Well. I was up late last night, worked hard all day yesterday and will rinse, lather and repeat today. Except for now, of course. I’m goofing off right now.

One has to wonder why “goofing off” is a horrible thing. Why must we be so serious all the time? What greater good does it serve to be a scowling grouch during work? Sure, I understand being serious about your work. That is necessary. But why is it wrong to sing, air guitar and leap from your chair dancing to release some excess energy?

Not that I’ve ever done that. Really. I’m a very quiet reserved human being. That’s why I no longer work in the office. I just can’t handle that wild office life of eating yogurt, scheduled bathroom breaks and water cooler water.

I think, if I ever open my own office, I’d insist on high quality work and a complete disregard for seriousness outside of that work. Right now I’m doing very good work for my clients. They seem to like it. Do they know that right now I’m wearing a green crocodile visor from the zoo? No. Because everything I write for them is nice and serious. And I don’t wear it when I go to see them because, well . . . it would disturb them.

And if they ever make shoes with blinky lights for adults, I'd wear those too.

My lovely wife stayed home with me while I worked once. She wondered if I always acted that way. I said, “yes.”

“That way” consisted of the following:
· Talking to myself in an English accent
· Referring to the computer as “Trevor”
· Dancing to a particularly groovy song
· Disagreeing with myself and subsequently firing me. I was later rehired as it was deemed that the employment pool in our house was too shallow.
· More dancing
· Talking like Mickey Mouse
· Saying, “Uh huh huh ha ha wee wooo!”
· Dancing with my chair as a partner
· Hiding under the windowsill and peeking out the window whenever a white van drove by and screaming, “They’re here! My God they found me!” and then putting on a tin foil hat so they couldn’t read my thoughts.

But I got my work done, hit my deadlines and drank WAY too much coffee (which leads to bad, bad dancing).

When I worked in an office, I always had various toys on my desk, along with my now defunct Fargo Snow Globe (moment of silence). I also had a PT Cruiser hot wheel, a Mickey Mouse figurine, a giant coffee cup, a signed photo of Harrison Ford, and an odd alien that squirts water. Oh, and a motorized replica of the Walt Disney World monorail (pull it back and watch it zoom!). However, the greatest addition to any desk I could ever have came after I worked in public (sigh).

For my birthday this year GeekFriend gave me (among other things) an oddly decorated glass jar. It contains black and white pictures of tribal piercings, mummies, monkeys and more. When you open the jar it is dark and black. Then you see it. A replica of a dismembered human ear (see Blue Velvet for the reference). I could really freak out some office mates with that one. Heh.

I wonder why I’m always the “office weird guy”?

I’ve met one person in my life who shared my love for office mayhem. His name is Ken and he had more toys than I did. He’s my office hero. He could tease someone and it would take them weeks to figure out the he was making fun of them. As far as I know, I was his greatest ally and nemesis rolled into one. When we played “one-up” I could keep it going, at his expense. He loved it. I loved it.

The greatest thing in Ken’s office was a stuffed monkey that hung from the ceiling.

“What’s that,” I innocently asked one day. Ken looked at me with a malicious grin.

“That’s Spank. My monkey,” he said.

Pure, evil brilliance.