"Kittens and Balloons"
I learned today that the above was one of the reasons I was promoted. I kid you not... kittens and balloons. Allow me to explain. When I first started working a lot with Andrea in December, she liked to "fire" me pretty much once a day. Once day... I thought I'd get ahead after doing something stupid and just say "You're going to fire me, aren't you?" Her response than was "Stop trying to read my mind, John." To which, my ill-advised retort "I keep trying to read your mind, but all I get are kittens and balloons."
Now... how many of you would say that to your boss within the first couple weeks of work? No one... because that's a stupid thing to say. December was a stressful month, and she, honestly, had been "playfully" picking on me for a while... so I not-so-discretely let her know what I thought was in her head. This stroke of stupidity apparently worked... she thought it was so funny that she told the Big Boss Man (her dad), who also apparently laughed. I guess it finally showed her that I could "keep up" with the witty repartee. Either that, or she's slightly sadistic like I am. Either way...
This was not the only quasi-epiphonic thing that I've said at work (I just made up a word). Andrea seems to be keen on what I coined the "toothpaste effect." We were talking about how she had all this pressure on her from all sides and it had no place to go except for towards me (this was after the big "deal" a couple weekends ago)... and I told her it was understandable, like a tube of toothpaste: No matter where it's squeezed, the toothpaste has only one place to go. So, no matter where her pressure was coming from (her father, the area developers, the employees themselves), she only has one place for that stress to go: back towards the employees. This struck some cord in her because she used it again recently to describe something else. Weird, huh?

Today also was a landmark day in "sold-out geekdom." I got added to our corporate account at CostCo... which is a warehouse wholesaler like Sam's Club. I must have walked around that store for about an hour and a half... just looking at all the stuff you can buy in bulk... and how inexpensive it is. 17 video tapes for $8... Double-packs of cereal... a $50 DVD player (which is cheap because CostCo buys them in bulk)... jewlery, muffins, books, jeans, produce, cleaning supplies, exercise equipment... You name it, they got it. It was truly an earth-shattering visit... and I'm a big lameo-pants.

More Sports talk...
Gary Barnett fired? Portion of his remarks "misinterpreted" or "taken out of context"... he said today. Yesterday, he said of his former female kicker: "Katie was not only a girl, she was terrible. There's no other way to say it" and that she got playing time that better players should have gotten. Let's face it... this kicker just came forward and said that she had been raped by a member of the team, and he's talking about how bad she was as a kicker? He must have gone to the "Dumb Jock, School of Insensitive Bastardry." This dude should be worse than fired... he should be fired and castrated... and sodomized with the football. Nuff said.

Finally, I got a semi-random call from Ms. Laura Kraly tonight. I'm trying to track down Susan's new address, and Laura's as good a person as any to ask... so I contacted her about it. Unfortunately, she doesn't know the address yet, so I'll just have to give Susan a call sometime. When I have time. Which won't be this weekend... or the entire next week. Andrea's finally taking that vacation... so starting Saturday and lasting the week... I'm the manager. I'm scared, I'm not going to beat around the President. Do I think I'm capable of handling this? Not really, no. Do I have a choice? Not really, no. So... if I go even MORE crazy this next week... now you know. Have a good night.