Took the Blog Right Out of My Mouth

This WAS going to be my blog, but it turns out someone has already written it for me.

I always wanted to find a way to drink coffee while having sex

Scroll down to "A Cup off coffee and Sex, Please?"


Any ideas for a device that would allow getting a schtumpin while enjoying your coffee consumption?

Best idea/sketch receives a bag of beans and a tube of lube.

"Is there anyone just resting in this room?" - DC

Just like any institution, I work in a place that houses tiny little cubicles that we defend with all of the aggressive habits of any free range dog. I am sure that Spencer, the newest addition to our Frankenstein of a family, has properly marked his territory and the cliché red stapler. Even though we aren't stuck in our tiny, al fresco offices like the normal work place, we do encounter all the banal hilarity that can be found in the latest Dilbert comic. We have the classic love/hate relationship with the copier, we breed the Dunder Mifflin staff quirks, and there then there is the continual search for paper, staplers, and pens that work.

I offer you a few tips for survival in the big city of minuscule working quarters.

Part One: The Bathrooms

Elusive Privacy – Pee shy, performance anxiety, social conditioning gone awry thanks to your mother and her glare of shame, call it what you want. Some people need privacy to do their business. You would think a tiny rectangle with no roof, no closed floors, and a flimsy clasp not even worthy of closing your Wonderbra would afford you the luxury of a voyeur-free experience. God forbid you get stuck at a high traffic time and you end up with the dark stall which doesn't close.

If you can not manage the difficulty of the sacred double palmed door hold, you are usually out of luck. Have no fear, if you have armed yourself with your Office Kit, you can just reach in and grab the multi-tasker of amazement: duct tape. A few strips of this on the door and no one enters or leaves until you are done properly testing the indoor plumbing of your, no doubt, 100 year office building.

Scapegoating – It seems that I have free moment at everyday between the minutes of 11:13 and 11:20. If I miss this window, I am stuck standing up, breathing very shallowly, and giving the “I really am laughing on the inside” face until around noon. Unfortunately, if I do make the designated moment of release, I walk into the mustiest fog that ever left a human's body. Sometimes the evil-dooer would spray, but rotting intestinal refuse mixed with wild berries just adds a whole new level of harm. Why? Because there is a receptor in your brain that thinks “wait, but we like mixed berries!” and even though you have closed off all pathways into your body, some part of you wants to let in the berries. So, I hold my breath, but turning blue on the toilet is not the way I want to die, so I do the logical thing; I breathe through my mouth. Always a horrible mistake. A palatable humid funk invades and I try and resist, but then I think “wait, mixed berries!”. In the end, I just shed a tear and wait until I can open the door and escape the gas chamber this person has left behind. As I run to safety, I am inevitably and always confronted with a person, much like myself, who is dieing to use the loo. You see where I am going with this? Yes, the funk of doom is now pinned on yours truly who has barely survived in the dutch oven of hell herself.

A few days ago, I identified the culprit as the older blond lady with way too much lip liner. And I liked her so much before this. She had to be stopped. I was not going to be the one blamed for the torture of my co workers. Part of me wants to know what sort of weird bean and broccoli only diet she is on, another part of me wonders if she is really human, and another suspects that she is disposing of her rotting ex husbands via the indoor plumbing.

If you are ever caught in this lethal situation, my advice is to either fake throwing up (which won't be hard) in order to signal to the next person that a.) the person before you left a stench not even a dog would roll in and b.) that you did not expel anything from the end of you that would produce such wondrous gases. You may also want to open the stall, room, whatever you have and keep it open as to let everyone around you know that you are not going to become a mouth breather in that poisonous atmosphere.

Or, you could do like my Russian co worker, Alina, does. She opens the door, takes a whiff and says, “I can do better!”

Be A Man Use Your Hand – Why is it that the most difficult task for a janitor to do is to replace the toilet paper when it is low? Is it because that enormous roll of paper is so rough and thin that picking it up ends up being a very daunting task? Is he hording the stuff for his family of eleven? Are the dispensers just too darn complicated to operate? Who knows. And who knows why we covet this sandpaper at all. We use the paper that can't even take the stress of its own function for the most holy of sanitary acts. You want a few squares, maybe three, maybe four, but this roll of iniquity can't even handle the tug necessary for the roll to move anymore than a square at a time. If you are in a high class place, you can tell by the way the toilet tissue flowers in your hand. Yep, there's your two ply, a see-through pile of squares.

Baby wipes are a good solution, but once again you have to have confidence in your building's decrepit piping. I suggest hiding a roll in your filing cabinet. Nothing is worth a wet hand, an eternity gathering squares, the dread shake, or a day of swamp ass.

For him or for her – If you've ever worked in a normal place of business, you've had the opportunity to venture over to the other side, the land of urine scented tile and little metal door flaps.

Aside from the one employee who dispenses the fog, the woman's bathroom is unique in its attempts to cover up the result of too much coffee with very oddly misplaced scents. Oh, is that fruit I smell in the bathroom? Who was eating a watermelon in here? Sugar cookies? Huh, wow, how come I didn't get any? Another facet unique to the ladies' room is the metal door of disgust. It's that tiny, and often broken, silver box usually mounted between stalls, and if you push far enough you can watch Betty, grandmother to five, doing her business. Most women steer clear of that box unless they are adding to its vile contents. Men, don't give into your curiosity. That elephant stays in that room and you never address it, not for a second. You hear me? Although, you will find that it is broken much of the time and your delusions of the bodily function-free woman will not be spared.

The mens' room has its own special features. I have often heard of bizarre urinal situations. Some involving very tall men and short fixtures that allow a great splashing effect, much like the fountains in Las Vegas. I have also heard of very tall urinals that defy logic and probably require water works talent to operate. All of this crazy contorting makes for a splash radius rivaled only by the first five rows at Sea World. Women, if you must use the mens' room, wash the bottoms of your shoes when you've left. Despite all of the stray pee, I am still envious of men and their quick, no bending, no wiping, in and out routine.

Other bathroom quirks to be aware of:

There is often no hot water, if there is, it is probably scalding or takes an hour to come through the pipes.

Paper towels are just that, paper dyed brown. They hurt.

Watch for crouchers and always line the toilet seat. You don't want to come home to your significant other and be asked why you have the bottom of someone's Nike drawn out in dirt on your ass.

Want to clear the bathroom? Just sing.

Beware of people who talk on the phone in public restrooms. There is something wrong with them.

Playthings that Play Back

Wal-Mart. You either love it or loathe it. It is either the your safety net for cheap essentials like curtains, plungers or wedding rings, or it is the very apex of “The Man” pandering to the ever evolving sense of convenience our society demands nowadays. What other venue offers low quality chicken cutlets and paint thinner in the same location? One stop shopping – everything you ever wanted including toys.

No matter how old I get whenever I pass the toy aisles bursting with bright plastic encased in cardboard display boxes, I feel a small heart skip. An old conditioning gnaws distantly in the back of my mind now cluttered with new objects of lust (like decorative lamps and smelly candle holders). But no matter how domestic my tastes have become, I still do a quick search as I walk slowly past the “girlie girl” rows for distinct reminders of what fun used to be. Lisa Frank, Barbie and My Little Pony, all familiar labels, that I could recognize from a Hubble spacecraft, no longer create the walls of pink uniformity that would send elementary me into a salivating state. New names and swirlie logos and different candy-scented lures now line the aisles and it feels like I forgot an entire language. But the other day – the toy aisle delivered.

The kid in me awakened in Strawberry Shortcake pajamas and jumped from the top bunk to get lost in a pile of boxes with plastic windows, molded faces and yarn hair fastened tightly inside with clear ties stronger than steel (a chain that only my father's teeth or a steak knife could break). The feeling of twelve Decembers came over me.

What was this? A PONY! A life-sized pony without any traits that were often the clincher in the case against buying your daughter a pony. This pony did all the things a little girl would want sans riding it around Flutter Valley or having it trot down a Rainbow that sprang from the dust in your pocket. Oh my God, they did it.

I had never even suspected that the very male oriented predecessor would evolve into what is essentially a little girl's Valhalla.

I watched as a daughter approached the pony, goaded by her overweight and unnecessarily sweaty father. The pony moved at the touch of her hand and nuzzled close to her.

In complete terror I dropped my merchandise and ran from the store.

My reaction was what I would estimate what my mother felt when, as a little girl, she begged for a “My Size” Barbie.Upon the nightfall of that holiday in which her prayers were answered, she lay awake, gripping the covers over her head so as not to see the artificial whites of her new friend's eyes and the static smile now converted into something much more in the blanket of of her own midnight imagination. After one terrorizing night of being stared down in the bluish horror of her plaything, now big enough to play back, she threw the monstrosity into the basement and never looked upon it again.

This horse, a robot mimicking a live animal is so convenient, I thought when I first saw the little girl touch the faux fur. No pooping, no dieing, no riding accidents, no evil pack of wild mares...just cute, respondent pony. The ideal audience for such a product, a mousey eight year old, picked up the little carrot made just for pony and shoved it into its mouth and the only image I conjured up was.....

A pet that is a machine. A relationship with a computer programmed to emulate another being. Are we no different than baby monkeys that cling to their chicken wire “mother” feeders or a parakeet talking to its reflection in a mirror? We laugh at it and say “he thinks there's another bird there” because he responds to cue and signals of interaction.

I am not suggesting that the little girl fall in love with the horse, but will she not mourn the toy when it breaks? Will she not remember it always? When we learn more and more about what makes us react, bringing imagination to life can be very creepy sometimes.

Case in point- The Chimp with a Chip

...And if you want more where that came from

All the answers are in this bittle lottle...uh...little bottle

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