Thursday, September 8, 2011

Day 100: Remember the Time... I Don't Know the Difference Between a Piercing and a Door Handle?

To break up the work day, two colleagues and I will often e-mail each other random things we come across that we find interesting through our work or otherwise. Being in editorial, Brian is the one who usually starts off the conversations, as he's the one researching new articles we're going to publish at our encyclopedia company. He once was trying to find out information about the Giant Beaver (an actual animal) and learned the hard way that people Googling "giant beaver" are not actually looking for information on the actual animal.

Here's one of our exchanges in which I would feel ridiculously embarrassed had my colleagues been completely unaware of my, well, being me.

Brian: I did some work on the Mullet [fish] article today and came across this photo. First, I have to figure out a way to justify using this as the photo for the article, even though it is entirely irrelevant. Next, I must become this man and live as he does.



Me: What do you mean it's irrelevant!?!? Wasn't the hairstyle named after the fish or vice versa???? Come on Johnson - you can think of SOMETHING to correlate the two!

And I think your first step toward becoming this guy is to get a matching piercing.

Brian: I see no piercing.
Me: How can you not see his piercing?
Mike: Brian, I think a frontal assault is the way to go. “Mullet fish is a man who lives in the Ozark mountains and drives a red pickup truck. He wears his hair in a mullet style, has several rings, and likes to go around shirtless.”
Yeah, where is this piercing?
Brian: Well, if nothing else, we’ve confirmed that Erika hallucinates piercings. I hereby diagnose her with acute latent belonemania. OK how about this:
“Mullet fish is a man who lives in the Ozark mountains and drives a red pickup truck. He wears his hair in a mullet style, has several rings and likes to go around shirtless. He has an on-again off–again girlfriend named Charlene. His hobbies include shootin’ and cooking methamphetamine. The name mullet fish is sometimes used to refer to a family of ocean fish. But these fish have little value, because they cannot grow hair or shotgun a six-pack of Rebel Yell beer in less than 60 seconds.”
Me: I amended your description to be more accurate as such:

“Mullet fish is a man who lives in the Ozark mountains and drives a red pickup truck. He wears his hair in a mullet style, has several rings - including one in his left nipple - and likes to go around shirtless... etc.
Brian: Sadly, this response only confirms my diagnosis of acute latent belonemania. What you see as a piercing is clearly the door handle of the truck peeking out from Billy Bob’s armpit. I can only urge you to get help, before you begin to see piercings on octogenarians and members of the clergy.
Mike: Yeah, definitely NOT a piercing. Negative [cool] points for Meller.
Me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA I seriously saw a piercing. Wait - Shouldn't I get points for actually seriously mistaking a truck's door handle for a piercing!?!?
Mike: Even more negative points for trying to spin negative points into positive ones. See, this is how you wind up with around –387 points.
Me: BTW: What exactly is acute latent belonemania? [Having actually Googled it only to realize it was something that Brian made up.]
Brian: Belonemania is excessive interest in or arousal by needles or piercings. In your case, it is latent because you have not yet suffered the psychotic break to which all belonemaniacs succumb in the end. It is acute because you are obviously on the verge of decompensation.
Me: I’m going to pretend I know what all of those words mean and just enjoy this eye-candy photo of Cletus Billy Bob in all of his hillbilly glory.
Mike: That’s not glory. That’s a piercing.

No comments:

Post a Comment