Where the Hell Was I?

Being under the weather last week, I nearly got away with forgot to mention an embarrassing little adventure I had on Valentine's Day. Some days, I don't even have to leave my office to dork up the joint. Whoopee.

There I was on Thursday afternoon, weeping softly at my desk, as is my usual custom. To cheer my mood -- and take my mind off my throbbing sinuses -- I was listening to a few MP3s. Specifically, I had Fatboy Slim's Better Living Through Chemistry queued up, and playing loud. Maybe I was in a techno mood. Maybe I was comforted by the promise in the title -- a little NyQuil (or tequila, or possibly lye) could be just the ticket to a happier, phlegm-free future. Whatever the reason, those catchy tunes were the only bright spot in a sad, sniffly, scratchy-throated afternoon.

"It's uptempo, with a good beat. If I could dance at all without looking like an epileptic ostrich, I could dance to it."

At least, ...

So, I've been sick.

Not deathly, gasping my last breath, 'I'm coming to join you, Elizabeth!' sick, maybe. But still -- sick. I've spent much of the past ten days coughing up bits of things that may or may not have been attached to my internal organs. And someone evidently replaced my sinus fluid with some sort of napalm-'n'-molasses mixture, to see if I would notice.

Trust me, I noticed. Shove a bean up it and blow, Folgers.

"You might think that the universe would take pity on a guy like me in his hour of weakness, when all I wanted was twenty hours of sleep a night and some sort of honker Hoover to schlurp the phlegm right out of my face."

Anyway, I'm better now. But it was a tough week and a half or so. You might think that the universe would take pity on a guy like me in his hour of weakness, when all I wanted was twenty hours of sleep a night and some sort of honker Hoover to schlurp the phlegm right out of ...

I've gradually come to realize that there's something going on around my workplace. Something different. Unusual. Special.

In the bathroom in the office, the janitors leave bags -- I said bags! -- full of unused, unopened toilet paper in the stall. Bags full. I'm not kidding. Seriously, look:

So many squares to spare.

Now, think about that for a second. Recall the offices in which you've worked, and reminisce over the modus operandi of the typical cleaning staff there. If they were anything like the jani-Nazis I've encountered in my previous jobs, then they were more than slightly stingy with the sanitary supplies. You might find a square, or even a pair. But squares to spare? Squares to tear and share? Pretty ...

No, not you. Of course not you.

I'm talking about Amazon -- or more specifically, the 'Recommended for You' bug prank 'feature' on their website. That nasty little bastard can go straight to hell, and I hope as many pitchforks as possible poke it right in the ass on the way.

"I thought from my previous experience that the worst thing Amazon could do is ignore me. I was wrong. So very, very wrong."

Don't get me wrong. I like Amazon; I shop there all the time. And I appreciate automagical systems that can figure out what I might like -- when they actually work, that is. I only ask three things of a recommendation system -- or for that matter, a friend, spouse, or government -- and in the past week, Amazon has failed me on all three. Observe:

1. Pay attention to what I'm telling you.

A few days ago, I logged onto Amazon, ...

I've been pretty good recently about not cross-whoringposting my missives from Bugs & Cranks over here. The way I figure it, if you're a baseball fan, you're already over there, because the collective writing is primo top-notch. And if you're a Braves fan, then the link to my area is on the sidebar for easy access, and maybe you're already reading it.

"If you're not a baseball fan, then nothing I could possibly write is going to make you give a flying badger turd about the career on-base percentage of Atlanta's backup second baseman."

If you're not a baseball fan, then nothing I could possibly write is going to make you give a flying badger turd about the career on-base percentage of Atlanta's backup second baseman. (For the record, it's .330, over a scant 101 at bats in limited action -- but now ...

So, I need a little help here.

As you may -- or may not -- recall, my dog has lymphoma.

That's not the bit I need help with. I certainly don't expect everyone reading this site to be practicing and expert veterinary oncologists.

This time.

Rather, I need a bit of advice on dealing with the staff at the local animal hospitorium. The front desk ladies, specifically, because they're killing me. Which is their prerogative, I suppose, since they're not committed to the well-being of human visitors. Just my luck to tangle with receptionists whose Hippocratic oath only applies to tabby cats and stray shih tzus. Super.

"Just my luck to tangle with receptionists whose Hippocratic oath only applies to tabby cats and stray shih tzus. Super."

Anyway, the way they're killing me is this: every week, for each of the last sixteen weeks, ...

I got out of bed this morning, as I manage to do most days. And, after the requisite creaking and grumbling and scratching of various unmentionables, I made my way to the shower. As is my custom on Wednesdays.

Most Wednesdays. According to my New Years resolution, at least.

Anyway, once I was squeaky cleaned and toweled dry, I ventured off to find clean underpants. They're the foundation of a healthy winter ensemble. But I found, to my still-dripping dismay, that there were no clean underpants in the drawer. Socks, yes. T-shirts, sure. Some sort of weird multicolored fuzzy thing that might be a scarf -- or a month-old sub sandwich? Check. But underpants were conspicuously and troublingly absent.

"Somehow -- was it my darting eyes, the nervous tics, or the periodic dancing-Elaine-Benes-esque kicks I used to subtly extract my underwear from up my netherhole? -- people seemed clued in to my silky little secret."

That ...

For the past few years, I've been the 'captain' of our Thursday night volleyball team.

I put 'captain' in quotes because there's really not a lot of captainosity involved. I pay the team fee to the league. And I send out emails every week to badger people to show up. That's the full extent of my 'captainly' duties. Just once, you'd think I'd get to perform a civil marriage service or keelhaul a mutineer or something. I'd even settle for getting to wear the funny hat and drinking rum on the job. But no.

"Just once, you'd think I'd get to perform a civil marriage service or keelhaul a mutineer or something."

The trickiest part of my responsibilities is getting the right number and proportion of people to play. It's regulation volleyball, and a co-ed league, which means that ideally, we need six players -- two or three women and three or four men -- to field a full squad. Six people working as a team is what you call a 'system' ...

I don't have a lot of requirements for my fast food. It's not often that I frequent the quickie joints, so I don't bother being overly demanding when I do. If it shows up quickly and fits in my mouth, that's usually plenty good enough for me. If my standards were any lower, I'd just eat the change when they hand it back and be done with it.

But even I have my limits. And one of those was sorely tested at lunch today.

See, I have this theory. It's more of a governing rule, really, and that rule is this:

'The packaging of a food or food-like object should never be the only force holding the stupid thing together.'

"If it shows up quickly and fits in my mouth, that's usually plenty good enough for me."

Maybe I'm being unreasonable. But that's just how I feel. And so does the bottom half of the grande burrito I bought for lunch today. And so does my desk. And my keyboard. And the new shirt I was wearing ...

Well, I'm back.

Not 'back with a vengeance', perhaps -- the vengeance I bought on Amazon hasn't been delivered yet; probably held up in customs or something -- but I'm back. And when that vengeance shows up -- well, whoo, geez. Look out. Mercy.

In the meantime, here's this:

---

One of the more... unusual Christmas presents the missus and I received this year was a kit, of sorts, for making scones. I'm not often genuinely surprised by a gift -- much less openly perplexed -- but this was a bit of an eyebrow-lifter.

Mind you, I'm not saying it was a bad gift. And certainly not unappreciated. I'm just saying... well. All I know about scones is that they're what prim, upper-crust old British ladies like to eat with their tea. I fail to qualify on a number of key points in that description. I can manage the 'old' -- and on a good day, maybe the 'crust' part. That's about it.

"When your husband starts doing crazy shit ...