own business, this year in particular, the knowledge that April 15 was rapidly approaching has been keeping me up nights. I would have liked to have spent my evening chain smoking, eating pizza and drinking straight tequila, however, none of those activities were acceptable. On a Monday night that is. So instead, I came schlepping in here to work this morning and made a direct line to the little Keurig coffee maker my boss and I have on my desk. Anybody familiar with the mechanics of the Keurig? Let’s leave it at this. When you push the silver button that says “press to open” the front part springs up and open, revealing the place where you insert the little single serving coffee cups. It springs open pretty hard and damned fast.

This morning, as I groggily pressed the silver button, the coffee machine sprang open to reveal a huge, wriggly, hairy, moving, attacking, vicious, lethal blood dripping off it’s fangs ready to spring, got my name written all over it man eating..................…………………….black plastic Halloween spider.

Oh shut UP.

I screamed. Out loud. I actually almost threw up. I know I peed a little. I doubled over and put my hands on my knees to keep from passing out and that was my position when my evil young, no-sense-of-his-own-mortality boss came staggering out of his office, holding his stomach and howling with tears streaming down his face.

I’m shrink wrapping his office. Twice.

I’m replacing his keyboard with an old one and whiting out all the keys.

I’m going to collect packing peanuts and rig them over his door.

I’m going to open his mini blinds all the way and then steal the little controller.

I’m going to do all this and a lot more just as soon as I’m sure I’m not having a heart attack.

I might have to throw the stupid coffee machine away unless I can figure out how to smack that button and open it from 3 feet away, which may or may not be a safe distance, but in any case sure as hell beats standing right on top of the beast when he pounces.

How Not to Navigate a Crowded Parking Deck

I park on the top floor of our parking deck. It’s where most of the tenants park because the spaces are wider, there aren’t any parking restrictions and you can see your car from the windows of your office. When you're bored, you can hit the alarm button on your keyfob and totally freak out people who get a little too close. But on days like this, I have to wonder if metered parking on the street and the risk of a parking ticket isn’t almost worth it. Days when I follow someone who prompts me to write the following rules and regulations of parking deck use:

1. Do not pull in, realize you didn’t read the instructions, and then attempt to back up with four cars in line behind you.

2. Your window rolls down. Really. It does. It is not necessary to take off your seat belt, open your car, get out of your car, peer at the admission ticket, read it, then get back in your car, put your seat belt back ON and then and only then move out of the damned way.

3. The speed limit through the deck is not one mile per hour.

4. The speed limit through the deck most certainly does not include “reverse”.

5. Do not come to a dead stop to examine every single parking space you see.

6. Do not back up to get a second look at that parking space you just passed.

7. Do not turn left where the big red sign says “exit left” instead of continuing through the deck, realize your mistake and once again, throw that sucker in reverse and back up into the now 8 cars lined up behind you.

8. At the end of each row, you can only turn left. You don’t need to stop, look right where there IS no oncoming traffic because it’s a CEMENT WALL and put on your blinker.

9. When there are five spaces available, do not stop and wait for the person walking through the deck to get to their car to see if they are going to vacate a different spot.

10. Once you have done so, and the person strolling to their car DOES get into the car and leave, do NOT then decide you don’t like that spot after all.

11. Do not just once again stop and ponder.

12. Parking your car does not require that you get out and physically examine the space.

13. All those hands extending from the driver’s side windows of the cars behind you are NOT waving at you.