The British are Coming!

Questions are opportunities. Every time someone asks me a question there are two answers: the serious and the farcical. More often than not I provide a sardonic retort to the posed question.

It was with great difficulty that I resisted the urge to answer the innocuous request to "Briefly describe yourself" for my company's weekly digest. Being one of the new hires, the communications director emailed me for some info. While I decided it would be best to play it straight, since my employer isn't a comedy venue, part of me still wishes I went with this:

Andrew was raised by a pack of wild hyenas. This upbringing has left him vulnerable to the sounds of laughter since he never learned to make the distinction between people laughing with him and at him. After the State intervened and separated him from his surrogate parents, he was thrown into a rapid immersion program and forced to abandon his native tongue. He still prefers a cave or open prairie to a cubicle, but it is an ongoing struggle. When dining out, he prefers his steaks rare and doesn't like cutlery. In his spare time, he likes chasing things and cleaning himself with his tongue. Plus, he's single.

In other news, work is going fine. I received my first strike for listening to music and not hearing my boss when he summoned me. The office policy is to write the song and artist on the board for the offense in question. Of course Pandora had to have an uber feminine song on: Title: "A Boy Like You." Despite clamoring that she wrote the song explicitly for me, my coworkers were not impressed. So much for claiming my devotion to jazz.

I have graduated the training program and have started writing real copy for real clients. Thus far, my filler content for the email bulletins has done quite well. On Friday, my three fillers each garnered about 200 clicks. My coworker/competition's fillers averaged about 40-50. I made sure to alert my boss of the victory.

Taking full advantage of my insurance, I went to the dentist during my lunch on Thursday. Fearful at the prospect of a stranger with a drill inside my mouth, I nervously waited for my check-up. With great pleasure, I discovered that aside from my wisdom tooth with a cavity there were no other flagrant offenses. I think the dentist was disappointed. I asked how things were other than the wisdom teeth. He didn't want to admit it. He whimpered "fine." But I will need to have my wisdom teeth out. What joy.

In regard to the wisdom tooth with a cavity, he commented, "That's a ticking time bomb."

I replied, "So THAT's what that noise was."

He was not amused.

Next week, one of my coworkers returns from her business trip to the UK. I've asked when it's my turn to cross the pond. One of the managers from the home base will be joining us this week.

I've started exclaiming: "THE BRITISH ARE COMING! THE BRITISH ARE COMING!"