Practical jokes really aren’t that practical

There are three of us at work that share an office; one of us may or may not get picked on much more than the others. I could reminisce for hours about the shenanigans that go on on a daily basis. It’s really quite fun.

I was talking with one of my officemates the other day about practical jokes. Throughout the duration of our conversation an instance started slowly coming to my mind. It was rolling out of the fog; the fog of suppressed memories, of course.

I was just promoted to supervisor; I was still in the awkward transition stage. So much so, one of my friends said to me “Heather, you really seem out of your element. Don’t worry – you can do this!”. Which was both reassuring and also troubling since everyone could see that I was obviously struggling.

Not long after, another “friend” came to talk to me.

I got back to work and forgot about it. I ended up going into the lab to talk to someone; I was trying to tie up a loose end before I left to go to school.

I finished my tasks, got cleaned and packed up and left for school. I got to school and was waiting for the class to start.

That’s when it all came flooding back. I was so weirded out I didn’t pick up on the obvious queues: the awkward pat on the back; the people snickering in the lab.

Work Shenanigans

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have some new office-mates. They both happen to be of Asian descent. They also both happen to be jerks.

Not really.

But since they’re Asian they are more likely to eat weird shit on a day-to-day basis. I’m white and the stuff I eat is pretty… … vanilla. Definitely on a world scale, but even on a Canadian scale.

So, naturally, they’ve made it their mission to “expand my horizons”. It’s a game they love and a game I’m disliking more and more. 

The first time it happened was a couple weeks ago when Geiger brought in “Taiwan’s most popular snack food”, which was some fish/shrimp cracker-y things. I’ve had things like that previously and they’re pretty okay, so I had one.

What I didn’t realize was that this particular brand of snack food contained a dehydrated fish inside each packet.

What I also didn’t realize was that when Geiger found the fish that she would think it would be good idea to make me eat it. I also didn’t realize that The Ninja would agree. It took some prodding, in the form of both of them chanting my name, but eventually I ate the fish.

It was small so I thought it wouldn’t be bad, but it was concentrated. As I crunched through the dehydrated carcass of this little fish, my mouth was perfused with a very strong fish flavour. It was basically like eating 4 cans of tuna in one bite.

The next time was a few days later when a co-worker brought in candies from Thailand, one of which was durian flavoured. I was asked if I liked durian, I said that I had never tried it, but I’d smelled it, so that was enough for me.

That wasn’t enough for them. The Ninja went and got me a candy and then they started demanding I eat it.

Eventually I caved and put the candy in my mouth. And then promptly spit it out because it was horrible! They laughed and said that it wasn’t in my mouth long enough for it to count. They threatened to get me another one.

The conversation moved to “what’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten”; Geiger won that contest by saying that she once ate pig fallopian tube. She said it wasn’t bad, it was just a skinny tube that was chewy, kind of like an elastic band.

A little while later, The Ninja said “Hey, Heather….” and when I turned around he was presenting me with an elastic band served on a napkin. He tried the chant that had worked previously.

The few days later, I heard The Ninja say “Hey Heather… you want one?” My heart filled with dread and when I turned around he was offering me a cookie… I was surprised.

I’m not sure if his predominant reaction was amused or offended.

After repeated pleas that I did not want “Make That White Girl Eat Weird Shit” to be the new game, The Ninja came up with a new game: “Make That White Girl Say Things in Cantonese Without Telling Her What The Words Mean Until She Uses Them In Really Inappropriate Ways”.

Lucky for me, I tend to use English words in really inappropriate ways so it’s never too long before I find out what they’re teaching me to say.

Foosball and Beyond

This is a story that is well over two years in the making. You may recall my posts about Foosball. If not, that’s okay. The gist of it is that my place of work has a foosball table and there have been a number of foosball related activities over the years (tournaments, olympics, fundraising etc). As a result, a couple years ago, I started learning how to play foosball with never having stepped foot in front of a table before.

Gorm is ridiculously good at foosball; he took me under his wing, showed me the ropes and kicked my ass in the process.

As my skill increased, so did my expectations of the game. As I began to be able to coordinate my men and learned to defend my net, I started expecting better results from myself than I had reason to expect.

This led to, what has been described as, devastating lows of foosball. Which basically means that when I lost, I made a scene.

Whenever I threw my typical temper tantrum, the same person would happen to be in the lunch room, I’ll call him The Ninja because he always seemed to appear out of nowhere. This is a person with whom I never really spoke. Nods of acknowledgment and a "Good Morning" here and there, but that's about it.

It was unfortunate, to say the least, that this is the person who had to witness me at my all-time foosball low. Every. Single. Day.

The only good thing out of that situation was the fact that The Ninja made reference to me in his farewell email when he left the company. A special feat considering we had exchanged less than a dozen words in the 8 years of “working together”.

Fast forward a few months. I made supervisor at work and, as a result, ended up sharing an office with the manager.

Fast forward a year. The company that The Ninja went to, basically went belly up and he was laid off. It just so happens that he’s skilled in mysterious ways. I guess you would expect nothing less from a ninja. It also just so happens that we still needed his expertise and managed to bring him back on. He is now working closely in my department and I have conversations with him daily.

Fast forward another 6 months. We finally filled the second supervisor position and in order for the new supervisor and I to be in close proximity, the manager kicked me out of the office and placed us in an office with The Ninja.

Not only is The Ninja sneaky, but he’s also extremely observant and has an excellent memory. He also is willing to share the information that he compiles. He’s made a point at telling me about my foibles.

For one, when I talk to him and/or my staff, he gets the distinct impression that he’s talking to a school teacher. An elementary school teacher. Not so much the words coming out of my mouth as it is my demeanor. I’m not sure what’s worse.

He also pointed out that I tend to mimic people. Not in a bad I’m-going-to-make-fun-of-you kind of way, but if someone says “Hi Heather!” all sunshine-y, I’ll say something back in the same way. If someone grunts my name, I do the same. I thought that I was mostly aware of this (it’s can be a bit of a fun little game for me), but today when the person I was talking with left the office, The Ninja turned to me and asked if I’d caught myself doing it.

I’m likely to become very self conscious of my actions, despite the fact that he claims they aren’t bad things. Mere observations. Sure…

Happy (actual) 200th Blog Post!!

There was a farmer who had a dog...

My excitement about leaving town is growing steadily. And since I'm sure you don't want to read a post every day for the next 5 days about Mexico I'm going to have to come up with another topic. On Friday, I went to Bingo.

No, I did not age 30 years overnight. A friend invited me and I said yes, seeing as when I was a kid I loved the game. That may have been before I matured and realized that I have absolutely no luck whatsoever.

Goes without saying that I did not win a thing. So, all in all, it cost me $30 and provided me with a couple hours of entertainment. Not too bad. Not only were the games entertaining, but for an experienced people-watcher such as myself, I was in heaven.

And, oh, the people that go to Bingo... that's a demographic that is just a hair's width away from circus side show (present company not included, of course).

Let's see. First, there are the old ladies and gentlemen that all seem to know each other and use it as a social outlet. Then there are the old ladies and gentlemen that scurry about in between games in order to get more cards/pull tabs/kenos. The look of sheer determination on their faces is somewhat cancelled out by the grease stains on their t-shirts.

Then there are the young people. Some, usually in groups, are normal respectable people that are there for a gag (and hopefully to win some money). Some, usually alone, may or may not have a touch of meth-mouth and do this as means of weaning themselves off meth, by starting another addictive behaviour.

At one point, a group of young girls came in that were obviously supposed to go downtown to a club, but found themselves outside of Planet Bingo and thought why not? They were wearing 4 inch heels, short skirts and too much makeup. They didn't look dirty enough to be making money dressed like that, if you know what I mean.

I mean, hookers.

Then there are the crazies. They come in all shapes, sizes and colours. There was one woman that was trying to buy tickets or something and the manager walked up and started asking her to leave. He was quiet. She was not. She started putting her hand up in the air and saying "Get the fuck out of my face" and once he continued talking with her, she started getting really irate. And not just at him, she started calling a random patron a "buttfucker", he got mad and said "Don't call me a fag, whore" and she said "But you are. Be proud, faggot, be proud of it. So what if you like getting fucked up the ass?!". I stared in disbelief.

When I finally managed to tear my eyes away from the train wreck, I happened to make eye contact with an older lady across the way. She widened her eyes with an "Ooooh boy" look on her face. Then she said "This doesn't happen very often, just so you know!" I said, "Oh, okay... *nervous laughter*" and she said "Yeah, only, maybe once a month".

Once a month is pretty often. Unless you're there everyday, then it's not often, but if I decided to go weekly, I'd have a 25% chance of seeing that. Thems pretty good odds.

Better odds than winning at Bingo!

The funniest thing about that train wreck was the fact that the bingo game was apparently on pause, because as soon as the crazy lady walked out the door, the bingo caller started the next game.

Messed.

So the girl that was sitting across from me & my friend was pretty young with a touch of meth-mouth. She ended up winning a game. I was pretty excited for her. Maybe more excited than she was. A friend of hers ended up joining her shortly after her win. I overheard (read: eavesdropped) the conversation she had about her win:

"So, I won just before you got here. I won $240. So that means... I'm only down $10 for today. It's so nice to play without having to worry about how much money I've spent".

I was floored. She spent $250 on Bingo?? Her friend said what we were all thinking:

"So... you've been here awhile then?"

No fucking kidding.

Hoisted by my own petard

Yet another post about Foosball. God, I love that game. There are a few people that I play with at work: Gorm, of course; EliseArt, naturally; The Genius and The Kicker. Whenever I play with these folks (usually two against two; or me & The Kicker vs Gorm), we play a game or two (or sometimes three) and call it quits.

However, when Gorm & I play one-on-one, we have our own little game. We call it The Game. It's very exciting. It also has a very original name. The rules are like every other game of foosball we play, but there are a few exceptions.

The regular rules:

1) No spinning of the rods

2) The middlemen on both teams have to touch the ball before the game starts

3) No scoring from the middlemen

4) The team that gets to 10 first, wins

The rules for The Game:

1) No spinning of the rods

2) The middlemen on both teams have to touch the ball before the game starts

3) Gorm is not allowed to score from the middlemen; any shot Heather gets past Gorm counts

4) The game ends when Heather gets to 10

5) The game score is the number of goals that Gorm gets before Heather gets to 10

6) Heather wins when she gets to 10

7) Gorm wins if Heather does not see The Game through and doesn't get to 10

Even though the rules are catered to me and allow me a greater chance of winning, Gorm still wins. A lot. Despite my temper tantrums, we diligently play The Game at least once week. In the few months that we've been doing this, I've made serious strides. I've also made a graph. I wouldn't be a scientist if I didn't have evidence.

The first time we played The Game, we played for an hour and a half before I got to 10; Gorm had 134pts. Even though "I won", it was a low point in my life. Since then, Gorm has given me lessons and pure practice and sheer determination has helped me achieve lower game scores.

*disclaimer* When I told Gorm that I was going to make a spreadsheet to tabulate the results, I told him that I was going to put only the high scores in, he said that was fine, it's my spreadsheet after all. Yesterday, I reminded him of this and he called me a bad name. I can't recall what it was, but the impression I got was that I should be plotting all the scores. I'm not going to.

The second entry had a game score of 73, which is nearly half of the original score. I believe this was actually the second game we played, since I don't remember ever going above 134. And I don't remember having a tantrum and walking away (that started happening as I got better at the game. Go figure).

Next was 53, followed by a 52. I was certain that I was plateau-ing and would never break 50. This is when I started walking away from the game. If Gorm hits 54, I lose it; I Hulk out and toss every table in my wake.

Unfortunately, one poor soul has the misfortune of witnessing this escapade EVERY TIME! Every time I say "I'm done! I don't want to play this game anymore - I hate you!!!!", I turn around and see this guy standing there. The next time he catches me at the foosball table, he says "I thought you weren't playing this game anymore, Heather??" It's pretty funny, except for how much he catches me whining and throwing a tantrum.

Anyway, I broke 50 with an all-time low game score of 28. This was a big moment in my life. I was reveling in my win. I was really pleased with myself.

And then Gorm asked if I wanted to play again. I might lower my score even more. Being that I was delirious from the foosball high I was on, I accepted. Only to fail miserably. Gorm hit 54, I tossed tables and stormed off. "Oh, hello, Tom, I didn't see you there."

Yesterday, I got to 22. When I got my final goal, I yelled out (it may or may not have been really loud) "Twenty-fucking-two!!! Yeah!!!!!!". As I was turning around, the poor janitor behind me turns around with a shocked look on his face. I see the judgment, but that didn't stop me from doing a happy dance.

Gorm, again, convinced me that I should play again. I might lower my score. I'm on a roll. And then he got 54.

Mother. Fucker.

I'm so consistently inconsistent, it blows my mind. Or maybe that's the dramatic shift in blood pressure. Not sure.

Like a baby club.... and you seal it?

About a month ago I took part in The Warrior Dash. I wasn't too sure what to expect and part of me was absolutely terrified, but I did it, I completed it and it was awesome.

What is The Warrior Dash? Well if you're too lazy to look it up, here's my synopsis.

It was a 5km hike/obstacle race around Whistler. There were roughly 10 obstacles throughout the 5km course. Looking at the website, it was obvious that the first kilometer or so had zero obstacles; all the obstacles were crammed into the remaining 4km. I wondered why.

The website also showed potential obstacles, which is what terrified me. Most of the obstacles looked challenging, but I did think I could complete them. However, there were two potential obstacles shown that I was pretty sure I would fall to my untimely death if I attempted them.

Needless to say, when I was gearing up for the race, my heart rate was a bit higher than it should be for someone who was just standing there.

The race started and the first kilometer was directly up a ski-hill; it was steep, it was long and I had to climb that thing with the sun beating down on me. At that moment I was pretty sure I wasn't going to finish the race. No, no, no, not because of obstacles, but because I couldn't even get to the obstacles. How embarrassing. I soldiered on. No wonder the first kilometer didn't have any obstacles.

The first obstacle was a series of hurdles and 'crawl-unders'. The hurdles were basically 4.5ft walls of plywood and the crawl-unders were about 3ft high and covered in barbed wire.

*actual sequence of obstacles gets hazy from here and I doubt I'll remember all of them*

The second obstacle was a long, dark crawl-under. Basically a wooden frame with a black tarp on it; you had to crawl through it without being able to see where you're going or the spider that was trying to bite you.

Next up, was a lame ass "slip n slide" that didn't do anything except shoot you down 2ft into a pocket of water and then you got up and walked down the dry tarp. I just walked the whole thing; I wasn't going to get my ass wet if it wasn't going to be any fun. Besides, I got wet enough in the snow-blower obstacle.

Two snow blowers aimed at you from opposite directions. The water that was blowing completely blinded you, soaked you and made you want to die. It was also freezing cold. Which was nice when you were on the outskirts of it, but absolute hell when you were in the midst of it. I'm actually not even sure if that counted as an obstacle, but it should have dammit.

Next came the army wall. 10ft wall, with a rope and you have to climb over it. This is about the time that the super-fit runners from the next wave time caught up to me. As I was approaching the wall, I heard the hard footsteps and laboured breath behind me.

I attempted to climb the wall. The super-fit-runner was catching up pretty quickly.

I needed all the strength I could muster. And yet, he somehow just flew over the top and kept running. Seriously, I don't think he even touched the rope.

I made it. Eventually.

Next came a series of balance beams. Which wouldn't have been too difficult, if I hadn't already climbed a ski-hill, jumped hurdles and climbed a wall. My legs were practically jell-o and I was pretty sure I was going to lose my balance and fall headlong into the supports. I tried not to picture my subsequent injuries and focused on the task at hand.

Next up, was a 25ft cargo-net climb. You know, like those rope ladders at playgrounds? Only instead of it being a ladder up to the slide platform it was 25ft high and had ropes on both sides. So after you climb up, you have to climb down more ropes on the other side. The first little bit was exciting (I used to love those rope ladders and now here's this giant one... weeeee!), but then I realized that I had to, not only get down the other side, but also climb over the bar at the top of the thing and not fall to my death. I was about 2/3's of the way up when I started to panic.

For a brief moment, I looked down behind me and considered going back the way I came, but people were coming up behind me and I didn't want to be the girl who was like "Excuse, I'm coming back down now...." so I took a deep breath and said "Suck it up; get it done" and I did.

Insert more obstacles here -------->

The final obstacle is a mud pit where you have to crawl through it and under barbed wire. I took one step into the pit and was up past my knees in mud (probably roughly mid thigh). I extracted my foot from the quicksand and knew immediately that something was missing. My foot easily came out of the mud. A little too easily, perhaps. Fuck. I lost my shoe in the mud pit.

I dug down deep and tried to extract my shoe. It was buried; it was hard to get out.

I finally got it out, but being so caked in mud, it didn't resemble my shoe at all and looked about 5 sizes too big.

I crawled through the mud, under the barbed wire and ran across the finish line, all the while carrying (hopefully) my shoe. My goal was to finish in less than two hours; I completed it in just over an hour (1h10m - ish). K and I were so happy. And dirty.

Big thanks to EliseArt for providing illustrations

Back-passin' Mike

I mentioned in a previous post (although briefly), that I love foosball. Just in case any of you were hoping for a post about foosball, I decided to oblige and write one. Enjoy.

It all started about 6 weeks ago. As part of a workplace fundraiser, a foosball tournament was scheduled to take place. I didn't even consider taking part until someone sent me an email saying "I may not be good at the game, but I'll likely be really excited about it. Who wants to be on my team?".

Having never played before, I couldn't help but think that, I too, would not be good at the game, but would be quite excited about the experience. I replied to the email saying as much. Another colleague came forward and professed to being the Foosball Master; the playing training began.

Our playing has built up over the weeks and it has gotten to the point where we play constantly. Sometimes multiple times a day. I (we) now have to calculate the hours worked in the day based on:

1. when I arrive


2. when I go home


3. how many minutes of foosball played during that time

Even though I have a lot more experience with the game than I did 6 weeks ago, our games still follow the same pattern. (*dramatization - may not have happened)

Our games always start off the same way. We're both eager and ready to let off some steam.

Within minutes (seconds?) of playing, the ball ends up in my zone with him on the attack. It's a very stressful moment as I pass him the ball and he lines up the shot.



Inevitably, he scores. There's no stopping the rocket that he calls 'just a shot'.

Yet, I'm just as concerned every time.

It continues on. As I get better at defending the net (that's really all I can do), he soldiers on.

It gets to the point where I've exhausted all of my efforts towards The Rocket and admit defeat.



And then he turns around and is a complete jackass about the whole thing.

Just when I don't think I can take the abuse anymore, he spends an hour coaching me on techniques; showing me where I go wrong and how I can improve. Maybe I just need more practice and then I'll be able to stop The Rocket. If that's the case, I'll be able to stop anything! Then, I'll just need to work on scoring.

I think I'm going to be a Foosball Master too. Thanks Gorm!! :)

Big thanks to EliseArt for providing illustrations.