Best Fucking Email Of The Day

Every once in a while, I receive an email at The Office that makes me laugh so hard, I start making sounds only animals can hear and pee I in my pants a little bit too.

I was having one of those days where you swear its a Monday after a long weekend but it is really a Tuesday and you feel like you should be awarded a medal if everyone leaves at 5, alive and head still attached to their body. To go along with that mania, the office crazy pants was on her millionth day in a row where she talks like a four year old girl, turns every conversation into a conversation about her mess of a life, and made the grandiose statement at the weekly department meeting, "I can shower in 14 days."  Yes, that happened.  My eye roll was equally grandiose and I thought my baby blues were going to roll into my head, carve out a space in my lower brain, and hibernate there for the rest of the winter.

So as I sat on the cube farm, driving my desk, listening to crazy pants cackle like a witch who lost her broom, this gem hit my inbox:

I have the best fucking friends.

Now, make me fucking care.

I Should Have Packed A Lunch

The Lunchbox Diner.

(picture totally ripped off from Google Maps, street view)

I really really really wanted to love this place.  It is within walking distance to The Office (14413 115 Avenue) and I imagined myself power walking down there, grabbing my order to go and power walking back to the office.  I am pretty sure this is not ever going to happen.

Outside, this place has all the appeal a quirky diner should have.  Inside, it has all the disappointment a foodie's heart can hold.  Seriously, this place could use a Gordon Ramsey Kitchen Nightmare makeover... so much potential being wasted.

This diner is in a very unique spot (there is zero competition for blocks and blocks and blocks), but is wasting that potential by being caught in a time warp.  Or maybe time just stood still there.  Its hard to take a place seriously when the booths are in an eggplant vinyl.

Now, before you think I have thrown this place under the #121 bus that goes by it, relax.  I can say that the place is clean and the service is fast.  This, however, may be due to the fact that there were only four other people in the place and they had already been served.

Ratings:
Appearance: Clean but timeworn.
Service: Fast and friendly.
Food: Dated. Disappointed, 4/10
Overall rating: Will not be back.

Daily Special: Chicken fingers with fries and salad (9.50 + tax):
To be honest, the chicken fingers were the same chicken fingers that you get in every restaurant, even the specialty Mexican restaurants that get pissed off that you will not eat a taco but still want your business so they have them on the menu.  I have seen them served at Thai places too.  For really.  And to me, that is ten degrees of wrong but we can talk about that another time.  You cannot polish a turd and you cannot do anything sexy with chicken fingers.  That is legal.  Or morally acceptable.

The surprising highlight were the fries that had been seasoned perfectly with Lawry's seasoning salt, which I like but my partner in crime that day behaved as though someone had shit on her plate.

The most disappointing thing of all was the salad.  I opened the container up and was uber excited because, at first glance, it looked all fresh and full of yummy goodness.  Sadly, it was dying.  The meal was a take away and the cook had drowned the salad in dressing and only the parts that weren't drenched in ranch dressing survived.  Also, when one makes and/or serves a salad, the pieces should be bite sized, not a third of the romaine leaf.  Home Economics, eighth grade, just sayin'.

To be honest, it was a whole lot of meh and that makes me sad because this place has the potential to have lineups out the door and down the parking lot.  Which, perhaps, in its day, it did.

Ironically, a co-worker commented, "The Lunchbox?  Oh I haven't been there in fifteen years."  Do not worry your heart out.  Not a thing about the place has changed.

Welcome Back Welcome Back Welcome Back

After a broken plane, a ten hour flight delay, a day off to recoup from the Ativan and turbulence, we are back.

Went into The Office today and this is what I found...

There really is no place like home.

Now which one of you buggers is ordering more sticky notes?

Christmas Puked On Waldo: A Holiday Love Story

Where's Waldo?

He's at The Office.

Christmas puked on him.  And all over The Office.

It is a little bit my fault.  Kinda.  Sorta.  I just wanted to hide the beige monster.  Who knew it would turn The Office into some seasonal guide on how not to decorate?

First, the back story.

I used to sit in a shitty cubicle on the main hall.  I am now around the corner in an equally shitty mind numbing, spirit crushing cube...

... with a view (and a kettle)...

Above one portion of all the cubes on The Farm is a "cubbie" (which is code for a place to put your shit so we don't have to look at it.).  Behold the beige monster majesty...

There is just no way to hide it.  Unless you wrap it.  Which is exactly what I did my first Christmas with The Company.

Nobody told me that El Presidente was Mr. Christmas Decorator Extraordinaire.  I had no idea what kind of dragon I had poked.  I did not know there were motorized train sets and motion sensitive decorations in his office.  Nobody, NOBODY gave me the damn memo.

Now each department has a $200.00 budget.  It used to be $350.00 but we are in a recession people!  We cannot get new cubes on The Cube Farm, but we have a Christmas decorating budget.  Le sigh.

And a contest.  Did I happen to mention the contest?

Oh la! the contest for the sacred wooden Christmas tree.  It is fierce.

What started as a bit of fun and mocking between me and El Presidente resulted in Whoville last year.  Yes, complete with bent Christmas tree and a ten foot inflatable Grinch.  No, seriously....

Corporate (the Cube Farmers and I) have won the contest for all four years running.  Beat that bitches!  And yes it was four, we've only had the sacred wooden Christmas tree for three.  Suck it losers!

While I would like to say that we are just really creative and love Christmas, the reality is this... it is all about prevention.  You see, we have a co-worker who is an Office Dweller, Possessor Of A Door That Closes And Walls That Go To The Ceiling (noooooo I'm not even a little bit jealous, noooooo) and she has and entire skid of decorations.

Yes, a SKID.  Four feet long, four feet deep, about five feet high.  You do the math.  Uh huh.

All of our creativity is an effort to keep Christmas from puking out of her office into the rest of the corporate offices and The Cube Farm.  It would be okay but the reality is her stuff is dusty, dated, cheap, and smells like old lady crotch.  No, really.  It is some nasty ass funk.

After creating the majesty that was Whoville last year, we are spent, burnt out and this Cube Farmer some of us do not give a shit what the theme is this year as long as it is not "Christmas Puked."

My fellow Buddhist and Cube Farmer neighbour and I suggested an atheist Christmas.  Or clearing the place out and just having a Charlie Brown Christmas tree.  Or having a Very Muslim Christmas with each cube representing an oil rich nation and the manger going in the country that has more desert than oil.

Those drama queens do not have a sense of humour.  Or irony.  Or social commentary.  Or congruence and polarization.

The suggestion of a Very Muslim Christmas went over like a lead balloon even though we were just trying to be all inclusive and give a proper shout out to our Muslim brethren.  Dead air.  Crickets.  No love for that idea.  None.  I had my hopes set high. I wanted to be Libya so I could get my Gaddafi on.  I got the crazy down to a science.

For what it is worth, no matter how far into the depths of hell you cast me, and even though I do not believe in 99% of Christian dogma, I know Baby Jesus was not down with racism.  Surely MC JC (Messiah Cometh, Jesus Christ... use it, don't abuse it) would have delighted in an ironic juxtaposition of multicultural celebration and consumerism.  No?  Well, I do think the Bible is Christian mythology and the whole idea of immaculate conception is a steaming pile of doo-doo, so what do I know?

Sadly, Santa will not be visiting an oil rich Islamic state this year when he comes to The Cube Farm.  Turns out drama queens do not like religious based controversy.  Oh, they will fuck their co-workers in their spare time at work or after work, but they Just.  Say.  No. to intelligent, thought provoking controversy.  Fraidy cats.

Next year, my fellow Buddhist and Cube Farmer neighbour and I are bringing in a huge Buddha with a gigantic Santa hat on his head.  With lights that are synced to chants.  And a candy cane bodhi tree.  And popcorn string malas.  Our side of The Cube Farm is going to be a Very Buddhist Christmas.

So what will Santa be visiting you ask?  Well it is supposed to look like a giant candy cane (it so does not) but it is really a game of Where's Waldo? (it so is).  I know, totally has everything to do with the spirit of Christmas.  Imagine it, the three wise men roll up to the manger... gold, frankincense, myrrh, and a Where's Waldo?  book.  It could have totally happened.  Just on papyrus and in Aramaic.

There will be pictures tomorrow as they were still "striping" the place when I left today.  To be honest, we are just one dry heave away from Christmas puking.  Seriously.

In the mean time, I will be plotting where to hide Waldo the next time I find him.

Hey, I gotta get my kicks from somewhere.  You saw where I sit all day.