This past weekend, The Captain attended a family reunion for the Slovak side of the family. I’ll preface my remarks by pointing out that when I was a boy, picnic attire for the Slovak grownups in attendance was strictly formal – suits for the men and summer dresses for the women. Peasants when they lived in what was once called Czechoslovakia (yes, I spelled that without any help), they were often called “quaint” and “backwards” by the wealthy Bohemian tourists who headed east from Prague in search of some quiet time in the Tatry mountains. Well, based on their picnic garb, I gotta agree that they seemed to have it backwards alright. This created some difficulty during softball games for a young American boy in a T shirt and shorts and a glint in his eye. Do I slide into third and ruin Uncle John’s wool slacks or do I come in standing up and risk making the second out? Well, Uncle John could be a real mean son-of-a-bitch, so standing it was.
The story of Father of The Captain (FOTC) is a pretty cool one. Some day I may write about it at length in a serious vein with great pride and admiration. For the sake of this blog, here’s the reader’s digest version. He was youngest of three children living on the family farm with his Mom in the village of Mengusovce (population 700); his father had already been in the states for several years – in Torrington, CT, of all places – sending money back home to pay for passage to America for his family. My Uncle John was the oldest sibling, followed by my Aunt Sue and finally Father of The Captain, who reportedly was well acquainted with trouble and who had a habit of sneaking into the woods to visit the gypsy camps. Then came 1939 and the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia, so my Grandmother decided she could tarry no longer and packed up the family possessions on a pony drawn cart and headed to Bremen to catch a ship to America. At the time, my Uncle John was 17, my Aunt Sue was 15, and FOTC 11. A year after the arrival, a fourth sibling was born in America – my Uncle Milan.
The transition to a new country, culture, and language is much easier for an eleven year old than for teenagers. Whereas my Uncle and Aunt never were able to completely shed their old country ways, FOTC assimilated faster than shit through the geese he used to force feed back in Europe. So growing up in Torrington, I was a normal American lad ( as normal as someone can be spending his formative years in Torrington).
In the subsequent years, people started dying, which happens. First my grandfather, then my Uncle John and then FOTC. My Grandmother outlived her two oldest sons, but just barely, as exactly one week after my father’s funeral, my Aunt Sue went to visit her in a nursing home; she’d brought her some Kolache (a Slovak pastry) leftover from FOTC’s funeral reception. It was a little dry and my Grandmother choked on it and died on the stop. I gotta say that I give my Aunt Sue a lot of credit as to this very day she has never felt even the slightest pang of guilt. God bless her.
So there was my Aunt Sue this past weekend, sitting next to me in a lawn chair. For the record, she was sitting in 95 degree heat wearing a smart polyester pant suit. She’s 87 now and walks with a cane and sometimes thinks I’m my father, which is really a bad thing because being me I can’t help playing along at times. It took a good twenty minutes to convince her that I was not her little brother and that I was just kidding about spying on her as a child when I caught her doing the nasty in the tall grass with the handsome gypsy rover. Please pray for my soul. Any way, as she watched the younger generations playing volleyball, she suddenly blurted out that watching us makes her want to sing. Of course, my younger sister heard this and, just like when we were kids and my older sister was in the same room, she started to boss me around, demanding that I get the video camera and record my Aunt singing her song. Someday I will be a man, but that was not the moment, so I did as I was told, as I spied my older sister watching me to see how I’d react.
So Aunt Sue began to sing a sweet folk melody in Slovak. Everyone gathered listened quietly, mesmerized by the simple folk melody. We all guessed that this was a lullaby that was sung to her by her mother. She ended and we all sat quietly, until yours truly opened his mouth and asked her what the song was about: a mother and her son, we were told, and we all, or at least some of us, envisioned a mother suckling her pure and innocent babe. But wait, there’s more… the son was in fact a young man and the song was a plea for him to sleep at home tonight. Confused, I asked for clarification. And Aunt Sue clarified. The son was apparently quite virile and was in the habit of cohabitating with numerous young village maidens and spent more nights in haylofts than in his bed at home. “You go dog!” escaped from my mouth and was not particularly well received, especially by Mother of the Captain, whose hearing is still sharp. I was dying to ask if this was a song that my grandmother ever sang to my father, but thought better of it.
Right about then my cousin Arnie, a 50-something virgin who lives alone, shot up out of his chair and he and his polyester slacks abruptly departed without saying goodbye. Never a dull moment at the Slovak family picnic! Now there are times when even the most strident atheist has to admit that there is an undeniable and mysterious balance and symmetry to life. And this was one of those moments, because no sooner had Arnie left than cousin Sharie, another 50-something virgin, arrived some 3 hours late, as she felt it more important to spend time with her flatearther Christian cult friends than her own flesh and blood. The void of a fifty-something virgin is not so easily filled, but there stood Sharie, filling it in all her glory in her freshly printed Christian retreat T-Shirt informing one and all that we’re a bunch of no good sinners and that Hell is anxiously awaiting our arrival.
And I did I mention that MOTC still has eagle eyes? She saw that I was about to open my mouth to comment and knew from years of experience that no good could come from it; she glared at me and gestured to my sisters to get ready to pounce. I looked MOTC straight in the eye, gave SsOTC a wink, and said…”Hi Sharie, nice to see you.” Oh, did I mention that the Slovak side of the family doesn’t drink? Some nonsense about the Devil’s brew. With my six-pack drained, it was time to go. But before I departed, I told my Aunt Sue that I would love to record her singing more folk songs. As I bent down to kiss her goodbye, she must have thought that I was her brother again because she whispered in my ear, “I’m so glad you never told Ma about me and the gypsies.” It was “gypsies” plural!!
Believe The Captain when he says: You go Aunt Sue!
Yours wondering if the Slovaks sang folk songs about birth control,The Captain
The Quaint but sexually active village of Mengusovce, Slovakia.
It often happens that I have thoughts I’d like to add to my blogs, but unfortunately for me, these thoughts are, like me in high school, either tardy or absent for publication. Now I could go back and amend a blog, but I’m way too lazy for that, so I decided to start a new practice: make random updates to recent blogs. It’s not very hard to make arbitrary changes to a published document after the fact. Who says Project Managers never taught me anything?! So time to turn on the fan and let it fly!
The Summer Intern Blog: This one is still being discussed at lunch with my coworkers. Today, one such conversation had moved from the purported efficacy of outsourcing to whether summer interns should be paid for showing up and looking young and attractive when I had a stroke of Captainesque creativity and proposed that we offshore our internship program. Not only will the offshore interns look nice but they will actually do work at the same time. Plus, you can take them home with you, where they will gladly cook and clean and perform other services on demand – always with a gracious smile!
The Soccer Blog: Upon review, soccer remains a second tier sport; plus, no sport worth its balls would ever boast of a maneuver called a “nutmeg,” a spice used to flavor baked squash pies.
The Parakeet Blog: This past weekend, sometime after 2 in the morning and 6 gin and tonics, 4 Pina Coladas and some unknown quantity of beer, I learned that parakeets do in fact talk. Me and Seamus the Parakeet had a long, productive and candid discussion about my suspicions. Turns out, he does in fact hate my guts and told me straight out that he if managed to escape his cage he’d take aim at my aorta with his razor sharp beak if given the chance. I immediately went to the garage, got out my blow torch, and soldered his cage permanently shut. I’m so glad we had our little chat!
Who Am I? Blog. After a great deal of brutally honest soul searching, I learned that I am not who I think I am. Seriously, I just received a copy of the paternity report from the Fertility Clinic and it turns out that my real father is not the Milkman after all, but some itinerant mental hospital outpatient preacher. Yikes.
Bucket List Blog: One addition. Before I die, I want to actually do some good in the world, like run a baseball clinic for English Soccer goalies to show them how the hands are properly used.
Jargon Juice Blog: New phrase – “Perform an Appendectomy.” Slang for removing the most unnecessary member of the Project Team, the Project Manager.
Fridge Militia Blog: Two summer interns reportedly ran afoul of the Fridge Militia and were forcibly removed from their homes in the middle of the night. Word on the floor is they stole leftovers from the communal fridge.
The Male Brain Blog: Still searching for one!!
Believe The Captain when he says: Balls Over Brains!!!
Yours shooting baskets with a soccer ball, to show it how a ball should really feel,
The Captain
They say you can tell a lot about a person by the company he keeps; this gets a little tricky with bloggers who choose to remain hidden behind the veil of a purposely ambiguous literary persona, but there are some general conclusions that can be reached. Given that my company is a virtual readership, maybe I can glean some things from their commentary and suggestions. Factor in natural instinct and social conditioning, and you can at least draw a composite sketch of yours truly. So let’s try!
The Virtual Company I Keep…
The suggestions for blogging topics that I most frequently receive from my Myrmidons fall into several categories:
· Fire play – This one makes sense since I began my stagnated writing career by penning pearls of Fire Safety wisdom in the name of feigned corporate concern as a “Floor Captain,” who is, to summarize, the dumbass who got snookered into staying behind and making sure everyone else on his floor gets out safely before he is consumed by the fires of Hades (even my language and my obsession for long and random parentheticals like this one say a lot about who I am or, more clinically, what I suffer from; I am the quintessential Generation X Existentialist and suffer from life – it gets me all amped up and I just can’t help myself and I get all excited and hyper, which extends to my writing).
What does this reveal about The Captain? Very little, really; especially since becoming a Floor Captain wasn’t an intentional move but the result of a cruel practical joke by co-workers. Writing mock fire safety bulletins was my revenge, so I guess you can say The Captain was born out of pettiness and a childish need for revenge. Sounds about right.
· Physical Features – Most especially, bad haircuts (think butch mullet), fat (layers and layers of it), ass cracks (nothing says “adolescent” like laughing at butt cracks!), and tacky and/or slutty prom clothes.
What does this say about the true identity of The Captain? That I loved 6th grade and never really left it! (Coincidentally, that is the last year I attended the same school as my archenemy Denise Bodner, the girl who humiliated me in front of my prepubescent male brethren by kicking my ass in a running race along the girl/boy playground dividing line. Sometimes my therapists and I muse that all of my problems stem from this event and we even joke that the only solution is to go back and repeat 6th grade for a second time, challenge the girl in the wheelchair to a race, exorcise my demons by eking out a victory after the wheelchair brake mysteriously engages, and then celebrate by skipping school and heading to Barella’s Tavern for some afternoon billiards and beer, just like the good old days; but then we quickly sober up when we consider the consequences of me losing again).
· Stupidity – Way too many examples to mention, but often involve people lighting themselves or their “friends” on fire or trading human infants for malt liquor, back rent, or Pokémon cards (only the part about Pokémon was made up, by the way).
What does this tell you about me? To borrow an acronym from the appendix-like Project Management Community, I am a SME (Subject Matter Expert) on stupidity. And just so you can understand my metaphor, the appendix is a superfluous human organ – it’s there but serves no purpose.
My Natural Instincts…
· Sexuality – Human beings (and yes I am one!) are sexual beings and, as all males learn very early in life, talking about sex intelligently is not something men are wired to do, so we make crude jokes about it; masturbation will always get a laugh with guys because we will never be comfortable talking about it openly. And as that cute redheaded psychologist expert that I blogged about acknowledged, men are obsessed with breasts, as evidenced by my blogs on this touchy subject about historical slang for the female bosom. As far as women go, I can honestly state that I have no idea what women think about sex; any guy who claims otherwise is jerking your chain (and probably his own as well!) I have actually written a draft of a book about a man and his dog who have a special telepathic connection which results in interesting conversations about human and canine sexuality, The Captain’s creative yet dysfunctional attempt to broach the subject.
My Environment... To begin at the beginning, The Cliff Notes of The Captain’s Childhood:
· Born in Torrington, CT, a depressed and decaying factory town on the Naugatuck river, which accounts for my proletarian bent;
· Grew up in a 2 family working class home across the street from Barella’s tavern, a formative influence in my early development; there’s something about being a 5 year old heading out to Kindergarten on a fine Spring morning and finding a bleeding, middle-aged rummy unconscious on your front lawn that leaves a lasting impression;
· Emotionally scarred for life by Denise Bodner, the girl who lived three houses down from me whom I had a secret crush on who was faster and stronger than me, something her brothers and my sisters never let me forget;
· Speaking of sisters, The Boy Captain was a middle child, sandwiched between TWO sisters, one 2 years older and the other a year younger; for some strange reason, my mother would always blame me whenever she found dismembered Barbie torsos with anatomically accurate pencil markings underneath the couch cushions; a restraining order was issued and I was not allowed to be in the same room as a Barbie doll. Shortly thereafter, I found my GI Joe with life-like hair hanging from my bedroom doorknob by a wire.
· Eventually graduated from Torrington High School after showing remarkably little talent for writing, or anything else for that matter. The one exception was a handwritten treatise written on a cafeteria napkin lampooning all the graduating seniors who had offended me in real or imagined ways. It was long and, to those not targeted, funny.
· Attended Marist College; graduated in four years, leaving with a solid two months of retained memories I am prohibited from divulging per the conditions of my probation. The rest of my time fell into a black hole or a blackout, or some black magic, but if my friends are to be believed, a good time was had by all. After college, it’s all downhill anyway, as evidenced by my current vocation of tortured author/insurance professional.
What does this say about me? Not a clue, but it certainly means any dumbass can get a college degree. Listen, I’ve known me for most of my life and can’t even begin to explain this bizarre concoction of plasma and spirit. Have another drink. I’m gonna.
Captainesque Trivia. Did you know that The Captain…
· Can translate three, count ‘em, three dead languages? Yup. Latin, Koine Greek, and ancient Hebrew. I have also been accused of butchering to death modern English.
· Owns a kilt (there is an entire blog waiting to be written about my experience as a Scottish drummer in a bagpipe band).
· Has a pierced scrotum and is a compulsive fibber (guess which is the fib).
· Was a drummer in a garage band that was SO bad that we got booed off the stage of a 7th grade sock hop (at least the chaperones were too dumb to check our socks, so we still had a good time).
· Was once a certified Sexual Assault Crisis Counselor. Wow, that’s not funny at all (but really true).
Believe The Captain when he says: It’s best to wash your gym socks before stashing organic material in them.
Yours searching eBay for a GI Joe with life-like hair and Dominatrix Barbie,The one and thankfully only Captain!
The words below came within 3 gin and tonics of not getting written. This year’s vacation for The Captain has lacked the obvious inspirational moments from past vacations, like the topless sunbather or the geriatric gangstas. But my good friends at the Gordon’s distillery came through again and I am starting this blog with no apparent direction but with the confidence that it will no doubt stumble somewhere fueled by the fermented juniper berry juice.
I think I’ll start by going backwards; actually, I will start with the old man who woke me up every freakin’ morning with the exaggerated shuffling of his special walking sneakers right outside my window as he embarked on his morning sabbatical by circumambulating the neighborhood – backwards! Have you ever seen or heard an ancient man walking in reverse? It is a long, loud and excruciatingly painful process for both walker and witness. I wondered why he only walked backyards. Perhaps it was a form of physical therapy; perhaps it was an old man’s futile attempt to delay the inevitable atrophy that comes with the slow decay of the human body; or maybe he finally succumbed to his mental illness and believed himself to be a character in a heretofore undiscovered Lewis Carroll novel. All I can say is that it was lucky for the old bastard that I was too tired or hungover to respond to the urge to run outside, hide behind the Hydrangea bush, jump out like a psychotic looking jack-in-the-box clown, trip him up, and steal his prescription sneakers. I know that this image is unseemly, but backyards walking should be prohibited before 9 am.
I began having nightmares incorporating the shuffling noise; once it was sound of a drooling orangutan with yellow teeth slowly sawing off my ears with nail file; once it was a flashback to an overnight boy scout camp prank where the Charmin had been replaced with course grit sandpaper; and finally, I dreamed that a gargantuan stick bug was dry humping the very chalkboard used by Miss Purcell in my first grade classroom (I know…pretty weird, huh?) The first dream was symbolic, the second an old and painful memory; the third? Well, it frightened even me and spurred me to action. I woke up before sunrise and ran out and bought a dozen packs of cheap bubble gum, chewed them up frantically, and placed each glob strategically on the sidewalk in anticipation of the hot sun bearing down on them just before old man “can’t walk forward” shuffled past. Ruined those Medicare sneakers and put him out of commission for the rest of my vacation while he presumably had another pair custom made. Then I rewarded myself with a well deserved nap.
Summer Vacation Movie Trivia. There is woman (who frequents the very beach where The Captain wrestled with the moral dilemma of whether to confront the topless attractive female sunbather with a lecture on modesty or attempt to shame her by staring at her) who resembles a human raisin. She is at least 80 years old, and always wears a rather revealing white bikini. Her dry, brown, leathery, wrinkled skin hangs off a frail set of bones ravaged by osteoporosis. Her gaunt, dark face is hidden beneath a shaggy shock of brittle, bottle brush snow white hair. Her eyes are not so much orbs as dull reddish lights shining through her protruding orbital lobes. She reminded me of someone but I just couldn’t recall whom. It was really bothering me but this time, my nightmares provided the answer. One night I dreamed about the Legend of Sleepy Hollow movie starring Johnny Depp as Ichabod Crane. Well, there is a scene in the movie when Ichabod goes to an ancient witch who lives in a creepy cave in the haunted woods; her eyes are snakes that explode out of her eye sockets. That was her! The raisin lady!! I realize that I may have forever ruined that movie for you, but at least that was just special effects. The raisin lady is for real!
If you have ever vacationed on Cape Cod, you know that visiting any grocery store is like visiting the United Nations. In a single week, I met young female check out clerks from foreign countries like Russia, Ireland, France, and New Jersey (this one had the thickest accent). From what I can tell, every grocery store clerk in the summer is either an attractive young foreign female or a young American male college baseball player there to play in the Cape Cod baseball league and conduct independent study research in foreign relations with the female clerks. Home Run for Hyannis!
Believe The Captain when he says: Walking backwards is harder than it looks!
Yours disinfecting my ass,The Captain
The entry you are about to digest is perhaps my most provocative to date and may place me and my make believe world in great peril. With my penchant for offending people from all walks of life, I have officially entered the global arena with some premeditated antagonizing of roughly two thirds of the world’s citizenry who live in what is confusingly called the third world (even with my crude arithmetic ability I know that they actually live in the two-thirds world); factor in the demographic reality that most of this population is alienated, poor, hungry, angry and actively looking to scapegoat any second rate blogger for their lowly status on the world stage, and you have a recipe for disaster. But as my Myrmidons know, I am a truth teller, and the truth is that Soccer is Un-American. Never let it be said of The Captain that he didn’t courageously stand up and shout the naked truth from the safe anonymity of the internet. Notice I have waited until the eyes of the world are on the silly tournament called the World Cup of Soccer. I could have written this when no one was watching, like during the Olympics. But yours truly has never seen a fight he can’t pick, so here we go!
We in America unapologetically play sports with our hands and we play games that end with a winner and a loser. I have to laugh whenever I hear some ignorant “futball” fan criticizing the USA for playing the truly great game of American football mostly with our hands. We only call it “football” to mock the lame game the rest of the world plays. So am I supposed to feel inadequate because some poor farmer from Uruguay can bounce a ball on his foot? Maybe if he tried planting seeds with his hands instead of with his feet he’d be able to grow enough food to feed his country. Maybe if he practiced composing the alphabet by holding a pen between his thumb and forefinger rather than between his toes he’d be literate. Maybe if he cupped his hands together to scoop up and drink some life giving water instead trying to splash kick a few drops into his mug he wouldn’t be so parched and dehydrated. And maybe, just maybe, if he learned to use his hands to pleasure himself, he wouldn’t overpopulate the world with all those children he can’t afford to feed. Yes, with an active imagination and an abundance of vodka, it’s not difficult to hypothesize that the majority of the world’s problems can be traced to the popularity of soccer, a sport which insists that its players use their feet instead of their hands.
And let’s talk about the most idiotic result for a sporting event ever invented – a 0-0 tie. WTF?! Let’s take some real life examples from the ongoing World Cup and see how this is working. Take the American Soccer team, you know, the team with players whose hands weren’t good enough for them to play real sports like Football, Baseball, and Basketball. The Yanks are placed in Group A for the preliminary round of the tournament along with England, Algeria and some country whose name escapes me. There are three other Groups of four teams. Each team plays one game against the other three teams in its group with the top two teams from each group advancing to the final round of sixteen. In its first game the USA played England, a supposed Soccer juggernaut heavily favored to kick our butts. Well, they scored one whole goal (woohoo) and were on their way to victory when their goal keeper, the one player allowed to actually use his hands, bobbled a routine kick from an American player, allowing the ball to wriggle out of his hands of stone and barely over the goal line for the tying goal, or what they quaintly refer to in the two-thirds world as the “equalizer,” which is appropriate because the game ended with both sides with an equal number of goals; one each for a whopping total of two. Maybe if your spastic goalie had spent some time as a lad fielding ground balls back home he would have handled that shot and saved his country from embarrassment on the world stage. Oh well.
So England and America tie 1-1, which seems like a tidal wave of scoring when compared to England’s next match, the ever-present 0-0 result with Algeria. Meanwhile, the USA plays some Slavic country nobody’s ever heard of (is there a way to check to see if a nation is legitimate like you can check a Little Leaguer’s age by requesting to see his birth certificate – maybe ask for a copy of its Constitution or a note from its Dictator?) and falls behind 2-0 at the half; to add insult to injury, after each goal, the Slavs, who were all sporting haircuts from the eighties, did some group fairy dance straight out of A Mid Summer Night’s Dream. Well, being Americans, we fight back and tie the game and appear to take the lead late with a third goal, only some Referee from the minor leagues of the African subcontinent decides that the goal doesn’t count because the goal scorer committed a foul that is nowhere to be found in the silly soccer rule book. And that reminds me of another reason American sports rule – INSTANT REPLAY! But guess what? The World Cup governing board (I think it’s Foccer or Fifedom or something like that) doesn’t employ this modern technology, probably because the cameras needed for it require the use of hands. So this ancient Referee from the Two Thirds world doesn’t even have to explain what the infraction was – ever! The match ends in a 2-2 draw instead of a 3-2 American victory. No big deal you say; except that this is soccer, which necessitates the use of arcane tie breaker rules because they play games where NO ONE WINS.
So the Slav country had defeated Algeria and tied England 0-0 for a record of 1-0-1. Algeria, losers to the Country-who-cannot-be-named, were sitting at 0-1-1. England, with a single, solitary goal, were 0-0-2. America had an identical record. With one game left for each team, I had no fucking clue which two teams would likely advance. There were more mathematical possibilities remaining than my schooling left me equipped to analyze, so I simply paid attention to the scores of the final two matches to see if any clarity could be reached. England was playing the Slavic Pucks (my name for them) and the Americans the Algerians. If England tied the Slavs 0-0 or 1-1 and America tied the Algerians, they would have identical records and America would advance to the next round without having won a single match because they would win the tie breaker. First, they look at goal differential; but since both teams would have played three ties, they would both have identical goal differentials, which would be ZERO. So on to the next tie breaker, which is number of goals scored. Since we scored two (but really three) against Slovenia (I just remembered their name!), we would advance. OR…if England managed to defeat Slovenia 1-0, then we would need to defeat Algeria to make it to round two. We again would have the same record as England but win the same tie breaker. If you want to know what tie-breaking scenarios applied to Slovenia and Algeria, then you’ll have to do it yourself; I had a hard enough time figuring out England and America and I’m exhausted. Besides, I already knew the results before I wrote this. England did indeed defeat Slovenia 1-Nil (pretentious way soccer fans say one to nothing) which meant that the USA needed to defeat Algeria outright to advance, which they did in the nick of time by scoring the game’s only goal in extra time (which is the stupid rule which allows the referee to add “injury” time for all those times the players take a dive and roll around on the ground pretending to be hurt when they’re simply just embarrassed because they tripped over a daisy or whiffed on a kick) because they haven’t figured out like we Americans that there is such a thing as a TIME OUT! All in all, an abject failure of a sport. No clear winners. No instant replay, and no hands. No mas!
So The Captain sits hear typing with his hands, a proud American sports fan. The only time you’ll catch me using my feet is when one of my legitimates requires a swift kick in the ass for doing stupid shit – you know, like playing youth soccer!
Believe The Captain when he says: I may regularly put my foot in my mouth but you’ll never catch it near one of those soccer balls!
Yours shagging balls with one hand and practicing birth control with the other,
The CaptainPost Script: Before I had the opportunity to post this on the world wide interweb, Team USA played a team from Ghana, a country with a geographic location unknown to 99% of Americans and a good 40% of Ghanans or Ghahanaians or whatever they’re called. There’s good news and bad news. I’ll start with the bad news. Ghana beat America. The good news? It’s only soccer, the one game on the planet that Ghana can beat us at.
It’s that time of year again! Summer – when the paucity of Fire Safety and women’s clothing make The Captain smile. This year I’m going to try something different; The Captain will combine his annual Summer Fire Safety and Corporate Dress Code missives into one intricately woven article of inappropriate fictional clothing, a literary thong, if you will.
I’ll admit, like most of you I suspect, I find the Summer Dress Code rules to be inconsistent and vague. Really, isn’t it all just a matter of perspective? Give me Fire Safety rules any time of the year. How do I know if I have started a fire I shouldn’t have? Two simple clues:
1. I’m on fire
2. The Fire Department shows up
All other fire play is deemed by yours truly to be “recreational.”
The commentary that follows may not be particularly enlightening or bring any clarity to the fuzzy dress code guidelines, but it will follow nonetheless, because I decide what to write.
Simple Fire Safety Rule # 1: Never play with matches when mixing your homemade accelerants.
Vague Dress Code Rule Open to Interpretation # 1: Don’t wear revealing clothing. What exactly can or can’t be revealed? Is cleavage offensive? If so, which kind? The cleft created by two firm but ample female breasts squeezing close to one another? Or the one between the layers of fat squished together on the back of the overweight bald guy’s neck? What about open toe footwear? I really don’t want to see peoples’ toes, let alone what’s in between them.
Simple Fire Safety Rule # 2: Flame Throwers are not weed killers.
Vague Dress Code Rule Open to Interpretation # 2: Don’t wear offensive clothing. I think the answers to all my questions on this topic should be prefaced by the word “Depends.” Let’s try it with the following questions.
· Q - Is a micro mini skirt offensive? A – Depends on who’s wearing it.
· Q – Are tattoos OK? A - Depends on:
o Location. Is it located on the ass of a middle aged middle manager or on the backside of an intern?
o What is illustrated. For men, images of anchors and barbed wire are OK; images of Liberace? Not so much. For women, images of The Captain are not only OK but encouraged; pretty much everything else is fine so long as it’s in the right location.
o What is written. Watch out for profanity and Satanic verses and trying to be clever when you are not (remember, your kids and your divorce judge may see your tats some day); otherwise, pretty much everything goes. Just be sure to proofread for typos as whiteout washes away.
· Q – Will getting a tattoo make me cool? A - Depends on whether you are cool to begin with; if not, people will know you got yours when you were passed out.
· Q – If I get a tattoo with the word “Mother” written over a Valentine’s heart, will my Mom really love me? A - Depends on whether Mom takes her meds; but honestly, NO. Mom will still be a cold, detached, meth addicted Ho who will sooner trade you for drugs than give you a hug. You should find yourself a Ho, just not Ma, because that could create emotional confusion.
Dress Code Non Sequitur
Capri Pants: I’m convinced the inventor of these is a twisted genius whose motivation was to wreak havoc on corporate dress codes; that, and an urgent order for pants combined with a fabric shortage. I defy any of you to put Capris into a clothing category. Are they long shorts or flood pants? How does the length compare with Hip Hop shorts, which can reach the ankles? Should men be allowed to wear these to work? If not, is that discriminatory? Racism? Sexism? Fashionistaism? I don’t have the answer, just a particular preference for Daisy Dukes for the Summer Interns
Vague Dress Code Rule Open to Interpretation # 3: Don’t wear “distracting” clothing. The only comment I have is this: one man’s distraction is another man’s motivation.
Simple Fire Safety Rule # 3: “Stop, drop & roll” refers neither to a freestyle wrestling move nor a drinking game but to a deadly serious fire safety maneuver to employ in the event you begin to combust, perhaps after trying to do flaming shots by forgoing the shot glass and pouring Bacardi 151 directly into your mouth and lighting it on fire.
Exceptions
There are exceptions to every rule, and in the case of Summer Interns, the rules are meant to be broken. Below is my attempt to improve corporate morale and break down the old corporate stereotypes about large financial institutions; when it comes to Summer Interns, we need to be less “buttoned down” and more “unbuttoned.”
BONUS Guide to Spotting and Handling Summer Interns
Females:
· Look for short hemlines, rosy cheeks (including the ones on the face), colorful but impractical open-toed shoes, and open cleavage. That’s a Summer Intern!
· There are three types of female interns:
1. Attractive ones who are given the important job of showing up, along with occasional faux work tasks. This type is easily identified by their multiple corporate dress code violations; they are also routinely surrounded by fawning suits with white hair and paunches.
2. Plain ones who are given meaningful and menial work because they need to pad their resumes and pay their tuition.
3. Attractive ones whose Daddies are company executives; these are tricky to identify; though they still get extra attention from Dad’s gray beard golf buddies, there are some that can also be seen performing actual work; this all depends on Daddy’s expectations. If you see an attractive female intern working hard at her desk, approach with caution and measure your words; what you say to her could get back to your boss or, worse, your spouse or girlfriend.
Males:
· Look for fruity colored dress shirts, Ties with images of cartoon characters, ill-fitting pants, a brief case, and bed head. That’s a male Summer Intern.
· A female colleague of mine was recently lamenting the dearth of attractive young meat, er…male interns; beyond the obvious signs listed above, I really have little in the way of advice to give on this group as all of my time is consumed trying to spot and handle female interns.
Simple Fire Safety Rule # 4: I am recycling this from a very old Summer Fire Safety bulletin that a few of you might remember. It’s one of my favorites. Never use your hand as a launching pad for bottle rockets!
Epilogue
There’s a famous “homespun” radio personality from the upper Midwest by the name of Garrison Keillor. He’s famous for his stories about the fictional town of Lake Wobegone, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average. It’s the kind of idyllic world that makes you want to vomit. But like Mr. Keillor, The Captain tells stories about fantastic places; in my fantasy world, the women are all summer interns, the men all manage teams of summer interns, and the children are all able to fend for themselves socially, emotionally and financially within minutes of being born!
Believe The Captain when he says: Shot glasses are practical!
Yours wearing a T Shirt that says “Bloggers Do It Every Day.”The Captain
Yours truly, Mayor of the Myrmidons, Oracle of the Unusual, Fabricator of the Fantastic, or, as my mother now calls me, Captain Dumbass, lied. He who writes pretentiously of himself in the third person like some overpaid and ethically challenged CEO fibbed when he wrote that he would never compile a Bucket List. It’s in my psychological make up to fantasize, so I am neurologically compelled to put one together (I believe that is Excuse # 37 for writing my drivel – I can’t help it; just the way I’m made – an excuse, I might add, that’s popular with robots and serial killers).
The items on my bucket list fall into one of three categories:
1. Likely to Be Accomplished
2. Don’t Bet On It Happening
3. Only in My Dreams
So before I keel over, here it is: The Captain’s Categorized Bucket List!
· Learn the difference between Muting and Unmuting my phone, especially during important business meetings when I am doing a loud and unflattering impersonation of the Project Manager hosting the teleconference. “Er, no ma’am, I was just having a light moment with my cube monkey.” Category: Don’t Bet On It
· Floss. Category: Likely to Be Accomplished, if only because I still have the 40 containers of Floss from the past 20 years of teeth cleanings.
· Make it to full VP of Large Impersonal Insurance Company. Category: Only in My Dreams, but not even there as my dreams mostly involve fireable offenses.
· Write a Poem. Category: HA, just kidding!!!!!
· Write the Great American Novel about con-artist preacher who lures all the flatearthers into a cave in anticipation of the second coming, where they wait patiently until they starve to death or come to their senses, which ever comes first. Category: Likely to Be Accomplished – if you take out the “great” part.
· Solve the riddle of the Sphinx. Seems like the product of the bestial encounter between a desert Nomad and a Lioness after a wild night of partying down by the sand pit. Category: Ha, I just figured it out – cross that one off the list!
· Finish the New York Times Crossword Puzzle…while sober…without cheating. Category: Only in my dreams, where I am occasionally smart, sober and honest.
· Raise a champion Rhode Island Red Rooster; the explanation for this one goes way back in my childhood, when my best friend’s Dad raised chickens to show at local country fairs. Mr. K spent more time with his chickens than with his wife and children and when his wife made him choose between her and the chickens, he chose the chickens, which should be a lesson to any spouse who issues an ultimatum. Never put forth an ultimatum unless it’s designed to be to your advantage no matter the answer. The option of being less appealing than show chickens does not fall into this category. You will not be surprised to learn that this story is unrelated to my point, but I just love telling people that my best friend’s Dad left his mother for a show chicken. But there is a hook. I used to feed the chickens when my friend went away on vacation and there was one Rhode Island Red Rooster who was a mean, nasty sonuvabitch. He would see me coming and begin to foam at the beak as I opened his cage to toss in his feed; without fail, he’d race over and peck me repeatedly, leaving my hands battered and bloodied. I vowed revenge on his offspring. So before I pass, I will find a master chicken breeder and I will buy his best Rooster and will take it to the local fair to win the blue ribbon and listen to strange people talk about the bird as if it was some kind of poultry Pamela Anderson, and then, as the admiring crowd looks on, I will take out my butcher’s knife and lop off his head in plain site in preparation of the bird’s funeral meal, for which he was voluntold by yours truly to be the main course as expiation for the sins of his fathers. My God, I have finally lost it. Category: Don’t bet on it. As much as the thought of revenge appeals to my vulgar side, I’m still scared shitless of chickens. I’ll have to resort to plan B, which is to hire a neglected teenage child of an obsessed show chicken breeder to sneak into the country fair chicken barn in the middle of the night, open all the cages, and release half a dozen foxes for the midnight snack of their lives.
· Buy another pet Tarantula. When I was in college, I had a pet Mexican Tarantula named Boris (fans of The Who are sporting a knowing smile right now); my dorm mates did not appreciate the beauty of large, hairy arachnids the way I did and while I was away for Thanksgiving break, I am convinced the cowards kidnapped, tortured and killed Boris. I still tear up everything Thanksgiving. Due to Boris’s premature demise, I was never able to realize my dream of training a Tarantula to engage in mortal combat with a giant Dragon Fly (Boris, bless his gentle soul, would always run away from the Dragon Fly. Spiders are such misunderstood creatures). Category: Don’t bet on it. Daughter of The Captain said she would disown me if I brought a giant, hairy spider into the house; besides, Tarantulas are pussies.
· Visit Slovakia. This is where my late father was born and also the setting for the Hostel horror movies where young and ridiculously stupid American backpackers are lured by hot, drug addicted Slovak women into the clutches of sadistic bastards who pay for the privilege of horrifically torturing and killing them for fun. Ancestry and B Horror Movie trivia, the perfect trip for The Captain. Category: Likely to Be Accomplished: Great exchange rate makes this very doable just like those slutty Slovak junkies!
· Attend Oktoberfest. 3 weeks of drinking beer with an entire nation. Category: Likely to Be Accomplished. C’mon, does a Muslim Pilgrim go to Mecca??
Believe The Captain when he says: Project Managers cock-a-doodle-doo like Roosters!
Yours on mute…er, I think…F*ck, I can never get that right!
The Captain
