This is the funniest thing I've read all week.
An email from Jamie, reproduced with his permission:
I just had one of those moments that you see in cringe movies & hear about in frantic anecdotes on LJ or blogs…
Imagine this if you will….the office is pretty quiet on a lazy Thursday afternoon. People are working. Making phone calls. Typing notes. Gnene (yes, that is how it is spelt) is rummaging through a drawer. I am sitting here in a semi-vegetative state, off with the fairies & pondering the higher mysteries of life, like "how do they make salt?" and how I would assign my clones if I had any and "what were things called before there were words for them?".
Gnene suddenly cries out "Geez, look at all the bags in this drawer!". Nary a second goes by & without an intervening thought passing through my mind or the long, drawn-out "Noooooooo!" from my internal censor being registered by any part of my brain that has the power to stop what comes next, I say, clear as a bell to the rest of the quiet office "You got a mirror in there?"
Time grinds to a screeching halt, the only movement being a pair of ethereal arms that my brain has just force-grown flailing wildy in a vain attempt to grab hold of those words before they actually go anywhere.
A tumbleweed rolls up the aisle….
Somewhere a dog barks…
Janelle stares at me with the look of "Did that just freaking happen" more commonly seen on the faces of people left standing in the middle of the desert after being abducted and probed by aliens.
Leanne peeks around from behind her monitor and looks at me with an oval-mouthed expression akin to a "Lovely Racquelle" blow up doll on display in an adult shop window.
Helen keeps typing & gives no indication that she heard except for a sideways glance across at me…such as one would give a man on his way to the electric chair if you had the firm belief that by looking at him for too long your soul would too be condemned.
Raymond…has no idea what I just said and smiles supportively.
Brett, who is in the desk between mine & Gnene's, subtlely depresses the lever on his chair to lower him down below the level of the partition and starts looking for that thing he desperately needed in the bottom of his cabinet.
Karen sniggers and then coughs/belches/hiccups/covers her mouth to hide it.
Jo, Carmel and Venus decide it's time they became good friends and go have a coffee & a smoke together. None drink coffee & only Venus smokes.
I freeze, doing my best impression of a comic relief character in a movie who has just sneezed while the bad guys are slowly walking past the spot where he & the protagonist are hiding.
I stare, willing myself to develop spontaneous combustion...or time travel….or some weird, cool mixture of both…like time combustion.
I wonder what ethereal being suddenly inhabited my body, said those words and then left, leaving me to deal with the consequences in a hilariously hi-jinxed "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" meets "Punk'd" style hidden camera show.
I wait, wondering if anyone actually heard anything, like a mother in a supermarket whose 2 year old son has just announced loudly to the vegie aisle that she broke wind.
"Very funny ya little bugger!" says Gene with a cackle.
Sound, movement, work and my heart all begin again.
My colon releases its death grip upon itself and slowly relaxes.
I check my mouth for signs of tampering, wiring or remote control devices. I find none and Ashton Kutcher is nowhere to be seen.
I blink a few times.
I start to ponder how cool time combustion would be & what practical uses it could have & what my super-hero name would be if I had that power. I settle on "Time Bomb", but "Red Hot Minute" gets an honourable mention. I also wonder if Salvador Dali had those powers with all the melted clocks in his paintings...
Life returns to normal.
I just had one of those moments that you see in cringe movies & hear about in frantic anecdotes on LJ or blogs…
Imagine this if you will….the office is pretty quiet on a lazy Thursday afternoon. People are working. Making phone calls. Typing notes. Gnene (yes, that is how it is spelt) is rummaging through a drawer. I am sitting here in a semi-vegetative state, off with the fairies & pondering the higher mysteries of life, like "how do they make salt?" and how I would assign my clones if I had any and "what were things called before there were words for them?".
Gnene suddenly cries out "Geez, look at all the bags in this drawer!". Nary a second goes by & without an intervening thought passing through my mind or the long, drawn-out "Noooooooo!" from my internal censor being registered by any part of my brain that has the power to stop what comes next, I say, clear as a bell to the rest of the quiet office "You got a mirror in there?"
Time grinds to a screeching halt, the only movement being a pair of ethereal arms that my brain has just force-grown flailing wildy in a vain attempt to grab hold of those words before they actually go anywhere.
A tumbleweed rolls up the aisle….
Somewhere a dog barks…
Janelle stares at me with the look of "Did that just freaking happen" more commonly seen on the faces of people left standing in the middle of the desert after being abducted and probed by aliens.
Leanne peeks around from behind her monitor and looks at me with an oval-mouthed expression akin to a "Lovely Racquelle" blow up doll on display in an adult shop window.
Helen keeps typing & gives no indication that she heard except for a sideways glance across at me…such as one would give a man on his way to the electric chair if you had the firm belief that by looking at him for too long your soul would too be condemned.
Raymond…has no idea what I just said and smiles supportively.
Brett, who is in the desk between mine & Gnene's, subtlely depresses the lever on his chair to lower him down below the level of the partition and starts looking for that thing he desperately needed in the bottom of his cabinet.
Karen sniggers and then coughs/belches/hiccups/covers her mouth to hide it.
Jo, Carmel and Venus decide it's time they became good friends and go have a coffee & a smoke together. None drink coffee & only Venus smokes.
I freeze, doing my best impression of a comic relief character in a movie who has just sneezed while the bad guys are slowly walking past the spot where he & the protagonist are hiding.
I stare, willing myself to develop spontaneous combustion...or time travel….or some weird, cool mixture of both…like time combustion.
I wonder what ethereal being suddenly inhabited my body, said those words and then left, leaving me to deal with the consequences in a hilariously hi-jinxed "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" meets "Punk'd" style hidden camera show.
I wait, wondering if anyone actually heard anything, like a mother in a supermarket whose 2 year old son has just announced loudly to the vegie aisle that she broke wind.
"Very funny ya little bugger!" says Gene with a cackle.
Sound, movement, work and my heart all begin again.
My colon releases its death grip upon itself and slowly relaxes.
I check my mouth for signs of tampering, wiring or remote control devices. I find none and Ashton Kutcher is nowhere to be seen.
I blink a few times.
I start to ponder how cool time combustion would be & what practical uses it could have & what my super-hero name would be if I had that power. I settle on "Time Bomb", but "Red Hot Minute" gets an honourable mention. I also wonder if Salvador Dali had those powers with all the melted clocks in his paintings...
Life returns to normal.