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Counselor, You Are Out of Order! I Object!

Do they really have to say, ‘Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law?‘ Isn’t that redundant? I mean, if it will be used against you, then obviously, it can be used against you. Why not just say, ‘will‘? How many times have cops had to delay their doughnut ‘n’ coffee run and take the time to say those two extra words? It’s just damned unfair!

By the way, in case you’re wondering, this thought didn’t come to mind because I’ve been recently cuffed up and tossed in the drunk tank with the rummies and the streetwalkers, or anything like that. Or the rummied-up streetwalkers, which are the very bestest kind, of course.

Actually, I’ve just been watching a couple of hours of Law and Order. And there are a lot of people on that show that get locked up, and wrist-shackled, and read their rights. So I’ve heard the ‘in a court of law’ bit quite a few times this evening, and it’s finally starting to bug me.

On the other hand, I’m thinking that some of the other phrases featured on the show could come in mighty handy around the office. Meaning, of course, that I might be able to use them to make people stop talking to me so damned often. Observe:

Imagine you’re me.

(Okay, okay, stop screaming, fer chrissakes. Get out from under the couch. Sheesh. You big baby. Let’s try that again.)

Imagine you’re someone in my general situation, more or less.

(What? Still too terrifying? Oh, fine. Wuss.)

So, imagine you work in an office of some kind. But not the kind I work in, since that would apparently send you into a convulsive pants-peeing episode. Now, imagine that you have meetings in that office, and that people are always grabbing you to talk about work, and plan out work, and dream up still more work, no matter how much work there already is to do.

(Not my kind of work, of course. Don’t worry. Just breathe.)

Okay, you with me so far? Now, let’s say you’re in one of these meetings, feeling your very soul drain down and spiral clockwise out your sphincter while the next six years of your twelve-hour workdays are planned out for you.

(Of course, if you’re south of the equator, like our good friend Miz Monkey, then your soul is gonna spiral counterclockwise out your ass. Not to bring Monkey’s ass into this or anything. I just don’t want you to get confused if your hindquarters don’t perform quite the way I’ve described above. ‘Your heinie mileage may vary’, as it were. Perfectly normal.)

All right, where the hell was I? Ah, in a soul-sucking meeting. Right. Charging on, then.

So, you’re stuck in this meeting, with no hope of ever getting out of the damned thing and leading a normal life. Ah, but that’s where Law and Order comes to the rescue. Just think of the myriad of things you could whip out of the show and use to rescue yourself. For one, you could try yelling out:

‘Either charge me, or let me go home! I know my rights, dammit!‘

Belligerence not your bag? (Yeah, right. Then what are you doing here, hmmm?) Well, fine. How about taking the strong, assured approach:

‘You really expect me to believe that story? Forget it. I’ll see you in court.‘

Or maybe you’d be more comfortable impersonating a judge:

‘The prisoner is hereby remanded to his cell. We’re taking a recess. Court adjourned!‘

Of course, any of these little ploys might only help you with your insanity plea — even if you get out of the meeting, there’ll likely be consequences and repercussions. But desperate meetings call for desperate measures. Sometimes the only thing that’ll save your soul is a big set of brass ones and a mouthful of legalspeak.

Wait, did I say ‘save’ your soul? That sounds a helluva lot more like it’ll ‘damn’ your soul, or at least get your soul’s ass kicked. Eh, what the hell do I know? All I do is sit in meetings all day. Yeah, I’m probably not the guy you should be taking career advice from. Case closed.

I Have the Power… But Do I Want the Power?

You know what burns my biscuits?

(Wait. Hold on. Who the hell am I, Flo from Alice? Granny Frigging Clampett? Start this shit over. Take two… and… action!)

You know what gets my boxers in a knot?

(Much better. Let’s continue.)

Anyway, among the myriad of nerve-tweaking things that the assorted cluebags around me do on a regular basis is this: many of them say things that they don’t really mean.

Now, I realize that sometimes it can’t be avoided. Occasionally, you have to pretzel up the truth a little to save someone’s feelings, or preserve your job, or avoid giving away where the bodies are hidden. And that’s fine — I’m down with that.

But there are also times when people just lie, bald-faced and remorseless, for no damned good reason. And that pisses me off. Bald-faced skinbags, anyway.

I’ll give you an example. Just today, at the office, I told someone that I was going to try tackling a particularly thorny and complicated problem. Something that I and others have put off for a while now, because you’d have to be insane, drunk, and possessed by the ghost of chubby Anna Nicole Smith to even think about getting yourself ass-deep into this train wreck of a project.

(Yeah, yeah, I know — Anna Nicole’s not dead. But ‘Big Anna‘ is, right? Surely now that she’s back to sex kitten sveltitude, she’d never let herself go like that again, right? She’s a smart girl, after all. Right?

Heh. I almost got through typing that with a straight face. Hee! Oh, I just slay myself sometimes.)

Anyway, I mentioned that I was gonna take one for the team, and put my rep, my job, and my sanity on the line, so that the freeloading assmagnets in the office can get back to playing Minesweeper and picking lint out of their tummy buttons.

(Okay, okay, I kid. Actually, most of the people at the old workplace are just peachy — sweet, competent, helpful bunch of folks, really. And I don’t even know what ‘assmagnet’ means, exactly. So I take all that back.

Of course, the ‘lint thing’ stands. Seriously, I love those guys, but I am so not shaking their hands. Ew.)

All right, back to the friggin’ story already.

So, I mentioned my plan to tackle this convoluted ball of crap, and do you know what the guy I was talking to said? Can you imagine what his response was? Come on — take a wild guess, just for turds and titters.

No? All right, I’ll tell you. He said:

‘More power to you.‘

‘More power to you.’ ‘More power’. ‘To you’. Douchenougat.

Because, you see, the bastard didn’t mean it. It’d be fine to sincerely wish me more power, but that’s not what he meant. And that’s why he’s a big fat porkslapper in my book.

And what’s worse, nobody ever means ‘more power to you’. It’s never on the up-and-up; it’s just one of those horrible, nasty things you say when you want to sound nice, but you don’t want to be nice. Like ‘Hey, nice try, anyway‘, or ‘Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be‘. Or even ‘It’s okay — it happens to every guy sometimes‘. Bitches.

Well, I’ve had enough of this nonsense. If you’re gonna say something, then I think you oughta damned well mean it. Next time somebody tells me ‘more power to ya, buddy‘, then I want some goddamned follow-through. Give me a promotion, or hire me a henchman or something. Gimme a seat on the city council — at least I could get some potholes fixed, or rezone my living room as a pants-optional biergarten or something. That’s the sort of thing they do on councils, right?

Ah, well. All this bitching has settled me down a bit. Sure, that guy can still go bump his own ugly, but I think I’m pretty well over it. Suddenly, I’m more interested in strapping on some lederhosen and grabbing a beer. Or shoveling some tar into that hole in the street out front. Man, this power shit really goes to your head fast, huh?