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Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA
There’s a stalker calling me at work. Only she’s not my stalker; she’s apparently stalking some other guy. Who gave her my office number. Possibly by accident, but very probably to prevent being stalked. The woman is very persistent. And possibly not quite right in the head.
(So it’s a shame she’s not stalking me. We sound perfect for each other.)
She first called my number on Tuesday. I very rarely get calls on my office phone because:
“I listened through the message once to see whether there might be any juicy blackmailing material, scandalous sex talk, or use of potentially intriguing words like ‘ransom’ or ‘getaway’ or ‘poledancers’.”
Most of the time my phone rings, it’s either the boss calling about another pay cut or some ‘code of conduct violation’, or it’s a wrong number. The vast majority of those wrong numbers, even now, are for the last guy who had my phone number — and he’s been gone for three years, so he must have been important enough to be called. Either that, or he was operating a crystal meth and granny porn distribution ring from his cubicle, and some of his humps haven’t gotten word of his absence yet.
(He was a quiet, skinny, sort of bookish kid. Kept to himself a lot. Never got in trouble with the boss. Always got to the office early.
So yeah — my money’s on the smack and wrinkle porn. Nobody keeps their nose that clean without some jumbo-sized skeletons in the closet. Trust me.)
Anyway, the lady called me on Tuesday. We had a brief conversation around two o’clock:
Me: Hello, this is Charlie.
Crazy Stalker Lady: Hi, is Michael Patterson there?
Me: No, sorry. I think you have the wrong nuimber.
Crazy Stalker Lady: Oh. Well… okay, then. *click*
Thirty seconds later, the phone rang again:
Me: Hello, this is Charlie.
Crazy Stalker Lady: Yes, Mike Patterson, please.
Me: I’m sorry. There’s no Mike Patterson here.
Crazy Stalker Lady: Harrumph. *click*
Thirty more seconds, and the phone rang again. I didn’t bother answering this time; I simply turned the ringer down as far as it would go, and tried to ignore it. Finally, it cut over to voice mail — where I clearly state my name and at no point claim to be Michael Patterson, to know Michael Patterson, or to take messages for Michael Patterson. None of these details seemed to daunt our intrepid stalker, who charged ahead and left a long and detailed personal message.
For Michael Patterson. Who isn’t me, as I believe we’ve established by now.
I listened through the message once to see whether there might be any juicy blackmailing material, scandalous sex talk, or use of potentially intriguing words like ‘ransom’ or ‘getaway’ or ‘poledancers’. Finding none of those, I deleted the message and assumed that was the end of it. Which it was.
Until this morning. At a quarter till noon, the phone rang. It was her again, asking for Mike Patterson. I told her she had the wrong number. She harrumphed, and and hung up.
Immediately, she called back. She asked for Michael Patterson again. I told her, again, that there’s no one here by that name. She told me the number she had dialed, and I confirmed that it was dialed correctly — but under no circumstances had I invaded Mike Patterson’s office, stashed him in a file folder, and begun answering his phone. She harrumphed again, and hung up.
And again, she called right back. I let it go to voice mail, thinking that maybe I should change my message to say something more along the lines of:
‘Hello, this is not Mike Patterson. I’ve never met Mike Patterson, and know nothing about Mike Patterson, but if Mike Patterson has given you this number to reach him, you’re out of luck. Probably, you’re also a whacked-out psycho nutjob who’s intent on hiding out in Mike Patterson’s bushes — euphemistically or otherwise — and he’s given you a wrong number on purpose. So I’m not telling you my name, either. But here’s a hint: it’s not MIke Patterson. Buh-bye, now.‘
Or even better:
‘Hi, you’ve reached the office of Mike Patterson. Sadly, Mike has recently been incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay, where he faces multiple charges of distributing treasonous information over the phone to various as-yet-unknown co-conspirators. As this line is currently being monitored by several federal agencies, you may safely expect the FBI to arrive soon at your doorstep to commence the grueling interrogations and excruciatingly thorough body cavity searches. Feel free to leave a feeble blubbering denial after the beep, or simply hold on the line until the unmarked vans appear in your driveway.‘
Possibly, that would get me into more ‘code of conduct’ hot water, should the boss ever decide to call again. But at least I could go back to ignoring the phone for a while. It’s a risk I might just have to take.
Permalink | 6 Comments1. ‘Tighter’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘better’.
2. Snap the elastic of others as you would have your own elastic snapped unto you.
3. Style is a distant second consideration when your balls are tangled in a knot.
4. When you start out with a leg in the wrong hole, it’s all downhill from there.
5. If you suspect something’s going to crawl up your ass and annoy you, you’re probably right.
“There’s nothing sexy about showing your ass in public.”
6. Just because your wife can effortlessly make something look good doesn’t mean that you can. Or that you should even try.
7. One of the worst things you can possibly do is fail to realize you have everything ass-backwards.
8. Sometimes, the most effective solutions are plain, simple, and come in packs of three.
9. No matter how messy things get, it’ll all come out in the wash. Probably.
10. There’s nothing sexy about showing your ass in public. Well, maybe your ass. But not mine.
11. If you hit a snag getting into something, your best bet is to step out and try again from the start. Otherwise, you’re likely to end up falling on your face.
12. Animal prints are only an acceptable fashion statement when no one else can see them.
13. If there’s anything sticking up out of the back of your pants, expect people to stare and point. And probably laugh.
14. Two minutes in the dryer makes everything snugglier.
15. In an emergency, you can always turn things inside out.
16. Nobody, but nobody, wants to see my reenactment of scenes from Risky Business.
17. It’s best to find your escape hatch before you actually have to go. Really, really have to go.
18. Accidents will happen. But the more of them you can keep to yourself, the happier everyone will be.
19. If it’s meant for your crotch, don’t put it on your head. And vice versa.
20. In a world of many options, sometimes the only bad choice is no choice at all. Especially when there’s a zipper involved.
So those were twenty things my underwear has taught me. What has your underwear taught you?
Permalink | 3 CommentsNot long ago, my wife attended a conference. One of the speakers — or sponsors or hosts or strippers or something; I wasn’t really listening to all the details — was from Aflac. The insurance people. With the commercials. You know the ones.
This Aflac person apparently came bearing gifts, and so my wife returned home with a small plush doll of a duck, about eight inches tall. It’s wearing sunglasses and an ‘old man hat’, and when you squeeze its tummy, a voice says:
‘Aflac! Aflac!! AAAAAAAAFFFF! LAAAAAAAACK!!‘
“One measly peep, and she’ll rip it wing from wing. Or slobber all over it and drop it in the toilet, whichever’s easier.”
This noisy duck is now my dog’s new nemesis. From the very first squeeze, the mutt has been mesmerized by the damned thing. The duck is sitting on a shelf in the living room, just above the dog’s eye level. So she sits and stares it down, just daring it to pipe up. One measly peep, and she’ll rip it wing from wing. Or slobber all over it and drop it in the toilet, whichever’s easier.
Clearly, the dog is an idiot.
Honestly, how moronic do you have to be to obsess over some cutesy little trinket that only knows one line? Sure, sure, I had that incident last summer with the ‘action figure’ with the recording of ‘This one time, at band camp…‘ I won’t tell you where I had to squeeze it to make it talk, or exactly how I ended up breaking it. But that was the best. Birthday. Weekend. Ever.
Back to the dog. And the duck.
I fully expect to come home one day to find the duck gone. There’ll be fake fuzzy feathers all over the floor, and a little chip in the corner wheezing, ‘Ellllfff… fffllleeeccckkk‘. Two days later, the dog’ll shit the sunglasses, and we’ll close the book on this chapter of the dog’s jackass obsessions.
Until somebody gives us some new doll that says, ‘Is it in you?‘ or ‘Can you hear me now?‘ or ‘Yaaaa-hoooooowoooo!!‘ And if I ever get my hands on one that makes that creepy ‘zoom zoom noise, I’ll feed it to the bitch myself.
Permalink | 1 CommentMy motto is: When life hands you a long weekend, wring every last everloving bit of sloth out of those three days.
On Friday, I confirmed that our office had today off. Apparently, it’s ‘Columbus Day’, or some such made-up holiday. Why we celebrate some sleepy little town in Ohio is beyond me — I’d have sooner decreed ‘Cincinnati Day’ or even ‘Cleveland Day’ — but I’m not about to look a gift Monday off in the mouth.
“Short of finally breaking down and buying a bedpan for the couch, I can’t think of any other way to accomplish less than I already do.”
I drove home on Friday evening, kissed my wife, and informed her that my goal was to do nothing for the weekend. Nothing. If all goes to plan, I told her, I won’t be wearing pants for the next three days. Just like I said on our honeymoon. And that ill-fated trip to DisneyWorld a few years back. My wife can’t even see a pair of Mickey ears now without blushing. Mission accomplished.
This past weekend went mostly as planned. I did clean up and look presentable — yes, including wearing a pair of pants — on Sunday night. But what red-blooded red meat-eating man can argue when his wife says:
‘Hey, why don’t we go the sports bar for a burger and beers and watch some football?‘
Not this man, I’ll tell you that. I knew I married the right girl.
I (re-)learned a lesson this weekend, too. After a full day of lounging on the couch, watching sports and growing facial hair, I decided I should do something productive. With so much of the weekend left to waste, why not take a break and be useful for a while?
Big mistake.
My goal was to set up a simple home network, so that my machine upstairs — the one with all the MP3s, and connected to the printer — could talk to my wife’s laptop and my fancy, shiny new notebook I bought a couple of weeks ago. All I wanted was to share the music and the printer. I figured that working towards a goal itself rooted in laziness — so I could rock the house or print out boobie porn without getting my fat ass off the living room couch — wouldn’t anger the gods of ‘Doing No Work on the Weekends’. If they’d let this one small effort slide, then I could do even less on subsequent weekends. Short of finally breaking down and buying a bedpan for the couch, I can’t think of any other way to accomplish less than I already do.
Turns out I was wrong. My feeble attempts to interconnectatize computers on an ‘off’ day were met with nothing but pain, frustration, and ‘Domain does not exist!’ errors. The weekend gods gave me a big fat virtual swirly, heavy on the fudge sauce.
In the end, it went down like this: at six in the evening on Saturday, I created a workgroup on the desktop machine, thus beginning the simple and straightforward (according to MicroSoft) networking setup process.
By eleven pm on Saturday night, I had royally futzed up my new laptop, and become intimately familiar with a little hidden partition on the hard drive that allows you to restore the machine to its ‘factory state’. That doesn’t mean I’d managed to actually restore the machine, mind you. Just that I was intimately familiar with bits of the machine that no pre-lobotomy opposable-thumbed biped should ever have to access. Again, according to the boys and girls at MicroShaft.
By three o’clock on Monday morning, I finally had the damned thing more or less working again. The operating system was back, I’d re-installed a decent browser and other goodies, and turned off all the factory-installed bullshit that makes the machine run as though it’s been dipped in molasses. All I really lost were a few bookmarks and the kick-ass Madden team I’d been working on.
Also, the will to ever, ever, ever attempt to set up a home network again. From now on, if I want to hear Soul Coughing on the couch, I’ll walk upstairs to the desktop box, start an MP3, and crank the living shit out of those speakers so the sound reaches the living room. When my wife — or the neighbors, or the office park across the street — complain, I’ll calmly and rationally explain to them that it’s the only reasonable solution in a world where I love listening to music and MicroSlut networking sucks big hairy buffalo balls.
Unless, of course, they complain on a weekend, in which case I’m not even going to bother explaining. I’ll just lie on the couch, listening to tunes and shoving Cheetos down my gullet like a good lazy weekend boy. I’ve learned my lesson.
Permalink | 2 CommentsI tried a new approach at work today. I was supposed to give a status report on the work I’m doing, but I knew I’d get the same question I always get after these talks:
‘Gee, that’s great for our group — but isn’t the group next door planning on doing the same thing soon for the whole company?‘
I’ve tried explaining our reasoning in various ways. I’ve floated scenarios. I’ve drawn diagrams. I once took off my shoes and illustrated points with holey-toed sock puppets. None of it seemed to adequately make my case.
So today, I didn’t give my report. I borrowed a page from Aesop’s book and Plato’s scrolls and instead offered an allegory. It involved a wedding reception.
“I’ve drawn diagrams. I once took off my shoes and illustrated points with holey-toed sock puppets.”
Now, I’m just about the last person you might expect to use nuptial revelry as an instructive example. Somewhere around here, I’ve previously mentioned that the very first wedding I ever attended was my own. It’s true; I made it nearly twenty-six years without witnessing a hitching, until I was blissfully wedlocked myself. I’ve always been somewhat proud of that achievement, if only for its rarity.
(And lest you think I went in completely unprepared, I did make sure to learn the three ‘Groom Essentials’ before going in:
Come to think of it, those are pretty much the rules I have to live by as a husband, too. You’d think I would have seen that coming.)
On the other hand, there was the old colleague of mine who was proud of a rather different achievement — he’d been invited to be in more weddings than there were groomsmen in his. I suppose that’s an admirable goal, too. His feeling was that it showed he had a lot of close friends, and certainly, that’s a good thing.
Of course, I never asked about the details. Maybe he only had one groomsman in his wedding, and it just showed that he has two brothers. Or he has a bunch of rich friends with thirty-seven people in their wedding parties. Maybe he just looks especially good in a tuxedo. Like I said, I didn’t ask.
(This is the same guy whose dream it was to make so much money he could afford to buy an island, and post a guard house with a list of allowed guests at the entry port. Possibly, he had some convoluted logic to reconcile that with his ‘people person’ wedding party achievement, but I wasn’t about to sit through it. With certain people, it’s best to not ask a lot of questions.)
Anyway, back to my meeting. I stood up for my report, and announced that instead of project status, I was going to describe a wedding I recently attended. I told them how I arrived early with some friends at the reception to help set up, and how we found ourselves finished but hungry two full hours before the party.
The host offered us whatever we could find in the icebox, so I headed to the kitchen to make our group some sandwiches. When I got there, I found the food — and also the catering staff, struggling to prepare the reception spread. There were only a dozen or so of them, and with so many people to feed, and so many dishes to prepare for various tastes, they were clearly overwhelmed.
This is where I paused to emphasize my dilemma. I was there to provide for only a few people, which I could easily accomplish with the tools I had. But here were these people, trying to satisfy hundreds with a much larger, more sophisticated — and far longer-term — effort. I could abandon my sandwiches and help them, sure. But how much impact could I make? And what about my hungry friends? How would they manage with no food at all for hours?
My point cleverly underlined, I concluded by describing how I made those sandwiches, took them out to tide folks over, and only then returned to the kitchen to help with the larger effort. Satisfied that the parallels were clearly drawn between the story and our current situation, I smiled and asked if there were any questions about my report.
There were only three:
‘Why did they leave so much time before the reception?‘
‘What kind of sandwiches were they?‘
‘So, the bridesmaids… were they hot?‘
Man, I really thought I had them this time. I guess it’s back to the sock puppets. Dammit.
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