by K-Phil

For years the big laugh at MaryAnn’s White Elephant Christmas party at work was the bird clock. Nobody wanted it but somebody always got stuck with it. In fact, whenever someone opens a new package, the group at large chants: “bird clock bird clock bird clock.” The bird clock has a different species on each number, and it chimes each hour with the unique warble or chirp of the bird on that number. At 12 o’clock the Mangrove Cuckoo makes itself known, at 1 o’clock the Ruby-crowned Kinglet sounds off, at 6 it’s the Dark-eyed Junco. It’s quite loud and obnoxious, and it gets old veryvery fast. 

I found the bird clock a few months ago abandoned like last week’s rubbish in a pile of other garbage destined for the landfill. I rescued the birds and locked them away in my cubesicle credenza.

Now I’ve been told to vacate my cubesicle for good. If I’m being honest I’ll say the company is not getting a huge bang for the buck it is paying me to go through 9 years of stuff deciding what to take home and what to throw out. During that less-than-productive exercise I found the bird clock once more. I also found a magnetic dart board and a marble Solitaire game a former boss gave to me. In stealth I hung the dartboard in Scott’s cube (unbeknownst), and the Marble game in Joel’s (again unbeknownst). The thrill of anonymous “gifting” mounted. And that is when the evil in me took over.

I put fresh batteries (supplied by the company) in the bird clock. Nobody was around so I checked the chime; it worked. It’s loud. I secretly placed the loaded bird clock in a dark corner of the cubesicle across from me where I was sure it would drive Vince crazy, and probably Sally across from him too. Then I left for the gym.

Upon my return, Vince is not in his cube. But as the clock strikes 2, and the Clay-colored Robin starts her tune, Sally comes scrambling out of her cube over to me: “Did you hear that”? I tell her I heard it but that I have no idea from whence it issued. She tells me she and Vince heard it earlier and couldn’t figure out what it was. Frustrated, she returns to her cube muttering about how she’s glad someone else heard it because she thought she was going crazy. “A short trip…” she mumbled.

As the 3 o’clock hour approaches I struggle to contain the giggles. I sneak back over to Vince’s cube, retrieve the bird clock, remove the batteries, and hide it in my backpack. At 2:59 Sally strolls over and tells me she expects to hear it again at 3. We wait. But nothing. She theorizes that maybe someone dropped their mobile phone down behind the cubesicle wall, or maybe it’s Vince’s fax machine. She’s at the end of her wits. It’s now 3:05 and “the noise,” as it has come to be known, has not happened. Back to her cube she skulks.

Vince rolls back at 3:30 and Sally tells him I heard it too. We commiserate for a spell (I’m faking it) and Sally again suggests ”the noise” is coming from Vince’s fax machine. “It’s not even turned on,” he says. But for good measure, with both of us watching, he unplugs it “just to be sure.”

Vince’s wife works in the same area and she stops by shortly thereafter. He tells her the bizarre story describing “the noise” as either “a wounded chipmunk” or an “Amazonian Clicking Cockroach.” He doubts it’s the latter. As do I.

The next day Sally calls over the cube wall to Vince asking if he’s heard any strange noises yet. He hasn’t heard anything, but points out that he hasn’t heard anything since he unplugged the fax machine. “Hmmmm,” Sally mutters. “No more messages from outer space then I guess…”

As soon as Vince leaves his cubesicle for even the shortest minute, I might just sneak over there and plug that fax machine back in.

“Bird clock bird clock bird clock…”

by K-Phil

Prince (the “musician/artist”) recorded the song “Kiss.” Tom Jones covered it later. Some people think it’s the other way round. I like the Tom Jones version better. I like Tom Jones better. I don’t really even like Prince at all. I never saw “Purple Rain” or drove a Red Corvette. But I did refer to a girl I dated as “Raspberry Beret” for a while. It just goes to show you. 

Today in the gym the radio was tuned to BOB. You know, the “we play anything” station? It really is a terrendous perpetration upon the listener (I thought I coined the term “terrendous” as a synthesis of “terrible” and “horrendous” but Google quickly proved me late to the party).  True to its horrendible form, BOB soon plays Prince’s version of “Kiss.” I get up to go change the station and pass by the tall, handsome, fitness-junkie known as “Beau.” He is spinning leisurely on the stationary bike and air-singing along with Prince. I watch Beau for a moment, long enough to learn his motivational tool for fitness, for stemming the unstemmable tide, for keeping that grim reaper at bay: he is reading the Obituaries in the local paper.

“Hey, whatever it takes brother,” I think to myself as I continue my hunched and deliberate walk to the radio.  And that is when I put an asterisk (”astrik” to some) on that very last thought. You see, I like to delude myself that I am a l’aissez faire kinda guy, a live-and-let-live type (picture Honeybear laughing out loud). But the truth is, there are any number of things that set me off. Myriad triggers if you will. Multiple hot buttons. Case in point: whenever I see Jeff in the gym I pretty much lose all tolerance whatsoever.

Jeff (his real name), either has only one pair of shorts, or he has many many pairs of the same exact kind. Same size, same color. That, in and of itself, would not be so bad. But it’s the style and fit of the shorts that gets to me. They’re gray. They’re short. They’re tight. Too tight. Way too tight.

Except Jeff is a dude, and a religious worker-outer. Nearly everyday he puts it to the stair climber in a slow motion kind of death march, his calves popping out something fierce. Somehow he manages to completely soak his second-skin shorts. After climb-climbing his way to drenched fitness, he grabs a mag and sits down on the floor against the wall to rest. He faces the room with his knees up and spread wide apart as if to air out the saturation below (that could be a good movie title: ”The Saturation Below” starring Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt opens this Thursday at a theater near you…). I don’t think I need to draw a picture, suffice it to say his whole soggy business is on display. Terrendible.

But Jeff has another surprise in store. In the tiny locker room, he likes to stand butt naked against the counter facing the mirror. In order to make it to the showers from the lockers or vice versa, one must plot a careful path around behind Jeff’s nakedness just to avoid making contact. It’s right in the middle of everything for crying out loud. His bits graze the counter as he combs his hair and hums a non-chalant tune. He hums as if to show how natural it is to be totally nude and in everybody’s way. I think he is proving the polar opposite of what’s natural. 

Wait, here comes Ricardo. He is all sweaty from a rousing game of futbol out on the pitch. He wears his underwear into the shower stall, closes the curtain, takes the underwears off and drops them outside the stall, he showers, dries off in the stall, reaches out to pick up his underwear, puts them back on, then steps out of the shower.

How is it Jeff doesn’t pick up on this stark contrast playing out right in front (err behind) him? Obviously it is not “whatever it takes.” Far from it. At this point I’m just hoping we can standardize on a global process somewhere between Jeff and Ricardo.

by HOF

There are only a few choice words that can be defined by their first letter. There is the N-word, and C-word. You have the B-word, L-word, and maybe even an A-word. I think. But none have the flexibility or wide possible range of application as the F-word. It even has multiple descriptions: Grand-daddy, mother-of-all, F-bomb, etc. Not many words like this exist in our language. Especially ones that can cross gender lines, personal lines, even sidelines, and still tote the same clout.

This word carries an overall negative connotation, but I disagree on some levels. Now I know we have all used this word to its fullest extent and maybe even tried to carry its meaning a bit further by using it as adjective, verb, noun, predicate, pronoun, etc. Thus evidencing its diversity. Needless to say the possibilities are perceivably endless. 

But despite its versatility, I personally can’t stand to hear it. Let’s face it, because of its diversity, it can make a conversation sound completely dull. In reality, uneducated, and ignorant even. This mother of all words has become the word of choice, a filler for “ands, ors, buts, etc.,” when no other word can be found. I am not excused from such use. But because of this reason it loses its significance. It no longer carries the clout that comes with such a word when uttered in the right context.

But I have come to realize its potential when used properly. And when used properly, the word can have significance. 

There are two times, at least when carrying on a convo with me, that the mother of words can be used and still carry some intellectual weight. After all we have embraced it. It is in our dictionaries now. So I say use it. But use it in the right places, properly, and your intellectual conversation has authority and maybe even some hilarity.

I came up with this premise over a family vacay when a relative had slipped in an F-bomb only to instantly be disdained for his actions by other family members present. (And maybe rightfully so as there were some of the younger kids present in the room.) But I came to his defense. I threw out my ideas of the proper use of such word and how acceptable it is when used properly. And according to such theory my relative had indeed correctly used it. 

I have come up with two such occasions.

First occasion is for Emphasis. When using it for emphasis it carries much more weight when it is not shouted. For every other word can be voiced appropriately during a tirade but for the “big one” to take effect, for it to come out with a full head of meaningful steam, it must be uttered in normal voice. The key is to not emphasize the word. Say it as if it is just part of the sentence. Of course, if you only utter such word in these occasions and no other time it has weight.

Second occasion is for Comedy. How funny can this word be? Honestly, when used in proper context this word is pretty funny. The word has a comedic element because it so diverse, funny because it means so many things, and funny because it can be vulgar. Yes, vulgar. Mix vulgarity into a whimsical situation, dropped unexpectedly and voila, you have humorous success. 

Now I present a challenge. Can the word be used for comedy and emphasis? Well I say, “abso-fuckin-lutely.” Only on rare occasions can this be pulled off nicely though. And sometimes only the sender of such comment may understand its comedic effect. On the flip side maybe only the receiver could find humor in it. If that is the case then it doesn’t work amusingly.

I challenge all to consider such points when conducting your conversation. I say use the F-word, I say let it ring out. But don’t use it without taking into the consideration its effect, its emotional, connotative stance it brings to the situation.

by Wolverinehead

I’m sitting on the church-style wooden pews right in front of a forty-something straight out of a biker movie - West Coast Choppers T-shirt, leather thong around his thinning long hair, leather jacket, pants, boots; a hard looking dude.  His twenty-years-ago self walks in and sits down next to him. 

“Hey man.” 

“Hey.  Sorry I’m late.  This lady at the ATM heard me talking to you, you know, heard me apologizing for being late?  Then she totally took her time.  She made three extra transactions on purpose, I know she did.  People can be ruthless.” 

“Man, that’s rough, but it’s ok, you’re here now.  No worries.”

It just goes to show you.