You Mean He's Not Trying To Hide?

One of my newer co-workers is a college student. She is one of my favorite people in the world, because she has a sense of humor I can very much relate to. Let's call her Ms. Sparkle.

While she wants to be an engineer, she has developed quite an interest in law firm "stuff". Whenever she has a question, she asks someone to explain how/why/what to her.

One day my attorneys were handling a deposition here in our office, which was being videotaped. Ms. Sparkle came to me with a confused look. She wanted to know:

"There's that screen in the window of the conference room so you can't see the person they are interviewing. But how in the world do they expect him to remain anonymous if he just keeps walking around the office talking on his cell phone during breaks? He just walks around, in and out of the room without covering up his identity!!"

Oh, how it killed me to explain to her that it was not nearly THAT exciting. That screen in the window is just so that the video guys can get a well lit session, and so that the video doesn't pick up office activity in the background.

I further explained that some people think it's fun to walk past the deposition room and try and make the person from our office stuck in there laugh with a strategic stroll past the window and a wave/face/sign that only THEY can see. For example, at a previous job, plaintiff's counsel showed up in a light mint blue colored suit 3 days in a row. Someone nick named him blueberry sherbert. Some people made a little sign that said "going for sherbert?" and walked past the conference room with it during the deposition.

Not that I'd EVER participate in such activities.

Her question reminded me about the first time I saw a group of business men eating lunch. They all had their ties thrown over their shoulders. I had never seen that before, and I immediately thought to myself:

"It's not even windy out here. When and how did some gust of wind come out and blow all of their ties over their shoulders? And why don't they fix them?"

It wasn't until I actually saw some guy intentionally flip his tie that I realized what I'd seen that day.

Or the time I first saw laser printers. I had been accustomed to using an ink jet or *gasp* a daisy wheel printer for so long. And here's the key, there was only ONE in the whole office/school lab.

One day I came in and every two or three desks, there was this thing in between - shooting out paper - which caused me to ask OUT LOUD "What are all of these miniature copy machines doing in here?"

BIRD BOMBING UPDATE! - I was hit AGAIN by a bird today. This time a car full of women saw it happen. This time the bird landed on the ground behind me after the assault. I spun around and glared at the bird (ok, I lost it a little bit and actually growled at it). Then I saw the car full of women who witnessed it - and they looked terrified. As I told Mr. Zoom, it was as if they were watching either The Birds or they thought I was some evil being that caused wild animals to fling themselves at me - ala some horror movie de jour.

Mr. Zoom suggests a hat with a fake owl or hawk - as a deterrent to such attacks. (Where's the Shmoo when you need him?) And I'm close to going to Ace Hardware and seeing what I can find to make such a thing. Except I'll have to run the gauntlet o' bird bombings to get inside the Ace. Maybe a fake snake on my head? Too many jokes there. Too many.