Let Me Be Frank With You

I have never been the dunkee in a dunk tank to this point in my life and would politely decline any such future offers unless 1) I’m guaranteed to be first to be dunked; 2) the water comes from a purified source and 3) I was witness to a thorough sterilization of the dunk tank by a professionally certified dunk tank sterilization crew just prior to my entry into the tank.

I have always been of the opinion that without proper sterilization, being second or later in the dunk tank is the same thing as bobbing for apples in a bucket of somebody’s crotch water.

A firm handshake is critical. Go bone-crushing hard and you’re viewed as a maniac and probable domestic abuser. Go too soft and you’re a sissy, insincere or creepy. Firm is how it’s played.

At the conclusion of a meeting yesterday, the gentleman I shook hands with came in unexpectedly fast and tightened his grip at my 2nd knuckle so that he was shaking my fingertips. It was at this moment in time, during my 41st year on this earth, that I decided I will no longer let these rare instances of handshakes gone wrong go without acknowledgement. I then explained to him that he gripped too fast and that we need to end this productive and positive meeting with a more manly shake than the poor one in which we were just engaged. A firm handshake with equal pressure from both sides followed and confidence and good tidings filled the room.

From now on, when I haven’t been able to offer a firm handshake, I’m going to call ‘do-over’.

Also, a note to all of you bone-crushing hand shakers: be advised that I have been working out my forearms. You come at me too strong with that shake and I will squeeze until your bones turn into a fine powder.

I just bought a toilet from The Home Depot. The salesperson told me that it can flush a bucket of golf balls. There was another toilet that actually listed on the sign that it could flush a bucket of golf balls – I confirmed with the salesperson that the one I purchased was up to that task as well because that’s very important.

I don’t know that I’m capable of producing a stool that is like a bucket of golf balls (speaking in consistency, color and volume terms) but it’s nice to know that if my digestive system matures in a way that would produce such a stool, I’ll be able to whisk it away to sea without the use of a plunger.

I think that one of the greatest jobs ever would be to write toilet flushing capability ads for The Home Depot. If I ever got that gig, my first sign would say that you could flush a reluctant cat down the toilet – maybe with a cartoon illustration of a cat with its little cat arms and legs spread out in a futile effort to keep from being sucked down the pipes? I’d say on a different sign that another toilet could flush enough bricks of manure to build a dollhouse with. All toilets would be coded with my easy to read indicator to show whether or not they are capable of flushing away a 5 gallon bucket of hummus leaving no remains in the bowl.

I’m pretty sure that I’d be really good at this job so if any of you have any connections that might help me land a part time job doing this on the side, please let me know.

Immediately after doing my 4 year stint in the military, I worked as a VA work study student at the Florida Jobs & Benefits Center. Helping military veterans find jobs was fulfilling work and I really enjoyed my coworkers there.

I saw some pretty sobering things during my time in that job (such as a man intentionally setting himself on fire and watching my boss spray him with a fire extinguisher – the man later died in the hospital) and witnessed some pretty heartbreaking stories that stick with me to this day (a pretty, young woman who was deaf and had trouble communicating in part because her own mother hadn’t bothered to learn sign language and the homeless veteran unemployed construction worker with HIV).

Beyond those things, the thing that I always remember is this perpetually unemployed man who would come in to do job searches on the computer. Every day I’d say, “How’s it going, Charles?” He’d ALWAYS reply with “Another day, another buck two ninety five.” I had never heard that before, haven’t heard it since and never thought to ask him what he meant by that but I always uttered some sort of cliche right back at him. I secretly suspected that if he said that during job interviews, it most likely bewildered the interviewer and resulted in an unfavorable outcome for him, but i figured I had no right to question him on it and it was a sense of personal enjoyment and satisfaction for me to have this unusual daily exchange with him.

To this day, when someone asks me how it’s going, I’m always tempted to say, “another day, another buck two ninety five” but I restrain myself so that I assimilate into the workforce and overall society.

Yesterday, I dealt with the customer service representative of a company which has been paid to provide a service they have failed to provide.

Upon realizing that my claim was true but without admitting it, the representative quickly shifted gears from being affable, overly-pleasant and confident to almost panic-stricken and kept repeating that “this issue is going level 2” and that I would be contacted in the future.

I was somehow comforted by this response but after the call, I realized that I just assumed that “level 2” is the “code red”, “DEFCON 1”, “THREATCON ALPHA” of customer service without questioning things further.

From now on, whenever I get into an uncomfortable situation, I’m going to utter the phrase “I’m taking this to Level 2.” in an airline pilot type voice and instantly run out of the room. That way, people will think that things are being worked on at a state of heightened awareness and will forget about the whole thing later.

I made small talk with an acquaintance today who has been less than six months on a new job for a company that I’ve never worked for and have no inside familiarity with. The conversation went something like this:

Me: “Hey, how’s the new gig treating you?”

Acquaintance: “It’s great! I was just promoted to the CRT and have been asked to be on the ARPS team twice. In fact, I set the JIB for the RFP’s multiple times and they say I’ll be RM of the RADM soon if I can get my QLS’s up. But I’m definitely in line for the IWR Team for sure.”

Me: Well, I have some popcorn shrimp in the oven. Glad it’s going well.

That conversation could have carried on for hours had I not gone with my “I’m cooking popcorn shrimp” bailout line. I figure this is a much less confrontational exit from a conversation than “What in the hell are you talking about? Do you know those acronyms mean nothing to people who aren’t on the payroll of your company?”

Yesterday, while waiting in the school parking lot to pick up my oldest son, my youngest son and I were in the car playing with the air conditioned seats. I received a phone call on my work phone and simultaneously lifted the phone to my ear, cranked up the air on his seat and asked him “can you feel it in your butt?” before I answered the phone with my professional greeting.

Evidently, I hit the “answer call” button on the phone a bit sooner than I thought because a nervous voice on the other end of the line said “no, I can’t feel it in my butt.” When I nervously laughed and explained that it was a question for my son, the caller became even more nervous sounding – which, in hindsight, makes sense.

Thankfully, the caller was someone I knew very well and he seemed to believe my story after I went into a panic-stricken, nervous explanation of the innocence of the situation. It was like a real-life episode of Three’s Company.

Hopefully the FBI maintains a list of the creeps (male and female) who would buy The Bachelor Video Game for Nintendo DS.

I don’t think those people are fit to be on the loose with the rest of us. (If you, Dear reader, own a copy, I’m not talking about you. You’re perfectly normal. It’s the OTHERS who pretend to woo cartoon boyfriends and girlfriends that I’m talking about – not you. By the way, enjoy your night in the fantasy suite and please, for the love of everything holy, never ever tell me what you did in there.)