Posted by John
There are few things in life worse than a Monday morning. Doubly so if you’re coming off the first spring weather weekend of the season. Dragging yourself out of bed; going through the same motions you’ve gone through for the past 2, 10, 30, or 50 years; commuting to work; plopping down at your desk; getting ready for yet another week.
But if there’s something worse than that, it’s getting into work on Monday morning and finding the voicemail light on your desk phone flashing. “Ah, Christ! Who in the hell called me over the weekend? Oh man, this is going to suck shit.” Or logging onto your computer and finding 20 e-mails waiting for you. “Twenty! Twenty fucking e-mails! Who in the hell was working over the weekend? Honestly1. Ahh, I wish I had an appendicitis right now…”
This morning I didn’t have any voicemails. Nor did I have 20 e-mails. No, this morning I had something far, far worse. When I logged onto my computer I found just one solitary e-mail. The one e-mail I didn’t realize I was dreading until I actually got it. The subject said simply, “Shhh… It’s a Secret!” That should have been warning enough to delete that shit before I even opened it but my traitorous finger betrayed me with a double-click before my brain could send the warning signal down to stop it.
“Shhh… It’s a Secret! Donna’s baby is almost here so to help her celebrate the arrival of her bundle of joy we’re throwing her a department wide baby shower this Friday from 11 to 1! Be sure to sign up on the super secret list at Helen’s desk to bring a dish to the potluck then be sure to donate some money to the awesome group gift we’re getting her or go onto her baby registry to get something on your own! Get excited, and remember, it’s a secret!!!”
After reading those words there was one thought going through my head: “Dear God… This is my nightmare!”
I’ve already written extensively about how horrendous office potlucks are, but now some devil worshipping terroristic Judas of a co-worker has gone and done the only thing that could possibly make an office potluck any worse – added a goddamn baby shower to it.
Now to be clear, I’m not saying baby showers are categorically a bad thing. In fact, I have no idea. I mean, I imagine they’re horrible in the same way I imagine beauty pageants, pedicures, and talking about things like feelings and emotions are awful, but not having any first hand experience automatically disqualifies me from knowing for certain. I would think that a baby shower among close friends and family is probably a pretty enjoyable thing – you sit around socializing and opening gifts full of useful shit you otherwise don’t want to buy yourself. Some women probably even enjoy multiple baby showers among a broader group of friends and an extended collection of family. But I’m pretty sure that if you poll 100 pregnant women, 110 will respond that the absolute last thing in the world they would want to go through is a baby shower at work. Doubly so for a surprise baby shower. I mean, there isn’t a woman alive in this world that wants to unwittingly walk into the conference room one day to find all of her coworkers gathered around for an event where she and her pregnancy are the center of attention and seeing Bob from Accounting sitting back in the corner stuffing his face with cupcakes and thinking about anything that has to do with her and delivering a baby then having to open the group gift which just so happens to be a breast pump which launches Randy from the Electrical group into a fit of giggles while Brenda and Alice won’t shut up about how horrible labor is and Cindy keeps going on and on about how children are the work of the devil while Gary is talking about how his kid just got locked away in Juvie.
Good Lord, that has to be any pregnant woman’s nightmare and being party to any bit of that is my nightmare. I don’t know how I’m going to get out of this shit but I’m going to spend the next 72 hours figuring that out exactly.
The only way – and I mean the absolute ONLY way I will even entertain even a hint of a possibility of attending this godforsaken thing is if I can somehow convince the New Kid that he is obligated to attend and further obligated to bring a gift. What would he do? Holy shit, what would he do? After his Thanksgiving Potluck Ruffles Smokehouse Barbeque Chips with Ridges, and his Italian-themed Potluck quiche, and his Office Dirty Santa Mission: Impossible I gift, dear God, what would he do for an Office Potluck Baby Shower? What on earth would he do? A box of diapers? A butt thermometer? A bib that says, “Mommy is a MILF?” Holy shit the possibilities are limitless.
If you think that kid isn’t capable of topping his previous performances, oh boy, you are wrong. Dead wrong. Just this morning he attended our weekly department meeting with a bowl of cereal. A bowl of cereal, I tell you! What is this? Fucking Saturday cartoon hour? Who do you think you are bringing a goddamn bowl of cereal to the department meeting? If that wasn’t bad enough, after he was done crunch, crunch, crunching his way through his Rice Krispies, he actually slurped up the milk from the bowl! I can’t make this shit up! Right in the middle of everything he’s drinking the milk from his cereal bowl like he’s 6!
Boss: “So we see here from the weekly projection matrix-“
New Kid: SLUUUUURRRRP!!!
Boss: “-that we’re going to have our-“
New Kid: “Ahhh!”
Boss: “-hands full for the next few weeks. Does anyone have any questions?”
Uhh, yeah, just one question: In order to help manage the work load do you think it would be possible to hire on Snap, Crackle, and Pop as summer interns?
Last week it was toast with peanut butter. But not just toast with a little peanut butter; toast drenched in peanut butter. Have you ever watched someone who loves peanut butter eat peanut butter? It’s like watching one of those movies from the 80’s with the talking animals. Before CGI that’s what they did – they’d jam a wad of peanut butter into the dogs mouth and as he’s trying to lap it up they film that shit and pretend like the dog is speaking. That’s how the whole goddamn meeting was. The New Kid constantly looking like he’s trying to talk.
Boss: “New Kid, was there something you were trying to say?”
New Kid: “Mmm…” shlurp, shlurp, “No,” shlurp, shulrp, “Jus ea’in some,” shlurp, shlurp, “toast.” Shlurp, shlurp.
I’m pretty sure the inventor of peanut butter intended for it to be enjoyed modestly, otherwise it would have been a solid or a liquid and not one of the top 10 pastiest substances in the universe.
This truly is a conundrum though. Willingly walking into one of my nightmares just for the chance to see a New Kid blunder of epic proportions. What to do? What? To? Do?...
1. For the record, back when I was ambitious about my career I would routinely log onto the work e-mail server from home over the weekend and send out a few messages to various people in middle management to make it look like I was working Saturdays and Sundays. Obviously I wasn’t working though; I was usually drunk. Just a little tip for getting ahead in life.
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