Papa Got A Brand New Box

It has finally happened...



12-25-2006
R.I.P.

The Perils of Your Clothing At Work

Anyone's job is chock full of excitement. There are your deadlines, clients and customers demanding attention, bosses and managers with their own requests. But it's your clothes and what happens to them that can actually ruin your day.

I remember my very first day on the sales floor. There was electricity in the air as I was ready to sell my first car. I had a client that was looking for an SUV, so I showed him what we had and went on a test drive. As I climbed into the vehicle, I felt something rip. I could feel a draft. Oh no!

I had managed to tear the area of my pants kind of between my crotch and my butt. Through the cunning use of angles, I was able to hide my assets from the customer and everyone else. I managed to find my sales manager, explained my predicament, and promptly left the dealership to aquire a new pair of pants. No, I did not sell that customer a car.

Lunch time is also a dangerous thing. Even careful eaters like myself can tempt the Fates. They enjoy manipulating gravity so you end up wearing your lunch as opposed to just eating it.

I went to the refrigerator in the breakroom to retrieve my lunch. In order to eat healthier and save some money, I make my lunch every single day. Usually, my lunch consists of two sandwiches, a delicious Coca Cola, and a granola bar. As I opened the fridge door, I noticed that there was a bottle of mayonnaise.

Now eating healthy, I do not actually own any mayonnaise. Why not treat myself with some free, delicious mayo on my turkey sandwiches? So I grabbed the bottle and shook it up. I was about to squirt it onto my sandwiches when a thought struck me. This wasn't my mayonnaise - was it actually still good? I decided to give it a sniff. The Fates decided that this was the perfect time to test me.

The bottle of mayonnaise, Hellman's to be precise, exploded in my face. There was mayo on my glasses. There was mayo in my nose. There was mayo on the crotch of my khaki pants. Some even managed to find its way onto my sandwiches.

After scooping mayo out of my nose, off of my glasses, face, and clothes, I finshed my lunch. I looked down to my crotch and realized that I was in serious trouble. Mayonnaise has oil in it - you cannot wipe it off. Mayonnaise on khaki cotton, especially on your crotch, looks like fresh urine. I looked like I had an accident in the bathroom.

Once again, through the careful use of angles and the careful positioning of my lunch bag, I was able to make good my escape to my car. No one noticed the conspicuous spots on my pants or had to contemplate whether I had problems with incontinence or being housebroken.

Thankfully, with the nearby toll roads and the blessing of Our Lady of Fast Acceleration, I was able to make it home in time to change and make it back without being late. Let's hear it for one hour lunch breaks.

That's not the only lunch disaster I've had. I had to return to my old stomping ground of Orlando for some training. I was happy to see that there was a Chipotle in the immediate vicinity. For it was there that I would be enjoying a delicious lunch of a tasty burrito.

My shirt was a gleaming white. I admired it in the noon day sun - doing laundry is something that I am really good at and actually enjoy. I waited in line thinking of what deliciousness I would take part in that day. I got my burrito and as I sat in my seat, I noticed a rather attractive lady who worked for the same company. "Why, hello," I thought to myself. The burrito looked so tasty. Then it happened.

With the very first bite, a tasty combination of black beans and perfectly seasoned steak managed to both fall on my formerly gleaming white shirt and once again, on my crotch! I am apparently big in the lap.

I decided to act like nothing happened and finished my lunch. The cutie had her back to me, so no one but me knew what had just transpired. Rubbing the stain on my crotch seemed like a really bad idea in such a public place.

I looked out the door and saw that there was a Walgreen's right in the parking lot. Fortune had smiled upon me. For one of the greatest inventions ever made laid in wait inside - The Tide To Go stain stick. I bought one and in the privacy of my own car with darkly, tinted windows, dabbed the miracle stain remover on my shirt and crotch. With the combination of the greenhouse effect and direct sunlight, the wet spots dried and I was safe. The accident never happened.

So, as you can see, your clothing can make you or break you at work. With the advent of the Tide To Go pen and stain fighter clothing, the workplace is just a little safer. Too bad there isn't a Chipotle by where I work now.

Thank Goodness For the Return of Football Season

While there are many sports that I enjoy watching, I particularly enjoy football season. There is something special about powerful, angry men trying to cripple one another on every play. My team, the Oakland Raiders, are considered to be the most vicious of the bunch.

They are simply the most penalized team every season. In their heyday in the 70s, they were the team that all the others dreaded playing because win or lose, there was a heavy physical price to pay. The Raiders were the best team in the league, despite being chock full of outcasts, rebels, miscreants, and players considered past their prime. Their maverick leader was and still remains the notorious Al Davis.

With their winning seasons behind them, Al Davis had enough and rehired Raider great Art Shell as the team's coach. Shell, a Hall of Fame offensive lineman and eternal badass, will show the Raiders of the current generation what "Commitment to Excellence" truly means.

Al Davis put it succinctly, "We will come back. I say to the Raider players, to the Raider fans, to the Raider ex-players and even to the press, we’ll get that back. It may take us a short while but we’ll get that nastiness of the Raiders back."

God help you other 31 teams.

The Summer of '96

It was ten years ago that TWA flight 800 crashed off the coast of Long Island. At the time, I was studying in Italy and my summer there was coming to an end. I, along with the rest of the students, were to be leaving in a few weeks and the announcement that an American plane crashing, possibly due to terrorism, was quite disheartening.

Very little information was available to us. The American newspaper we could get our hands on were old issues of USA Today. There were reports that it was a bomb or a missile. Whatever it was, it wasn't something that you wanted to think about as you had to head across an ocean. I had images of hijackers and explosions.

Fortunately for me, by sheer coincidence, my flight back was with two guys I had met in Italy whose fraternity I joined when I got back to America. We laughed and joked the whole way back. TWA flight 800 and all those people that died became just a memory.

The Rumors of My Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

I have been working ever so dilligently ay my job and have been unable to post for some time. Many things have happened since my last post. I was in NYC and had quite a few adventures. I got to assemble all of my best friends there.

Also, in my absence, a number of people have contacted me trying to either purchase this blogger address or have me give it to them. Sorry, but no. There can be only one.