Is There a Businesswoman’s Special?

If you’re either (a) my friend Jessie or (b) a fan of Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, you’ll get the title.  If you’re neither, then I’m sorry, but we really need to reevaluate our friendship.  I can’t be friends with anyone who hasn’t watched Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion (or Clueless… or Super Troopers… or Army of Darkness).  I’m sorry; that’s just the way I roll.

I apologize up front from the rambling and unfoodlike nature of this blog post.  I’m a bit punchdrunk off work right now, as it’s been all-consuming lately.  That’s not to say I haven’t been eating.  Just yesterday, I had four packets of Sweet Tarts for breakfast.  And last night for dinner?  Twelve Oreo cookies and a Saint Arnold’s Winter Stout.  So don’t come crying to me about my high-falutin’ food writing and how you don’t want to invite me over for dinner because I’ve got such “fancy” taste.  This is a woman who eats cookie dough straight out of the tube.  WITHOUT A SPOON.

I’d like to relate two utterly random yet hilarious stories from work this past week, and then I’m going to get back to work and NOT WRITING because that’s what I really love to do.

1. A vendor called seeking their bajillion* dollar payment that’s late this month.  I’ve been super busy and therefore forgetful (and I’m incredibly forgetful on a normal day, so…yeah) and I realized with a fright that I hadn’t paid them.  Panicking, I promised them that I was getting the check out the door that day.  They wanted to know the check amount, check date and — oops! — the check number.  I say oops! because I flat-out lied.  There was no way I was going to be able to get that check out the door that day.
   
   Panicking even more now because I don’t have a check number to provide them, I decide to dig myself even deeper (that always solves things, right?).  Because I’m nothing if not abjectly deceitful in the face of danger, I pulled a check number completely out of my ass.  Made it up out of thin air.  What are they going to do?  Look it up?  Compare it against the eventual check they do receive?  Who cares?  I just needed to buy some time.
   
   Today, when I ran down to accounting to pick up the check and FedEx overnight it to the vendor, I looked at the check number out of idle curiosity.  It seemed oddly familiar.  I took it up to my desk to log it in before sending it and — again, just for grins — compared it to the check number I’d emailed to the vendor the day before.  IT WAS ONE DIGIT OFF.  ONE DIGIT.  OUT OF EIGHT.  I am suddenly terrified of myself and thinking that perhaps I do have a superpower after all, albeit an incredibly useless one.
   
   *More like bahundred, so suck it, unnamed vendor in California.




2. A few weeks ago, my coworker received a Christmas gift from his old boss.  He thought that it was kind of odd, since they never really got along, but thoughtful.  My coworker fell sick over Christmas, however, and completely forgot about the gift (which was sitting in his office, unopened).  Yesterday as he was cleaning his desk, he came across the present and excitedly unwrapped it.  It was a Denver Broncos desk calendar.
   
   “Wasn’t that nice of him?” the coworker asked me.  “He remembered that I’m a Broncos fan!”
   
   “Yes,”  I agreed.  “Very nice.  And yet very unusual of him to remember something like that or to get you a gift.”
   
   Later that afternoon, my coworker came back by my office, desk calendar in hand.  “K, did you notice anything strange about this calendar earlier?” he asked with a look of pure glee on his face.
   
   “No, why?”
   
   “Look closely.””I don’t see anyth…ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh…shit.  Are you kidding me?  Is this a joke?”
   
   The desk calendar?  Was from 2001.  For those of you listening at home, that’s eight years old.  He got an EIGHT YEAR OLD CALENDAR as a Christmas present.
   
   “Where did he get this?  A freaking time machine?  Has he had this sitting in his coat closet for the past eight years or something?  Does he not realize that calendars aren’t good from year-to-year?  That the days change?”  We sat and puzzled happily over the many potential situations in which the ex-boss thought this would make a good gift.  Feel free to leave your own suggestions below.

Okay, that’s it for today.  Check back next week when I’ll have stripped naked except for ribbons of Scotch tape tangled in my hair and Sharpie tattoos decorating my arms and will be running around the office throwing chairs out windows like Margot Kidder until building security Tases me.