Skip to main content

The Turning Tides

I was recently in Houston with some work friends for a long weekend/vacation. It was a lot of fun; we ate & drank plenty, we saw a couple of shows (Miss Saigon & Wonderland), and there was general merriment to be found. Heck, I even found a guy who used to be in the armed services that taught a class called "Bootcamp" (all you other "bootcamp" classes taught at random gyms, I'm pretty sure you got nothing on this guy). It was a good time, and I'm glad I went.

But you know what worries me? On this trip, it felt like my friends were slowly taking more liberties with messing with me. It's not like anyone was out and out being a jerk (if they were, we'd have words). No, it was far more insidious & devious than that. It felt like a slow turning of the tides, with yours truly on the receiving end of the crashing wave.

Don't believe me? I present to the jury Exhibit A: after watching Miss Saigon, a couple of people joked that I reminded them of the Engineer. If you haven't seen the show, he's the one who's part comedic relief, part hustler. He swears, he's a pimp for the girls, he's always trying to cheat people, and he's generally the opposite of strait-laced. And they compared him to me. Innocent old me. Yeah, I scoffed, too.

It gets better, though. When I expressed aloud my disbelief, one of them actually clarified, "oh no, you don't remind me of the Engineer. The Engineer reminds me of you." So, I'm the cloth from which the Engineer is cut, or I'm the Form of rogue-ish behavior (who says I wasn't paying attention in class?). Great, that makes it *so* much better.

But wait, ladies & gentlemen of the jury, there's more. Friday lunches have become something of a tradition with the work crew, but not everyone is in the office on the same Friday (we have flex schedules). A couple of the regulars just switched their schedules, so on the Friday that I'm in the office, my lunch options have become more limited. You know what the understanding, empathic response to this was? "Heh, sounds like that's your problem, not ours." Admittedly, this was late on a Sunday night, and we were a couple of pizzas and a few glasses of beer/wine in, but still. No love for the brown kid.

I'm not sure I like where this is headed. Combined with my recent slide down the social ladder, this could be trouble. Next thing you know, they'll actually be teasing me. Openly. And I can't be having that. No, I need to nip this in the bud. If it weren't for the fact that the office is generally tame, I'd be tempted to start multiple prank wars. Or declare a few blood feuds.

That's it, I'm off to go scheme up an appropriate response.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

All Good Things ...

August 8, 2009. Over twelve years ago, I started blogging with this simple post . I didn't really have a great reason for starting the blog, other than I wanted to try it out. I wanted to try writing and putting it where others could read it. I don't know, it just seemed like a new adventure to try. Along the way, there have been all sorts of posts and all sorts of life events, but through it all, I kept writing. It just became a part of what I do at some point. It wasn't a matter of whether I was going to write a blog post, it was a matter of when. The Mild Wife has described it as a "writing practice," and it was one of the reasons why I kept writing. Honestly, it's good practice, and it gives me an opportunity to hone my craft. I'm no professional author, but we all have to write stuff in our everyday lives. Why not give yourself reps to get better at it? However, I think it's time for that practice to change. My weekly anecdotes sure kept me amused...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dreams

Normally, I don't eat very many sweets. I tend to eat pretty generous portions, but I generally prefer savory food over sweet. In fact, I usually prefer things half as sweet when possible. My preference doesn't have anything to do with health reasons, it's just one of those things that I've always liked better. That said, I do inevitably eat dessert, particularly if I'm out with other people. My stance towards dessert is roughly equivalent to those who are social drinkers . If other people want to munch on something for dessert, I'm not about to cross my arms and refuse. That'd be just a tad gauche. So, I do eat some dessert. I even have a few standby favorites that I'll usually order when presented with them (brownies, creme brulee, and apple pie). But left to my own devices, I'm not about to go hunting for dessert. Apparently, this means that the sugar can really mess with my system under the right circumstances. As I've discovered, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

New York City Trip (Day 1)

After my crappy flight , I was now in Newark, New Jersey at 7AM on a Friday morning. I had done a little bit of reading up, so I knew which bus I needed to take and where I was going to get off. All in all, getting into the city was surprisingly easy. I suppose speaking the language does make things simpler. Through no real planning of mine (a theme of the trip, at least on my part), I picked one of the later bus stops at which to get off, Grand Central. I actually just figured that getting off at Grand Central would give me options, and heck, it's called Grand Central. That just screamed "decent place to disembark that might be close to some stuff" to me, so that's where I got off. However, it also meant that we drove down 42 nd St to get to my bus stop. That just happens to be a big street, and it gave me a glimpse of Times Square as we drove by. My bus stop choice had accidentally given me a rough layout of the city. Go me. I had about 6 hours to kill...
1 comment
Read more