Day: August 22, 2005

There is work being done in the building. What sort of work, you innocently inquire? The sort of work that makes the air smell as though there are a thousand black markers with their caps off, and we are back in college mounting art projects on foam core with the fixative spray. This scent is telling some gland in my body to generate saliva at the back of my tongue, and the saliva tastes like I have been sucking on an old tin can. The gnomes that reside in my brain, they do not like this smell, and several have sat down in the corner. A couple are stomping their feet while shouting, “I don’t like this!” so it also feels a little headachey without being so severe, we find ourselves in the car driving home. One person here thinks it is affecting his nervous system, as he has run into walls several times today. But he could just be klutzy, and personally, I can never use motor skills or lack thereof as a good litmus test, I trip on lo-pile carpet, for heaven’s sake.

In any event? The smell? It must to be stopping now.

Apparently, a few years ago, a dude worked here and he was on a diet. And not any diet, but it was more like Atkins on Crack, from what they’ve told me. The really choice part of his diet was his breakfast, and he would make it here at work. It was a blended smoothie of sorts, made worse because he heated it in the microwave. Nobody was really sure what-all was in it, except it had meat in it, thus the term “meatshake”. And they were RANK. People would literally gag at the smell. As, I’m sure, you’re trying not to do whilst reading this blog. Sorry! Anyhoo, they finally had to have the office manager address his meatshake habit & ask that he no longer consume them in the office. Said dude is no longer here.

I made a joke a couple weeks ago in a meeting, about ‘mmmmm, meatshake’, and after the initial laugh said, “I heard there was a guy here who used to make them!” One of the more senior people here looked at me and said the meatshake maker’s name, but what was really funny was the look in his eyes as he looked at me, gauging whether or not I was going to start making meatshakes because they sounded cool. That look was FEAR. They were that scary. Seriously, can you imagine? Oh, hi, I’m blending up a mandarin-orange-strawberry-chicken smoothie, with bee pollen and ginseng. Wanna taste? Or even better – the SNL classic – MMMMMM! THAT’S GREAT BASS!