My litrchur can beat up Tom Jones ... that sissy
So, since September I've been working on a story and one night over Christmas I sat down and wrote for about four or five hours straight and actually managed to finish it. And dent my finger, but, uh ...
So, here's the story - Zen and the Art of Employment - which is a bit over 7000 words.
I've been meaning to write this story since the summer.
Of 2004.
So ... uh ... have some spoilery notes!
Actually, really, just one thing. Zen Juice somehow is actually the fault/idea of Dice, although I can't for the life of me remember why. But there's a picture on the site from sometime in 2004 with Erik in a Zen Juice shirt and clearly Dice's mentioning of Zen Juice, for some reason, predates the shirt.
Also, because periodically I feel the need to remind people of the fact - Ninja and Roommate is entirely fictional. I have never even been employed in the food service industry. I have never had job interviews like Erik's - in fact, I've rarely had a job interview - although I have been reminded of the fact that I wasn't chosen for a job by receiving a letter, but I had been told that fact over the phone beforehand.
Now, because you've all been so good about waiting, the best Christmas story ever.
This is one of the first things my mother told me when I arrived. "Oh, I never told you about Pedro!"
"What?" I ask.
Thus my mother launches into an explanation about Pedro.
All the way back in September, my mother was delivering leftover backpacks from a conference she had been chairing to the rest of the people in the building. She delivered one backpack to the office of a person who takes the entire month of September off. In said office she found ... a toy parrot on a stand.
As she contemplates this parrot, someone from down the hall walks by and spies my mother. He unleashes this comment "I /hate/ that parrot!"
He proceeds to enter the office and show my mother why this parrot has incured his hatred - it talks. More specifically, it's one of those aggravating toys which can record what you say and repeat it back at you. Loudly. Annoyingly. The parrot is, in fact, loathed. So it's only natural that my mother comes up with the following solution.
"Let's steal it."
The parrot is removed from the owner's office and placed in a box in my mother's and hidden. There it remains until the owner returns and finds his parrot gone. He sets off on an angry witch hunt about the building which brings him, very quickly, to my mother.
"You stole my parrot!" he accuses.
"What parrot?" responds my mother.
Thus foiled, the owner continues to his next suspect. But my mother, deeply hurt by these accusations, decides there is only one possible course of action. She must correct the owner's assumptions. So the parrot is taken to Saskatoon when she's here for a meeting and is photographed with some professorial/global warming expert type. With this picture, my mother writes a letter. Or, to be more specific, the parrot writes a letter explaining that he has not been stolen or kidnapped. He has flown off on his own to explore his options and see the world.
Thus begins the saga of the parrot who eventually comes to be named Pedro. Over the next few months, every few weeks my mother takes this parrot out, photographs him somewhere or with someone, and writes up a letter that is mysteriously delivered to the owner, who fumes and puts them up on his door.
This goes on, without incident, until my mother is photographing the parrot in the Big Boss' office. Someone else who's in there, meeting with Big Boss finds the whole thing quite amusing and says the magic words.
"You guys should do a video!"
To which the original parrot-hater responds "Let me go and get my camera!"
For the next hour or so, my mother and the parrot-hater go around the building video taping its journey and the reactions of certain individuals, deciding to end with the parrot trying to to photocopy his butt, failing, and, in an attempt to destroy the evidence, meeting with an unfortunate accident with the shredder ... or does he?!
The parrot-hater prepares the video and then sits on it until it's time for the office Christmas party. By a strange coincidence, my mother happens to be in another city the day of the Christmas party, so she /clearly/ can't be involved in any of this.
The video is shown, complete with moving sound track and a special cameo by the Big Boss, and after it ends, someone who must surely be an innocent bystander just happens to find a gift bag with parrots on it. Inside the bag is a box. In the box is ... Pedro the Parrot. Tied up. With an empty bottle of screech and a letter from the Friends of Pedro, explaining how they went to great lengths to trap the bird in order to stop their coworker's worries/whines.
Thus ends the saga of Pedro.
Your tax dollars at work. If you happen to live in Saskatchewan.
Hopefully in the next little while I'll get some reviews up of the books I read over Christmas. Service's The Reluctant God, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller's Scout's Progress, Agent of Change, and Conflict of Honours, A. J. Jacobs The Know-It-All (thanks, Cathy!), and Where's My Cow? which I read after it first came out, but I never talked about. Which is a /serious/ oversight on my part. Tsk tsk, me.
... In other news, I have the best wallpaper in the world, and you do not.
Rejoicing,
Almighty Ingrid, Signing Off
So, here's the story - Zen and the Art of Employment - which is a bit over 7000 words.
I've been meaning to write this story since the summer.
Of 2004.
So ... uh ... have some spoilery notes!
Actually, really, just one thing. Zen Juice somehow is actually the fault/idea of Dice, although I can't for the life of me remember why. But there's a picture on the site from sometime in 2004 with Erik in a Zen Juice shirt and clearly Dice's mentioning of Zen Juice, for some reason, predates the shirt.
Also, because periodically I feel the need to remind people of the fact - Ninja and Roommate is entirely fictional. I have never even been employed in the food service industry. I have never had job interviews like Erik's - in fact, I've rarely had a job interview - although I have been reminded of the fact that I wasn't chosen for a job by receiving a letter, but I had been told that fact over the phone beforehand.
Now, because you've all been so good about waiting, the best Christmas story ever.
This is one of the first things my mother told me when I arrived. "Oh, I never told you about Pedro!"
"What?" I ask.
Thus my mother launches into an explanation about Pedro.
All the way back in September, my mother was delivering leftover backpacks from a conference she had been chairing to the rest of the people in the building. She delivered one backpack to the office of a person who takes the entire month of September off. In said office she found ... a toy parrot on a stand.
As she contemplates this parrot, someone from down the hall walks by and spies my mother. He unleashes this comment "I /hate/ that parrot!"
He proceeds to enter the office and show my mother why this parrot has incured his hatred - it talks. More specifically, it's one of those aggravating toys which can record what you say and repeat it back at you. Loudly. Annoyingly. The parrot is, in fact, loathed. So it's only natural that my mother comes up with the following solution.
"Let's steal it."
The parrot is removed from the owner's office and placed in a box in my mother's and hidden. There it remains until the owner returns and finds his parrot gone. He sets off on an angry witch hunt about the building which brings him, very quickly, to my mother.
"You stole my parrot!" he accuses.
"What parrot?" responds my mother.
Thus foiled, the owner continues to his next suspect. But my mother, deeply hurt by these accusations, decides there is only one possible course of action. She must correct the owner's assumptions. So the parrot is taken to Saskatoon when she's here for a meeting and is photographed with some professorial/global warming expert type. With this picture, my mother writes a letter. Or, to be more specific, the parrot writes a letter explaining that he has not been stolen or kidnapped. He has flown off on his own to explore his options and see the world.
Thus begins the saga of the parrot who eventually comes to be named Pedro. Over the next few months, every few weeks my mother takes this parrot out, photographs him somewhere or with someone, and writes up a letter that is mysteriously delivered to the owner, who fumes and puts them up on his door.
This goes on, without incident, until my mother is photographing the parrot in the Big Boss' office. Someone else who's in there, meeting with Big Boss finds the whole thing quite amusing and says the magic words.
"You guys should do a video!"
To which the original parrot-hater responds "Let me go and get my camera!"
For the next hour or so, my mother and the parrot-hater go around the building video taping its journey and the reactions of certain individuals, deciding to end with the parrot trying to to photocopy his butt, failing, and, in an attempt to destroy the evidence, meeting with an unfortunate accident with the shredder ... or does he?!
The parrot-hater prepares the video and then sits on it until it's time for the office Christmas party. By a strange coincidence, my mother happens to be in another city the day of the Christmas party, so she /clearly/ can't be involved in any of this.
The video is shown, complete with moving sound track and a special cameo by the Big Boss, and after it ends, someone who must surely be an innocent bystander just happens to find a gift bag with parrots on it. Inside the bag is a box. In the box is ... Pedro the Parrot. Tied up. With an empty bottle of screech and a letter from the Friends of Pedro, explaining how they went to great lengths to trap the bird in order to stop their coworker's worries/whines.
Thus ends the saga of Pedro.
Your tax dollars at work. If you happen to live in Saskatchewan.
Hopefully in the next little while I'll get some reviews up of the books I read over Christmas. Service's The Reluctant God, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller's Scout's Progress, Agent of Change, and Conflict of Honours, A. J. Jacobs The Know-It-All (thanks, Cathy!), and Where's My Cow? which I read after it first came out, but I never talked about. Which is a /serious/ oversight on my part. Tsk tsk, me.
... In other news, I have the best wallpaper in the world, and you do not.
Rejoicing,
Almighty Ingrid, Signing Off