What I think about on days I don't feel like leaving my desk

My job would be so much more exciting with one of those vacuum tube things like they use at the bank drive through. After preparing my paperwork I could put it in a little capsule and into the tube and –zing!- it would go off to Purchasing or –zang!- it would go off into signature-land to be signed by Mr. or Ms. Bigwig and then sent back to me. I’m not going to start a hard-core campaign for it until such time as I lose the use of my feet and can’t run my own errands, but it would just be so cool.

While I wait for futuristic improvements in office document transportation, I need something else to make work fun. Maybe I’ll dress up like Judy Jetson next week…

Things You Should Not Show People

(Or if you do, give sufficient warning)
 
Four examples of the above title:
 
CASE #1: There are some people in life that seem to be huge magnets for gruesome, though generally minor, injuries. For some inexplicable reason these people have an amazing talent of showing these injuries to others. I say talent rather than tendency, because I for one try really hard not to see these sorts of things (I’m the type of person who anti-rubbernecks at an accident scene – this means I’m trying so hard not look in the direction of the mangled cars that I’ve almost caused an accident looking in the opposite direction of all the other drivers.) So, it takes a cunning person to make me take an upclose look at their wound. This is how it generally goes: friend or acquaintance in question approaches me or a group that I am standing in. The person’s thumb and index finger are poised at the corner of the large bandage as they begin the phrase, “Hey wanna see what I did this weekend?” and by the time the last word is out of their mouth they have ripped off the bandage revealing their prize for hazardous, clumsy and/or stupid behavior. A variation on this tactic is the woundee who has recently lost a black toenail and is walking around in flip flops waiting for the right opportunity to go “Hey look” while sticking their foot in their friend’s face. I want to make it clear that I don’t love people any less that do this sort of thing, but I think you can see why it fits in the above-mentioned category.
 
CASE #2: This one I have been guilty of myself on several previous occasions, and used to do so on purpose. In the past year I have tried to control it, and with the exception of a few accidental exhibitions have done a fairly good job. What am I alluding to so elusively? Showing people what kind of underwear you have on while still wearing pants. Nuf’ said.
 
CASE #3: Your Britney Spears memorabilia collection. (I had to learn this one the hard way).
 
CASE #4: The link below shows the picture that spawned today’s blog entry. Prepare yourself before clicking it, it isn’t pretty. But it makes me wonder how many people are going to be flocking to donate when this is the image used on the promotional webpage. I donate fairly regularly, but seeing this made me physically ill. Maybe I’m just a wimp.
http://www.acrossla.org/SERVICES/guidelines.html

Take 2 cups of motor oil, spread liberally over the Persian rug, and scrub!

What the world needs is an Evil Heloise. I'm not suggesting a column with pipe bomb recipes, but just fake advice that makes a bigger mess than the one you are trying to clean. I figure that it might be pretty easy to slip under the radar, at least for a little while, because most of the real Heloise tips sound so crazy anyway.

Actually even real “hints” can be disastrous. I was listening to a morning radio show (I was actually trying to listen to music, but that is just not possible in the morning) a couple of weeks ago, and apparently the female morning host on this particular station periodically dishes out her own Heloise-type hints. A woman called in regarding a hint that suggested using a teaspoon of baking soda along with regular shampoo to get extra clarifying power when washing your hair. The caller’s hair had turned into a huge puff ball with little clumps of soda/shampoo mixture stuck in it. Well, it seems that the short-sighted radio host did not warn her listeners not to use the baking soda from their refrigerator when trying this tip out.

Well, while I wait for the right opportunity to try out my Evil Heloise scheme on the unsuspecting, I want to leave you with an actual tip I pulled off the official Heloise website:

Keep Blue Jeans From Fading
Turn inside out and wash in the coolest water possible; dry on lowest heat. Try dry-cleaning jeans once every five to six washings to slow down the fading process and keep colors fresh longer.

…or buy new jeans. I will attest to the inside out and cold water thing, and it works very well. But much like ironing t-shirts, I think that people who would dry clean their jeans ought not to wear them in the first place.