The Guv'ner Kick Starts Her Social Life

A nice thing about the Uberlord being overseas is, I can come in late and duck out early if I feel like doing something exciting in the early evening like seeing a movie, as I did tonight.

OK, in the grand scheme of things, seeing a movie probably doesn't rank up there with say...stealing a car and driving it into the Hudson while licking Absynthe off a man's naked torso, but that's my life. The movie I mean...not the naked torso Absynthe licking thing. I'm a respectable human being you know. On Sundays. In April. After the 28th.

So I met up with my friend Christina and we went to see "Juno" because I'm sick of the world telling me how "awesome" it is when I haven't seen it to counteract this viewpoint. Naturally, I can be a touch cynical - no honestly! - and I figured an indie movie hitting the box office hard probably means it's fairly average for someone who is used to indie movies, so I was pleasantly surprised that it was excellent and very cute but not in a way that made you want to swallow Draino then put a sword through your spleen or anything. And the great dialogue prevented it from being too saccharine. I surmise that this is because it was filmed in Canada and starred two Canadians, because Canadians are naturally allergic to schmaltz. It's something they put in the drinking water up there. Labatt's I think it's called. Anyway, if it had been too sweet the main characters would have puked all over each other in disgust and that movie would suck. Then I'd have puked on Christina and she'd have puked on the row in front etc. and it would have been like that scene in "Stand By Me" when Lardass eats all the pies.

Juno's boyfriend was just the sweetest thing ever. It was the geeky dude from "Superbad" who looks awkward in his own skin. I like me a skinny nerd boy now and then you know. They're so corruptible. Allegedly... If he wasn't barely legal I'd load him into my trunk and keep him in a box under my bed for a rainy day.

Ahem.

I especially enjoyed the trailer for that piece of crap Kate Hudson/Matthew McConna-hooey romcom that's about to spread its nasty, non-funny hilarity all over us. It took all the strength and will power I had not to stand up and yell, "YOU have no tits Kate Hudson, and YOU are GAYER THAN LIBERACE McConna-hooey so quit pretending!" I just ground my teeth and snarled instead. Who goes to see these things? Are they mental?

Another Day In Paradise

I groaned like an oak tree in a tornado at having to get up this morning. This is normal, however, and part of my life-long protest at mornings in general and the fact I have to drag myself out of bed to do things during them, when every sane person knows mornings are for sleeping, drinking coffee, nursing your hangover, peeing and more sleeping.

I arrived at work, cold, frowning and not inclined to deal with assorted dickwaddery from anyone, to find a very pleasing lack of Dark Überlord. I wasn’t sure what to do at first – be ecstatic and do a happy dance or commence being very suspicious of why there was no Dark Überlord. I glanced tentatively around each corner, to make sure the Apocalypse wasn't crouching there waiting to trip me up, but no.

I decided that looking a gift horse in the face is beyond stupid and so I began the dancing and followed it with coffee imbibing and joyous knuckle cracking. My own knuckles I mean - I don’t want you thinking I’m going around smashing other people’s joints with a ball peen hammer or anything. Not that the thought doesn’t occur to me fairly regularly...

When he does show up he’s not going to be happy to learn I haven’t been able to upgrade his flight to Europe for this evening from business class to first because the airline was completely over sold on first class. The fact that no seats exist and there is also a waiting list ahead of him will not be an acceptable excuse to the Dark Überlord, who thinks I can just conjure these things up because he wishes it so. If I had that talent I’d be in Fiji right now, lying in the sun, sucking down exotic beverages while a nubile, tanned lovely boy fanned me with a huge palm frond and fed me chocolates. I'm sorry, I just slipped back into fantasy land yet again.

Also, if I’d only known he wasn’t coming in all morning I could have had a very satisfying forty winks on his couch for an hour or two. Damn inconsiderate man.

On a nice note though, I am very flattered to realize my ambition of becoming an honest to God, goddamn, fabulous Internet quasi-celebrity (like Britney only with panties), thanks to my being subjected to an interview by the mean and nasty SUZE, so go on over there and tell her what a mean beeyotch she really is. And hot damn, that pepper spray stings!

Subway Tales

My day started with a refined looking older gentleman sporting an expensive coat, old school hat and some impressively gigantic jowls, whining on the train because some lady had the nerve to squeeze into the space next to him.

“There isn’t enough room!” he whined. “You should stand until you can sit down properly.” She looked at him like he’d said, “My God, the last time I saw a face like that was on a stick at a Chinese market!” and refused to budge.

This is the New York subway, Quentin Crisp, be grateful she didn’t stab you in the kishkas and steal your rather fey chapeau.

Myself? I had the pleasure to be seated next to some guy who smelled like a fruity mixture of Old Pee and Old Spice – quite the sexy combination. He was wearing some really tinny, nasty headphones and blasting some god-awful hippy music that made me want to grab the overhead bar, swing from it like a gorilla and kick the dude square in the nuts. Would it hurt you to take a bath, fella? Would the world end, Stinkmeister?

To make matters worse one of my bras had recently gone through the drier accidentally, which distorted the hook in the back, so mid way through my commute I stretched slightly and it unhinged and pinged open in the back, freeing the hounds as it were. Thank God for big winter coats. I mean if you’ve got cute little A Cup boobies it wouldn’t be an issue but when you’re a C/D cup like me, all manner of nastily embarrassing bounce-age can occur if you let it. Think two fighting puppies in a sack! I’m sorry, did I gross everyone out with that visual? Good!

No Dark Überlord today, I’m happy to say, as he had a pressing engagement elsewhere. Sadly not “pressing” as in “pinned under a train” but it is only noon and one can live in hope. Nonetheless a welcome sanity break for me.

And really, a sane Guv’ner is a happy Guv’ner.

Today's Complaint...

The Dark Überlord’s Dictaphone broke down recently causing the world to stop spinning briefly. You might have felt the jolt? A week past Tuesday it was. The E.R.s were full of broken bones and other related maladies.

I had our office services people get him a new recorder, which they had by the next day – a lovely, silver Sony micro-recorder. Situation rectified, right?

Right.

The Dark Überlord didn’t like it. It was too “flimsy”. It has a hard plastic shell unlike the old relic we were using which was carved out of bedrock and operated by a team of dinosaurs on a treadmill. Damn thing would’ve withstood a hand grenade attack back in the day.

“This thing is too fragile.” He whined about the new Sony, hurting its fragile feelings. “We need to get something more rugged.”

I don’t know what he does with it that would constitute needing something “more rugged” since something more rugged comes with a more rugged price tag that the company will have to pay for. Maybe he plays touch football with it in his office? Or dodgeball? Maybe he chops wood with it. I don’t know or, for that matter, care.

Since our office services people laugh in my face when I put in absurd requests (they got us the “flimsy” but perfectly adequate Sony) we decided to circumvent them by ordering the desired machine online and expensing it back, which is guaranteed to give someone in our billing department a coronary since they like every penny expensed to be a penny well spent. Still there is no point arguing with an Überlord when his mind is made up.

Who knew a micro-cassette recorder (a rugged one mind you!) cost $239? Not me. I was expecting maybe….$30. Tops. Getting the money back should be fun with a capital ‘KILL ME NOW’. Still it’s not my money so really. Who cares?

For the record, the Sony works perfectly well and since he talks into it while sitting at his desk, I’m not seeing why it needs to be made of solid steel to begin with but then I’m not a pampered fuckwit with fancy ideas.

All my fancy ideas involve sharp implements and soft flesh and result in death.

Viva La Résistance

The Dark Überlord, who’s in Europe this week on business, called me yesterday distraught because his swanky hotel room (a five star hotel room at that) didn’t have an impressive enough view for his lofty tastes. “It overlooks a side street!” he spluttered, terrified by this unknown world of deprivation. Well that must have been just traumatizing. A side street! The indignity. There must be someone we can sue for the distress caused to his emotional psyche. Paging Doctor FUCK-YOU!

Also – horror! - the people in the room next door had the audacity to have an infant. Not that he could hear the kid or anything, but, in theory, he might hear it and then where would the world be if he was forced to wake up bleary-eyed and devoid of the brain cells necessary to participate in his meeting? Well the world would tilt on its axis, Dark Überlord. People would run shrieking through the streets, knocking over nuns and small children in their wake, causing massive traffic pile-ups and mayhem at intersections. Stores would close and public transport would grind to a halt and the market would drop to unprecedented lows and start a recession.

Silly old butt-sausage.

On the upside, since he’s been gone I’ve been taking advantage of my freedom by coming in late and closing my office door all day to block out the rest of the scum. I’ve been playing my iPod through the speakers and singing along. I’ve been avoiding all the minions who are scurrying around hyperactively, like ants, making sure the client’s ass is well and truly kissed and other très important matters of world shattering importance, while I swing on my chair giving them the finger.

It all irritates me. The corporate world is not The Guv’ner’s world. The Guv’ner’s world is filled with margaritas and cake and bad men and music and comedy shows and Edy’s Butter Pecan ice cream and gay abandon and cursing and cats and liquor and drawing cartoons and sticking pins in maps and like...dreaming about a debauched weekend in Amsterdam eating magic brownies and getting up at noon and sitting around half the day in her underpants and a t-shirt scooping cereal into her mouth and patting her tummy and playing with dogs and interfering with boys and writing tripe and playing guitar and wearing fuzzy slippers and it is not about sitting at a desk all day organzing meetings for half-witted fucktards who can’t tie their own shoelaces..

Let the rebellion begin.

A Brief Whine

My boss is a pretty verbose guy. He spews forth words like a little volcano of vocabulary. He also likes to put things in writing where at all possible; memos, buck-slips, emails, documents indicating progress on a project, that sort of thing. He’s just never brief, is my point.

Usually these things are a case of him talking into a Dictaphone and me transcribing it, with a cackle, into Microsoft Word. Nice and easy. I type fast and really, a chimp could do that stuff. Occasionally though, he demands a cover note or slide for a PowerPoint presentation. This is fine in theory. I am more than coherent in PowerPoint.

He, however, is not.

For a start, he does not comprehend that you can not fit an infinite amount of words onto one PowerPoint slide – at least not unless you want a font size of minus 300 and are planning on handing out free magnifying glasses and an aneurysm with the presentation. He will hand me tapes full of words that would fill three single-spaced pages of Word and expects this all to fit concisely onto one slide. This is the world he lives in. Despite the obvious faces of disgust I pull when asked to do this, he doesn’t see what my problem is. I don’t have a magic wand, Dark Überlord, that’s what. My name is not Hermione Granger.

I actually like working in PowerPoint. You can do some neat stuff in there - like the time I made a presentation of all the people I hated at my last job. I made mean yet oddly accurate cartoons of everyone, captioned them all, wrote some scathing text detailing their various levels of assholity, made some graphs and pie charts (because no presentation is complete without some mathematical goodness) and synched up appropriate music. Every time Cruella de Ville, for example, would appear on the screen, that song “Bitch” by Meredith Baxter would start up. It was quite excellent! I couldn’t find a song about crusty old procrastinating douchebags for Mr. Panty-Waist so he had to make do with Carly Simon's “You’re so Vain”. And the Primitives’ “Really Stupid”.

Honestly it was a classic. When it was finished, I brought it in early one morning on my laptop along with some doughnuts and coffee, so that I and my good friends The Evil Queen and Timo could have a locked-door screening in Timo’s office where we ate, drank and gave copious amounts of "The Finger" when necessary, which turned out to be every five seconds on average. Who knew therapy could be as cheap as six doughnuts and some caffeine?

So you see, PowerPoint can be your friend.

Not for my current boss however. Mr. “I would like twenty different bullet points in one document”. Mr. “I have diarrhea of the verbal variety”. Oh no.

Confusion Is My Middle Name

When I first arrived in the United States I had to contend with some completely baffling things that were just beyond my realm of comprehension. Like syrup on French toast (this is so wrong, French toast is savory, people!), driving on the right-hand side of the road and people spelling things in funny, misshapen ways.

And of course, filing tax returns. I had never done my taxes in my life and didn't have the foggiest notion how to start. It sounded like something that would involve a calculator the approximate size of a saloon car and a team of bespectacled men with furrowed brows, taking up lodging in my living room for a month and sighing a lot. Doing taxes is something as foreign to me as making out with an alligator (although there was that one time in the Keys after the consumption of much tequila….oh wait, no, that was a crocodile!)

In the UK we don’t do tax returns, our place of employment takes care of all that for us automatically. If we’re due a refund it gets deposited in our bank accounts and as far as I’m aware we never owe anything. We never have to fill out a form or anything.

While I was in the HR department of my former job, here in the U.S., filling in my enrollment forms, the lady asked, “How many exemptions are you claiming?”

I looked at her like her like she’d just asked me the scientific formula for Donald Trump’s weave.

“…how many whats?” I asked.

“Exemptions.” she replied. “Do you have any?”

“Exemptions for what exactly?" I asked. "I used to be exempt from gym class if I had my period. And I am always exempt from Brussels Sprouts.”

“How many dependents are you claiming for?” she also wanted to know.

“….I have two cats and a tequila habit, is that what you mean?”

She looked at me partly with sympathy and partly with annoyance, but it made no difference. I had no idea what the hell she was talking about. She might as well have spoken Swahili and done cartwheels around the room for all the sense she made.

I had a similar problem with medical insurance. I’ve never needed insurance because I grew up with the National Health Service, which is free. You get sick, you go to the doctor, it's that simple. You don't pay for anything except the prescription which is heavily subsidized.

The first time I saw a doctor in the United States, the receptionist at the doctor’s office pounced on me as soon as I entered and asked about my “copay”. I gave her that, “What you talkin’ about Willis?” look.

“My what now?”

“How much is your copay?”

I was stumped.

“Is that anything like a toupé?” I said cautiously. “Because this hair is all mine, baby!”

I was really clueless. I was used to receiving free doctor’s appointments. I was used to my prescriptions, regardless of what drug I was prescribed, costing the same standard rate (at the time about £5.15) which you ponied up at the pharmacy and then you were good to go.

Now I have to deal with all the boss’s medical doings and my head could not hurt more if there was a porcupine bouncing around in it. I have no idea why something is reimbursed partially or why a certain claim comes back unpaid or what goes on an FSA and what goes to the regular plan and what questions to ask to clarify most of this and don’t even think of trying to explain how COBRA works.

It’s infuriating and I do not understand. I would much rather pout and mutter.

Un-psychotic Secretary

After an evening eating cheese and burning fantastic, rare Doug Anthony All Stars video clips from YouTube to my computer (and thank the Lord for the people who make the applications necessary to do this!), I am a little tired, bored and simultaneously hyper today.

My mid-afternoon trip to the water cooler to fill my bottle was sadly disappointing, mainly because I never quite lose the hope that one day I will get there to find it full of frozen margaritas and served up by buff, winking men.

I said WINKING. (that joke probably only makes sense if you're British, sorry!)

Even my meeting The Most Boring Woman In the World on my way out of the subway this morning couldn’t dampen my desire to run around doing things that didn’t involve bloody intent, which is uncharacteristic and slightly frightening. Yes, the Guv’ner was feeling mellow. And at one with the world.

I put the energy factor down to the fact I have commenced walking the 3 miles home from work again each day after a six week hiatus that I neatly excused by saying things like, “Oh, it’s raining slightly! I can’t possibly walk today or I’ll melt!” and “I feel a little off…I can’t walk for over an hour when I feel off, surely!” I’ve walked all week so far and apart from my calf muscles aching today I feel all rejuvenated and stuff.

And marginally less guilty about scoffing the chocolates in my fridge when I get home.

Hey I walked those suckers off! Don’t even talk to me about the flaws in that theory. Well they were just sitting there taunting me, left over from the holiday. The sooner I consume them the sooner I can move on, right? Right.

The Dark Überlord has been absent most of the day meeting with his teams, but the odds are good that he’ll show up all sprightly around 4:30 p.m. and want to do some serious transcribing or something equally unbefitting of a Friday afternoon and I’ll have no choice but to ram a letter opener into his heart with frantic, deadly force. I believe there’s a very ancient corporate law that states this is legal if it’s after one o’clock on a Friday because everyone knows you are officially on weekend time.

Damn Überlords and the horses they rode in on.

WTF Is Going On?

I think I might have chocolate poisoning hence the delusions of grandeur and strange vivid imagination.

Today The Guv’ner is a guest on the Jay Leno Show, isn't that exciting! Here’s the transcript:

Jay
Guv’ner, welcome to the show. Your giant head that eclipses the sun is beaming at me provocatively.
Guv’ner
Like you can talk about my head with that chin, Leno.
Jay
So..what do you think of L.A. so far?
Guv’ner
Well, I think it’s full of skinny wimmins and Crips, Jay.
Jay
Now, we all want to know all about the tremendously interesting world of admin don’t we audience? Let’s hear some of your stories about corporate decadence and whiny brat bosses who can’t find their own ass with a Lonely Planet Guide!
Guv’ner
Hmm.. Let me see. As I told you back in the Green Room, I have some zany shit…wait, can I say that on TV? Caca how about that? I have some zany caca occurring in my life regarding my job. Incidentally, talking of the Green Room, did I see Seth MacFarlane of 'Family Guy' lounging around back there before in a smoking leather jacket? Because if it helps, I would gladly entertain him on your couch for 20 minutes.
Jay
Uh…the work stories?
Guv’ner
Oh yeah. Whatever. I had this boss…
Jay
Hahahahaha!
Guv’ner
I haven’t started yet, Jay.
Jay
I’m sorry, please…
Guv’ner
I had this boss who was a giant horse’s ass…can I say “ass” on TV Jay?
Jay
Uh…I think you got away with it.
Guv’ner
He was a giant horse’s ass as I was saying…well actually more of a colossal dickwad, to be honest. He used to fart a lot. You know, loud and smelly broccoli farts that hung in the air like yellow fog. And he was made entirely of dandruff.
Jay
Hahahahaha!!!!
Guv’ner
No wait, that’s not the funny part. Try to contain yourself.
Jay
Dandruff? Dandruff is funny!
Guv’ner
If you say so, Jay. Anyway this boss was a whiner. Big time whining. He could whine for America. And most of Canada and probably Mexico too. Bosses suck that is the moral of the story.
Jay
I had a boss once who used to tie his shoes funny.
Guv’ner
Did you Jay? That’s nice. Now about Seth MacFarlane and his sexy voice… Not that your voice isn’t sexy, but it’s attached to that chin, so you know. Balance and all that.
Jay
Oh. Uh. Hahaha.
Guv’ner
I have a great story about my boss boffing a client at a charity fundraiser! I can name names and everything! Republicans are involved!
Jay
I think it might be time for commercials.


Oh what? Like Leno doesn’t interview YOU in your fantasies.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's entry where The Guv'ner finds out she's lost all of her marbles!

A Day In The Life

The Guv'ner's not a morning person. I know this probably astounds every last one of you since I practically ooze perkiness and good, solid, upstanding sanity from each of my pores, but alas it's true. Mornings and I are rivals. Deadly combatants if you will. One day I shall be God and mornings will be outlawed along with broccoli, frat boys, anything to do with Bon Jovi and the blatant display of women flaunting their visible muffin tops in public.

Unfortunately mornings are the time I have to drag my reluctant carcass out of bed and into the cold to get to a place where I shiver at a desk while listening to outbursts from the Dark Überlord such as, "My mouse is acting funny!" (The obvious answer is "Stop tickling it and give it some cheese, chulo!") and "What do I do with this document?" (which provokes so many retorts in my head my brain just imploded with the scope of it all.)

I don't like to talk in the mornings because my brain is still waking up. If it's before 11 a.m. please use sign language and pass me notes or I will growl and run my finger suggestively along the business end of my axe while smirking at you menacingly. If you must talk, do it fast then run like your pants are on fire. Hang around any longer and take it from me, they will be.

One thing it’s good not to do in the morning is call me on the phone and try to sell me something I don’t need, don’t want and would bludgeon you over the head with if you were trying it in person. Think of it this way? Would you want it rammed up your ass? Then there you go, sport.

I do appreciate when the maintenance guy shows up first thing and offers to fix my wiring (!) but I can do without the stunning vista of his ass crack as he’s crouching down with his trusty screwdriver. There’s enough cleavage down there to store an entire tool kit. Any minute now he’s going to produce a hack saw and a step ladder from its deep recesses and I will have to stick pencils in my eyes to erase that image from my psyche.

Afternoons are OK though. I’ve eaten, I’ve had coffee and I am running laps of the office really fast (depending on the amount of coffee) and I will talk to anyone, no matter who it is and sometimes even inanimate objects or just myself if no one else is available (or they’re hiding). Although why would anyone hide from the Guv’ner? I will accomplish thirteen tasks at once, find something I lost in 2005 and sing to myself while I do it. I will enthusiastically use big words and join them all together in one monster sentence because I can. I am caffeine woman. I am filled with fake energy and twitchy limbs all desperate to run in five directions at one time.

I will spurt random sentences for no reason:

New Zealand is Australia's Canada!

You smell like sick!

Matt Frei from BBC America World News has a ginormous, papier machier head!

The capital of Bosnia is Sarajevo!

Oprah eats babies!

Hey at least they're all true.

4:30 in the pee-em and I'm craving a Starbucks iced passion-tea lemonade. If you've never tried this concoction, don't - you will ache for it every day and will proceed to re-mortgage your abode and sell your children into slavery to get it. It's like crack in a plastic tumbler. Tasty, fruity, unsweetened, red-colored crack that you desire with all your being.

I want mine in a bucket (venti is that what their huge size is called and why is the word "LARGE" so hard for them?) and I want to suck it down in one huge, satisfying movement till it drips down my chin attractively and I can relax and put down the axe.

I'm always thirsty this time of day. My body knows subconsciously that the cafeteria closes at 3 o'clock and so it waits, cunningly, until that hour passes then sends me into a state where I would ransom off someone's elderly granny to procure something icy cold and quenching. Luckily for lots of reasons, there are no elderly ladies in the vicinity although Starbucks is on the next block so if I get really desperate I can sneak out and go threaten someone in there to make me one.

Today my boss is flighty. He can't sit still. It's like someone put itching powder inside his tightie-whities. Obviously I wish I had thought of this, although it would involve a stronger stomach than I possess not to mention some industrial strength rubber gloves and tongs before I'd ever agree to touch anything that had come in contact with his undercarriage.

Still Serene....Sort Of

Today has been deceptively quiet and serene again. I say “deceptively” because although it is indeed quiet and not filled with tense, hair pulling situations that make you want to reach for a bong and the yoga matt, it is also filled with disguised anguish in the form of my somewhat podgy boss (what did he eat over the holiday I wonder, a few sweet meats or his whole family?)

I got him a huge bottle of booze for Christmas because I thought it only polite and because if he, in return, got me zip, I could pour that bottle of booze over his fat head and set it on fire, providing entertainment and a long absence during which I could relax and ignore work completely. Naturally, he got me nothing and the booze is nowhere to be seen. Damn! So much for the plan.

You see the Guv’ner always has a plan. It might not be a smart plan or even a particularly well thought out one, but it’s a plan nonetheless. A planless Guv’ner is like a small, insignificant child tossed like seaweed upon a wild ocean during a typhoon, clinging to a raft made from like….palm tree fronds and the sinews of turtles. A scary and pathetic sight to behold.

Today my boss said, “Get the number for [new lady] from the directory.” Which I dutifully did.

“This isn’t right!” said boss, frowning like a diseased Teletubby. “[woman] has a different area code!”

“Well this is the number in the directory.” I told him. “That is the only number there is.”

“Well it’s wrong, you should make sure to give me the right number.” he said like I should automatically know when someone's number is wrong and sulked off to his office to stare at his feet. Because, you know I am responsible for the directory all by myself. For 9,000 people. NOT.

Later he came in and tossed some money on my desk. “Go buy tea for my guest.” he said and mumbled something about getting him a Coke.

“Diet?” I asked, because he always drinks Diet Coke or Pepsi. I wasn’t hinting that his gigantic bulbous belly region needed trimming or anything.

“Regular!” he snapped as if I’d asked if his mother fucked baboons. And actually, that would go a long way to explaining a lot…

Since then he’s been generally whiny and silly.

Last night he had a dinner with an ex-client that another of our Account Heads was involved in. At the last minute my boss decided to change the venue and go to the client instead of making them traipse into the city. He naturally didn’t bother telling the other Department Head who was attending, this vital information. I called her on the off chance, since little alarm bells were going off in my head and what do you know - it was complete news to her. If my boss had his way she’d still be in NYC sitting confused and abandoned at a little corner table of an expensive restaurant drinking Martinis, getting teary and drunk and waiting for people who would never come. Isn’t that sad?

Then I remembered she is my extremely annoying ex-boss and a total mega-bitch. This pleasing image of her all alone in a busy restaurant, tears dripping down on the gingham table setting, started to give me a warm, fuzzy feeling in the pit of my tummy and I had to slam my head off the desk as penance for preventing this awesome fantasy from ever coming true.

I blame this head cold. It’s slowing down my evil thinking.

Happy New Year?

The past two weeks The Guv'ner has been partying hard overseas and cultivating a quite spectacular head cold. Despite this frivolity and mayhem, the thought did cross my mind a few times that I probably should think about checking my work email, in case all hell had broken loose in my absence. This is not entirely unheard of, you see.

So indeed I thought about it. Then I thought "Screw that!" and moved along.

Well come on, there’s no point in actually checking it because if all hell has unleashed a pestilence of nasty while I’ve been gallivanting in foreign climes, I really don’t want to spend the last week of my vacation worrying about it when I should be drinking interesting drinks filled with noxious substances and relaxing. See my logic?

“I’ll have a quick look after Christmas!” I told myself, figuring that at least I could spend Christmas happy, drunk and carefree.

After Christmas passed into the mysterious holiday in the UK known as “Boxing Day”, my cold was getting worse so I decided I was much too unfit to check my email. Silly virus. I was not, however, too unfit to drink cocktails, eat my bodyweight in salty nibbles and chocolate and play “Guitar Hero” with an 8 year old hyperactive boy-child. Still one has to choose their battles, no?

Finally, New Year’s Eve arrived and I thought, “I really should check my work email because I ought to know if the boss’s golf gear didn’t make it to Mexico as planned or if the Chinese office didn’t send that letter I am relying on to get a visa or the visa letter from Moscow didn’t arrive as promised.” But then I thought, “I really don’t want to know these things because what can I do about them anyway except worry?” and this logic allowed me to happily back away from the computer, middle fingers extended in triumphant defiance.

So this morning, as I unlocked my office door with some trepidation, expecting a barrage of angry emails, voice mails, tasks gone wrong and giant cock-ups, there was instead serene silence. My letter from China sat neatly in my email inbox. The letter from Russia arrived by UPS at 10 a.m. All my questions were answered. All three of my voice mails were from a mis-dialed fax machine. The boss’s trip had been postponed a month giving me a much more realistic time frame to work with. It was fabulous.

I was immediately suspicious. How can this be? This is my world. Smooth sailing is not the norm here.

There is definitely an apocalypse coming. Remember I told you so.