The best and worst thing I've seen all week

Those moments, they come on out of nowhere.

The moments when I realize: I love living in a small town.

I was giving blood at the hospital earlier this week, and upon exiting my car, I was instantly stopped in my tracks by a truck parked adjacent to my unassuming little Honda.


I know -- at first glance it doesn't look like anything unusual. Black Dodge 4x4, lawn-care sticker on the gate, not-obnoxiously-oversized tires.

But such everyday, run-of-the-mill vehicle accoutrement were clearly not enough for this driver.

Upon closer inspection:


Oh, yes, ladies. Hold on to your girdles.

Awesome.

Unsolicited advice: Once you slide the lock...

Things to do while in a bathroom stall:

1. Go to the bathroom.
2. Change your clothes (with your shoes on, because: ew).
   

Things not to do while in a bathroom stall:

1. Breathe heavily.
2. Have a phone conversation.
3. Grunt.
4. Talk to yourself or others.
5. Sing and/or rap to yourself.
6. Tap your foot (we’ve all seen where that can get you).
7. Catch up on work (no one wants to be handed a document you were holding while making wee-wee).
8. Play games on your cell phone, muttering expletives when you lose points. Or drop your phone in the toilet.
9. Do anything except go to the bathroom or change your clothes. With your shoes on.

This has been a public service announcement, courtesy of the person in the next stall over.

Thanks ever so.

The wide, weird world of the office atrium

Alternate title: You do know we can see you, right?

I work for a large corporation, and the building where I work (one of many around the world) is huge. Enormous. At any given time, it houses about 8,000-10,000 employees. It's a sea of cubicles, and you and a friend could easily work there for years without running into one another.

And instead of being your typical high-rise, it's...a low-rise. It's no more than four floors high at any given point, and I've been told it's about the same length as the Empire State Building lying on its side.

The result: We have this great, open, skylighted atrium running all the way through the center of the building, connecting all the different wings and hosting a Starbucks, a bunch of other little shops and common seating areas.

Employees use those common areas to take a break with a co-worker, take a personal call, meet with potential new hires or just chill for a moment. All perfectly appropriate.

However.

Some employees don't seem to grasp the concept that, not only is this a public place where people can, in fact, see you, it's also WHERE YOU WORK. It's an extension of your office. Unless they work in another location, your boss and his boss and her boss could walk past you at any time.

And yet, I saw these things in the atrium JUST YESTERDAY:

• A woman in a chair, with her shoes kicked off, in the fetal position, sleeping. Possibly drooling.
• A grown man picking his nose and then looking at it intently before wiping it on his pants.
• A girl wearing a cutoff sleeveless shirt and much-too-tight pants that showcased her belly rolls (again, this is a corporate office), while YELLING at someone on her jewel-encrusted cell phone.
• Three people high-fiving each other and laughing hysterically and loudly, then leaping over a group of chairs to go back to work.
• Three 30-something men playing hacky-sack as they walked from Starbucks back to their wing of the building.

I don't work for Google, or a dot-com start-up, where we have pinball machines in the break room and our employers encourage a sense of whimsy when traveling around the building. This is a global financial corporation. Where, presumably, professionals work.

If you only went by what you see in the atrium, you'd think this was the mall, where people just come to hang out.

Or possibly the circus. Because I also saw these things in the atrium yesterday:

• An 80-year-old lady wearing red high-top sneakers and a flowered hat.
• A man with a handlebar mustache and a red armband (I think he'd just finished giving blood, but he could have been one of those old-timey weightlifters).
• A woman in a purple velvet pantsuit.
• A lion tamer.

OK, I'm probably lying about that last one. But the other ones were absolutely true. And I'm almost positive I saw a dancing bear in the gift shop. Or maybe that was one of the tech guys.

Things children should never sing (or talk) about

1. Their "baby" (presuming they don't, you know, actually HAVE an actual baby; kids are starting young these days, is all I'm saying)


2. Their "lover" (ew, ew, ew, ew, ewwwwwww)


3. Their "shortie" (and I'd like to go on record as saying that no one, of any age, should ever call anyone this) (that goes for "lover," too) (ew)

In other words, Justin Bieber needs to think about a new career. Or at least consider choosing different songs.

Ew.

Shouldn't he be on a playground right now, and/or playing Atari or whatever it is the kids are doing nowadays? {Rocking chair creaking as I rise to yell at the neighborhood kids to get off my lawn}