The Banana Was More Or Less Unscathed

Today’s Goal:  Don’t dump iced tea all over my desk again  

It's always good to set realistic goals for yourself, everyone.  Take this advice to heart.  

It would seem to be an attainable goal, but sometimes, life just isn't fair.

See, mondays suck.  Nobody likes them, especially a certain cartoon cat who's not a sponsor, so I won't be mentioning his name here.  Anyway, yesterday was a day like just about any other monday.  I came in to a flood of emails at work, a couple voicemail messages on my phone, and a pile of projects to work on this week.  Pretty standard fare.  

Like most other days, I got out my cup and filled it with water to make iced tea.  It's important to note that after the cafeteria implemented their flexible pricing policy on bottles of iced tea, I never bought iced tea there again.  (I call it a policy because after the third or forth time the lemon flavored iced tea rang up as a different price than the peach flavored, I asked about it and was told that the price changed, despite the signs on the cooler remaining the same.)  Anyway, I go to the grocery store and get those little bottles of concentrated iced tea mix which you squirt into water for basically the same effect as getting a bottle of pre-processed iced tea, but at a fraction of the cost.  It's only a little more work combining the two liquids, which is a process involving the large straw included in the aforementioned cup.  This is important.  

Now, on a monday morning, I may not be quite as coordinated as I might like to be.  Sometimes, that manifests itself in stumbling into a door frame, or tripping over the stairs, or dropping a banana in the parking lot (All true stories, by the way).  Other times, the changes are much more subtle, such as my hand being a fraction of an inch too low when inserting a large plastic straw into a cup full of water and iced tea mix.  

The result is catastrophic.  

The straw pushes over the cup of almost iced tea, dumping well over half of the contents onto my desk.  There's no indicator as to the true size of my cup, but I estimate it to be around 20 ounces (~600mL), which means the puddle went just about everywhere.  On my phone, my keys, my ID badge, my hockey puck display case, my coffee maker, my glass candy jar which hasn't held candy in 3-4 years, my laptop's power supply....you get the idea.  I therefore spent some quality monday morning time with a roll of paper towels from the break room and some Lysol wipes that I keep in my desk wiping up iced tea instead of enjoying a banana and a cup of iced tea while reading through my mountain of email.  

Today needed to get off to a better start. 

You'll Also Know How To Get To Carnegie Hall

Whenever I get lost, I just assume I’m in Yonkers  

But then you have to move in with Grandma and Crazy Aunt Bella.

What on earth are you talking about?

You make a cultural reference, and you have no clue about the source material.  Awesome stuff, Jeremy.  

So, today's Sametime Status is a slight modification of a joke I make just about every time I travel towards New York City.  This usually involves passing through the city of Yonkers, New York.  Yonkers is not only a town with a magnificent name, it is one of the last northern suburbs of New York City you pass through before you get to The Bronx.  

It's also the subject of a Richard Dreyfuss movie.

Good Lord, Jeremy..."Lost In Yonkers" is a Pulitzer Prize-winning play which debuted in 1990. The movie version didn't come out for another three years.  

So, pretty much every time I find myself in Yonkers, I make the same stupid joke.  It never gets better, and it never will, but that will also never stop me from making it again.  I look to the nearest sign that says "Yonkers," and say to whoever is unfortunate enough to be within listening range, "Oh, Yonkers.  I got lost here once."  It's guaranteed to get a laugh or a slap upside the head.  Usually nothing in between.  

It's also complete nonsense, because the play has absolutely nothing to do with people getting physically lost.  This fact is completely lost on Jeremy.

It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for high comedy.  Anyway, the same joke backwards applies as well.  If you ever get lost, just make the assumption that you're in Yonkers.  You now know exactly where you are.  It's really helpful, and cultural all at the same time. 

If, of course, you completely ignore any and all cultural significance to the cultural reference you just made.  

I Need You, Internets!

What kind of bird sounds like one of those obnoxious toy dogs at the mall? 

Unfortunately, that description isn't quite detailed in the Audubon Society's book.  We're kind of on our own for this one.  

You know the thing I'm talking about, right?  Not the bird, I mean...the toy dog.  It's usually sitting out in front of the toy store with the other crap like the flying cow on a string and the battery-powered scuba diver thing.  They exist to get children to drag their parents towards the toy store in an attempt to get the parents to buy stuff or face the wrath of a screaming child in the mall.  I dare say my parents were victims of this scam once or twice in the past.  

So, there's always some motorized dog that takes a couple steps, sits, yaps a couple times, then does a backflip before starting the whole process over again.  It's amazing that in the years since the yapping dog toy was released, that we still haven't come any farther as a society, and these things still exist.  Anyway, you're now all picturing the thing in your head and mentally listening to the annoying high-pitched yappy bark noise the stupid thing makes.  

First of all, you're welcome.    

Second of all, there exists some species of bird with a call strangely reminiscent of that yappy dog toy.  Why do I know this?  Because one of them lives in my back yard, and feels the need to chirp/bark early in the morning when I'm still asleep.  I really wish it would stop...or at least come up with a more pleasant song to sing.