"Less Haste More Speed..."

The above is a quote from one of Brian Jacques books, may the man never be forgotten.

Hello Again! I missed this over the weekend, but I did write down several stories for you... I have less than an hour to write them all in, think I can do it? I'll try...

I know I know I know... "Do or do not, there is no try!" Fine, will do.

First off, can I just say how excited I am to be going to a rehearsal tonight! And as an ACTOR!!! Yes, I'm pumped, if you happen by the Minneapolis Fringe Festival next month you need to come see "Behind the Big Top", because it's going to be a blast!

M'kay, now for the stories!

Saturday was fun, I pulled an 11 hour shift at Planet Pillow (code name for the place I work, courtesy of one Irish Poet...), and the number of people I talked to/at that day does not bear repeating... but I wrote down one particular caller that day that made an impact...

The lady I spoke to had a very dry sense of humour. I'm not just talking about "I'm thirsty" dry, I'm talking "Sahara desert hasn't had rain in 6 months" dry. She also spoke extremely slowly, and every time I asked her a question she would take a good 10 second pause before answering (I know 10 seconds doesn't sound like a lot, but time it out next time you're having a conversation with someone & just feel the silence between responses, it's forever!). Between the way she talked and the "jokes" she told, I was half-convinced she was a prank caller and I almost hung up on her!

Yes, she told "jokes". One of her first ones was "I'm buying this as a gift for my husband I just married 2 days ago. It's our 46th anniversary on Monday." Granted, given proper delivery, this could've been funny, but the way she said it just left me confused... She followed a lengthy pause after this joke with "that was a joke." ... I feebly laughed, then moved on. A few of her other jokes included "Is this pillow approved for smothering?" "Well, my husband is supposed to take me out for dinner next week, I should keep him around at least that long", and "He snores so loud I want to put the pillow on his face--I could say he was sleeping face-down"... I wondered if I should call back & try to warn the husband...

Moral of the story: If you have to tell the person you're conversing with that you made a joke more than 3 times, perhaps you should stop making them...

There's a guy at work, we'll call him Mike. Mike is known as something of a talker--and by that I mean he never seems to stop talking. But it's not even like he's necessarily trying to learn about other people or network or even carry on a conversation. Mike just seems to enjoy the sound of his own voice. Have you ever met a person like that? No matter what you say in the conversation, he just carries on with whatever story he was telling prior to your interjection. And if you were previously enjoying a two-way chat with someone else? He doesn't mind, he'll just jump in with whatever story pops into his head and take off, derailing all talk and hijacking the discussion to take it wherever he wills.

Mind you, this can be rather entertaining sometimes. I like making a game out of it... wicked, I know, but Sunday I had a 10 hour shift & Mike showed up for the last 2 hours... Sunday was slow, I had to entertain myself somehow... ;)

Speaking of entertaining, there's a gal at work, let's see... I'll call her Erin. She's a cool person & has made going in to work a lot more fun, especially on slow days. We dubbed the area around our cubicles "the Valley of Whispers" and every time a supervisor/manager walked through we would whisper-yell their name at them until they made it through our area... Several started taking the long way around just to avoid us... Again, it was Sunday, the call volume was down, and we had to entertain ourselves somehow... ;)

Ah! Running out of time! I may have to write more of these tomorrow. :( Ah well, I shan't lack for material on the morrow.

In the meantime, don't make sad jokes, and listen when you have a conversation with others. Also: is the comment button still working? I dunno, but if you want to check it out for me, I'd be obliged. ;) Laters!