Getting paid at werk (not a typo)

There are some days where I just want to tear my hair out and bang my face against a wall while at work. And then there are other days where it's all right and I smile from time to time.

S; need help

me: it'll cost you

S: what?
S: I can pay you in gold coins
S: how many gold coins does [this] cost?

me: 150

S: I can give you 1.50

me: fine.

Most would think nothing of this conversation. I didn't. But then I came back from lunch.

The king of fragrance

This weekend, Malcolm came from the kitchen to find me in the living room and accused me of stinking up the bathroom and not doing anything about it (turning on the fan, lighting a candle, anything like that). I denied the allegation. He raised his eyebrows at me and we continued to watch the Jays game.

After another trip to the kitchen and back, Malcolm asked me again if I was sure I didn't forget about an odourous bathroom escapade and I again, denied being at fault. He narrowed his eyes at me, the doubt clear on his face.

After one more exit of the living room, I was ready for Malcolm to return and ask me again. He returned, but didn't ask me. This time I raised my eyebrows. He apologized.

"It was my durian drink."

March maddening

So, one of the guys in my office put together a March Madness pool to bet on the winner of the college tournament. Of course there was a majority of male entrants into the pool, looking use their college sports savvy to win the big bucks, but there were also a couple of female players in the mix as well. I would have been one of them had I been in the office that day to place my bet.

Anyway, lo and behold, the winner was one of those women! I went over to congratulate her on her winning the pot and asked her how she did it.

" Honestly, I just guessed. I don't even watch college football."

"It was a basketball tournament."

"Oh, see?!"

Pretty names for the win!
...

Update:

I've got another great quote:

"March Madness? What is that, a sale?"

Spectacular.

Friday conversations

It's a good day to be eavesdropping in the office if you want to react to some shenanigans.

This conversation:

   "I'm a huge FRIENDS fan - I just binge-watched it - and you know the dark-haired one? Oh...what's her name?"
  "..."

YOU ARE NOT A FAN OF FRIENDS IF YOU REFER TO ANYONE AS "THE DARK-HAIRED ONE"!!!!!

It's MONICA! Her name is MONICA!



And then there was this one:

"Pat, if you want to buy a new baking pan, you just go ahead an buy it for yourself. You don't NEED to buy it. It's like me: 'No, husband, I don't NEED these new shoes, but I'm going buy them anyway.'"

*voice from two rows over*: "You BUY those shoes, melody!"

   "It's not about me, we were talking about Pat and a baking pan."

*voice from two rows over*: "Oh, well you BUY that baking pan, Pat!"
...

Yes. TGIF.

Advice when you need it...or don't

I had a dilemma at work during my spare time so I reached out to my best friend (read: Señorita) to get her to talk me through it. 

Cheese-string crisis averted

Part of my little guy's usual breakfast will include a cheese-string (lately, anyway). He likes cheese, it's easy for him to hold, and when he starts getting bored I start a little string-pull for him and he's happy to rip off the string of cheese to shove in his mouth which gets him to eat just a little more. 

The other day was not unlike any other. We got up, got changed and before I put on the coffee, I gave him his cheese-string to get him started on breakfast while I was busy. As was typical, he toddled off to wander about while I made coffee which took me all of 2 minutes. 

By the time I was done, he'd made his way back to the kitchen...empty-handed.

me: "Baby, baby where's your cheese-string?"

Baby: "Hah?"

me: "What did you do with your cheese-string?"

Baby: "Hah?"

me: "Show mommy where you put your cheese-string."

Baby: "Bup!" *puts arms up to be picked up*

me: *picks him up* "Okay, where's your cheese-string?"

Baby: *hugs me*

Great. 

I put him down and tried to retrace his steps from the last 2 minutes to see where this cheese-string had gone so I could re-claim it before it was forgotten and was left to rot in some random corner somewhere in the house.

I knew he'd come from his playroom so that's where I headed first. I checked the floor, I checked the chairs, I checked in his little pedal car. Nothing. I stood in the middle of the room to assess the situation.

If I were a toddler, where would I put my cheese-string?

Then I spotted it. 

Duh, obviously, mommy. What a thoughtful little monkey.
...

For those of you who don't know, this little dinosaur sings a song when you turn him on:
I'm a hungry dinosaur
Who likes to eat
So please feed me
a healthy treat!

I'm going to chalk it up to my little guy just following instructions.

A hot topic

With the outcry at recent cauliflower prices soaring as high as $8 per head, I was astounded to catch this low price at my local Chinese grocer, so I snapped a picture and shared it with some friends who were trustworthy for reactions.

Of course then, the following ensued:

Me: Affordable cauliflower...but at a Chinese grocer...I bet it's an imitation cauliflower

Me: "Caurifrower"

dimps: LMFAO

dimps: that was too good. 

Malcolm: Forget caurifrower, what's Finger Hot?

Nightcrawler: Lol! That's an STD.

I hadn't even noticed.

A true "what she saw/what he saw" situation...

It should have been safe

When you're on a conference call at work, it's customary to call in, and then put yourself on mute while you listen. With that in mind, when I had to burp during my after-lunch meeting, it should have been safe to do so, so I did.

..except I wasn't on mute.

Office lingo

I've been back to work for a few weeks now and while I'm pretty much adjusted to it, I'm still a little rusty on my office lingo. For example, the following conversation happened:

Boss: YOA come to 6F oooppss
Me: ?????
Me: are you asking me to come to 6F
Boss: Yes.

If I'd been in full swing, I wouldn't have had to question it. Duh.

The boots of regret

Something like 10 years ago, I went down to Washington D. C. to play in an annual volleyball tournament. Along the way, our driving convoy stopped in Grove City, PA to shop at the outlets there. It was my first time there, and man, were there ever deals!

I was still a new player back then, young and probably barely employed. But I made out like a bandit on things that cost me no more than $10 - 20 apiece. I stuck to the stores that I was familiar with and was pretty sure that I could afford to shop in: The GAP, Aeropostale (and this was before it came to Canada), the Nike Store...it was there I scored some great deals. Thinking I'd done all I could, I tagged along with another friend into a shoe store I'd never heard of before. Today, I couldn't tell you what it was called, but that's where this story REALLY began.

While she shopped, I browsed. As I browsed, I came across a pair of knee-high boots. Back then, I guess stretchy leather was not as common because when it came to these kinds of boots, you either had tiny little calves that fit the all-leather made boots, or you had giant-sized calves that had to be squeezed into boots that were part leather, part ugly-black-elastic-stretch-section-in-the-back. Being of the latter half of the population, I didn't have high hopes with these all-leather boots.

But then.

They fit! They fit like a glove! They were all leather! I was astounded. I took a few steps in them and they were comfortable. I checked out the brand name on the box - Kenneth Cole. All I knew was that it was a brand name that was typically out of range for my starving-student budget.

But then.

I flipped my heel and looked at the price tag stapled to the bottom of the boot: $98. $98?! You can never get boots - knee-high boots - for less than a hundred dollars!

But then.

My inexperienced shopping mind made the following "logical" deduction:

• I hadn't come on this volleyball trip prepared to shop
• Everything else I had bought on this unexpected trip was less than $20
• These boots were $98 and were 5x more expensive than anything else I'd bought so far
• I didn't need the boots
• Therefore, don't buy the boots.

And so, feeling good about brain power, I didn't buy the boots, got in the car, and continued on with the caravan, away from the outlets and on to our volleyball tournament in Washington. Surprisingly, it wasn't until I got back to Toronto the next weekend that it kicked in.

I should have bought those boots.

Perhaps I should have. but hey, they were just boots, I could find another pair. And so, feeling a little bit of regret, I decided to find myself a pair of replacement boots. That's when the REAL regret kicked in.

I couldn't find another pair.

All leather boots didn't fit me. Boots that did fit me had that terrible ugly elastic section in the back. Any boots that came close to being not-ugly-enough-to-want-to-buy were astronomically expensive. None of them were comfortable.

It plagued me for years that I couldn't find another pair. The scene played over and over in my mind: me standing there with the boots ON my feet, deciding I didn't need them, and then me walking out of the store without them. I wanted to scream at that past reflection of myself, buy the damn boots! You'll never find the same!

I regretted it. Oh, I regretted it hard. For YEARS. Since then, I've made it a point in my life to be sure that I'll never regret NOT buying something while I could, again. And that is the story, of the boots of regret...
...

...and that, honey, is why I HAD to buy these new Kenneth Cole boots while I was supposed to be grocery shopping!

SMH

Overheard at the doctor's office this morning:

*giving a postal code*

"...2...Y..."

"'Y' as in 'you'?"

"No. The letter 'Y'."

"Like 'you'?"

"No. Like X Y Z."

"Yes, like 'you'."

"No."

...

She could have used any other word, and she chose "you."

Quote of the moment

I think I might either start a category of "that's what she said" or maybe even a whole separate blog of "shit my co-worker says."

Yesterday's gem was as we stepped outside into the humid Toronto afternoon.

   "Ick, it's so humid.  I feel like I'm always so wet and moist!"

I had no words.  I don't even think I said goodbye when we parted ways. :)

Confession

I just tried to fart quietly in a public place...and failed.

Quote of the moment

   "That's not pregnancy rage, that's there-are-too-many-people-on-this-planet rage."

       -- Jubbly

Morning laugh

My work participated in the TELUS walk for diabetes this past weekend.  Getting back to work, my co-worker, who BAILED on the event, put out a general call for any pictures from the walk.  I'd snapped a cute selfie of my peeps, so I thought I'd send it to her.

To: Bailing co-worker
From: melody
Subject: Picture

Here you go, bailer. ;)

---------------------------------------------------------------

And then the response:

To: melody
From: Bailing co-worker
Subject: Re: Picture

WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?????????????????
I WAS THERE!!!!!!!!!!

---------------------------------------------------------------

Yup, I lol'ed...so loudly that an instant message popped up on my screen:

"I hear you got my email..."

Afternoon laugh

I forgot that I had Malcolm's wallet in my purse last night, so today, he had to go without.  When he called me to let me know that he'd gotten through the day safe and sound without it, we had the following conversation:

him: "Oh, and honey, if you find any phone numbers in my wallet, I just want to let you know that they're not mine."

me: "Well, I figured that you wouldn't have to have copies of your own number in your wallet."

him: "Hahaha. Yes, of course.  But if you find any other numbers in there, they're not mine either. They're, uh, client phone numbers."

me:  "Ah, and the ones written in lipstick are just the ones that you wrote down after your pen ran out?"

him: "Of course! See, you know me so well!"

...

Unbeknownst to me, my coworkers were able to hear most of that conversation (my ears are clogged today) and had a good laugh too.

Quote of the moment:

My dad has a short memory and confuses his words easily most of the time...

   "So, you had lunch today with the sweets?"
   "What?  With what?"
   "The sweets."
   "Do you mean [my volleyball team that's named] Sugar?"
   "Yes."

Oh dad.  I wouldn't trade him for the world.

Pregnant achievments

Like most posts about pregnancy that I've been reading lately (this one was an AWESOME one, apparently written by a friend of a friend), I've been coming to the realization that this really does change your life.  I mean, right, DUH, but even the little things.  The little things that I'm thinking about today are the goals that you set for yourself.

Before, my goals for myself were like:
- cook an amazing, delicious and romantic meal for two for dinner!
- train and run a 10K race!
- clean the bathrooms!

Now, it's more like:
- figure out something that you can palate and eat more than a total of 5 bites
- make it up the stairs without running out of breath
- sneeze/cough without peeing yourself

Today, I succeeded on two out of three of those goals. I'll leave it to you to guess which I failed.

Pregnancy rage

What is pregnancy rage?  It's what takes over women from time to time when they're pregnant.  It makes them crazy.  It doesn't feel  like you're crazy when you're in the grips of this rage, but you are. Example?

Early on in my pregnancy, like, in the second month or so, all was well during the day.  Malcolm and I were still the newlywed couple, very much in love and even more so now that we knew we were expecting a new addition to our family.  But at night...

...at night, Malcolm had the AUDACITY to try to cuddle with me!  I'd be all settled for sleep on my side of our king-sized bed when all of a sudden, he'd put his arm affectionately around me, kiss me goodnight and go to sleep like that! WTF? The moment I was sure he was asleep, I'd pincer his wrist between my thumb and forefinger like it was used tissue, and fling it back onto his side of the bed. Some nights he'd try to reach for me again and I'd scoot further away.  There was at least one night that ended with me balanced on my side on the very edge of the bed, trying to stay out of his reach. I had the most trouble falling asleep those nights because I was fuming. 

Who does my husband think he is, trying to show me affection while I'm TRYING TO SLEEP?!

And then, just the other night, I was boiling a pot of water on the stove.  Malcolm walked by, noticed this, and put the lid on the pot for me.  I nearly lost my shit.

If I'd have WANTED the lid on the pot, I would have PUT the lid on the pot!

It's not just Malcolm that sets me off either. I nearly assaulted a friend because she admitted she's parked in the expectant mother spots before, without ever having been an expectant mother. 

I...can't...even....

Luckily, in all of these instances, I've realized that there was an element of psycho to them so instead of acting on my feelings or letting them explode out of my mouth, I silently fumed and brooded the fire away. Sometimes it could take a few days or weeks, but I made it.  

So all these times that people warned me of "pregnant brain" or raging hormones and emotional swings, I at first dismissed them.  But now that I'm halfway through my own pregnancy, I have to say that they are SO true. Those of you who are expecting should probably be told about these things.  But really, it should be those of you who are NOT pregnant but that will probably find yourselves in the presence of someone that is - YOU are the ones who should be warned about pregnancy rage.  Because you could be a victim.  And it could be bad.  Trust me.

Trending names

With a baby on the way, obviously I've been trying to be attuned to names in the attempt to find the perfect one for our future bundle of joy.  In a quick search today, I was presented with a box of "trending names" so I thought I'd take a peek.

Now, honestly, I love a little creativity and uniqueness when it comes to people's names.  I loved the fact that even to this day, I can probably count the number of other girls I've met with the same name as me on my ten fingers.  Maybe even on just five of those.  But this one...I don't know about this one...

And it's TRENDING...