snippers

While suturing a laceration on the hand of a 90-year-old Texas rancher whose hand had caught in a gate while working cattle, a doctor and the old man were talking about George W. Bush being in the white house.

The old Texan said, "Well, ya know, Bush is a 'post turtle.'"

Not knowing what the old man meant, the doctor asked him what a "post turtle" was.

The old man said, "When you're driving down a country road, and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a post turtle."

The old man saw a puzzled look on the doctor's face, so he continued to explain. "You know he didn't get there by himself, he doesn't belong there, he can't get anything done while he's up there, and you just want to help the poor dumb thing get down."

The Guy seems to think that I owe him the opportunity to rebut a statement made in the earlier entry, namely, that he's a scrotum. "I have one," -- TMI! TMI! -- he said, dubiously, "but I don't think you could generalize my personality by associating it with a single body part. Besides," he added, "you weren't in any real danger. Firecracker wouldn't have hurt you. You gave her roses."

Sez you.

All in all, it's been a piss-poor week. The brightest spot was when my company filed for Chapter 11, which just goes to show you how the rest of it has gone. Thursday was the Slushpuppy's last day with us; not having been hit with layoffs two days before, he found himself another job in Southern California, and decided to move on.

"If they find your Slushpuppy machine, can I have it?" I asked.

"What's a Slushpuppy?" College Boy wanted to know.

The education system in China is tragically deficient.

After a four-year absence, the machine was finally located by Facilities in the garage under the next building over. They carted it up for him, and shortly afterwards reappeared with a satellite dish that Slushpuppy had had sitting on top of another building. The two objects lined up next to each other outside his cart suggested nothing so much as a next generation orbital satellite, after NASA lost all its federal funding to the NRA. We opened up the Slushpuppy -- machine, not man -- and discovered all sorts of new and exciting biological contaminants had taken up residence in its belly. Somewhere in there was a cure for canine incontinence.

"Ew," said I.

"What's that smell?" asked Indian Woman (the Second.)

"YOU ARE NOT A MAN," said Firecracker. "REAL MEN DO NOT LEAVE WOMEN."

Poor College Boy is the only guy left. He'll probably grow breasts from all the estrogen flying around. Slushpuppy could very well have been one of the last three employees at the company who had been there over five years. An era is ended.

Friday found everybody's favorite Firecracker listless and quiet.

"What's wrong?" I asked, following that immediately with an equally selfless, "Are you mad at me? Are you going to hurt me? Don't hurt me."

"I'M NOT MAD AT YOU," she sighed. "MY HUSBAND, HE READ YOUR JOURNAL LAST NIGHT. HE LAUGH VERY HARD BECAUSE OF SHAKE THE BABY. HE SAY I NEED MORE EDUCATION."

"Dump him," I said, immediately. Ann Landers, I'm not.

"NO, I CANNOT DO THAT."

"You should," I urged, secure in my spinsterness. "He's given you a baby, what more is he good for? Dump his ass. Upgrade. Get a better model."

Firecracker peered at me and laughed. "YOU LIKE YOUR FRIEND TO HAVE DIVORCE? WHAT KIND OF FRIEND YOU ARE?"

"He threw food on your baby," I pointed out, deeply disapproving. "You had to wash him. Off. Your husband's broken. They have to have manufactured a better model of husband since you last checked. I mean, look how often they release processor upgrades."

The latter half of the week was listless and superbly unproductive, due in part to the fact that we'd lost three people in our group, and dozens of people in other groups that we were friends with and actually needed to do our jobs. Hardest hit, I think, were the two managers in our department; the one who had had to actually give the victims their pink slips came down to visit us the next day. "Are you mad at me?" he asked a bit wistfully. "Do you hate me?"

He's an unwilling manager at best, and the last half year of his career has been spent in trying to get out of a promotion foisted on him against his will to begin with. We mentally patted him on the head and shrugged. "It's not your fault. You were just doing your job. You're still our guy," I comforted.

He wandered away, looking puzzled but a bit consoled. "I'm not quite sure what that means...."

Firecracker came in on the last day wearing elevator shoes again.

"YUHRI, WHEN SHE TALK TO ME, HER EYES START OVER TOP OF MY HEAD AND THEN GO DOWN TO FIND MY EYES," she explained. "I CANNOT STAND ANYMORE, SO I DECIDE, I ONLY WEAR ELEVATOR SHOE FROM NOW ON."

(I really do love this woman.)

At around 4:45, She Who Will Be Obeyed gave up all pretense of even caring, and brought out the ping-pong paddles she had brought to work. She herded College Boy, Firecracker, and me together; Indian Mom was about to leave, and Indian Woman (the Second) had just headed home. "Let's go play."

...and that's how we spent the next hour and a half, decompressing. At around 5 pm, Indian Mom came upstairs to share some news before heading home.

"We finally declared bankruptcy," she announced. "We filed Chapter 11 in San Francisco."

The rest of us looked at each other. There was a moment of silence.

"Oh," we said.

"It's about time," I said.

"Why San Francisco? I thought we'd do it in Delaware," said She Who Will Be Obeyed.

And then we went back to our game.

Priorities. Posted by yhirata at September 30, 2001 12:38 AM