A fraction of today’s workplace conversations.
***
Mustache Man: So I was looking up squirrel catapults. There are some spring loaded options that could really send a squirrel rockin’…
The Brain: Who wants that? Is there a market?
Mustache Man: (Evil laughter; more discussion on the varied options and/or justification of squirrel catapulting apparatuses.)
The Brain: Well it sounds like dwarf tossing to me.
Mustache Man: No, no! It’s nothing like dwarf tossing. Though someone did post a comment, wondering if it works on skunks, too.
The Brain: I’m unclear how those two things are related.
Mustache Man: Well NEITHER of them are squirrels. Duh.
***
Mustache Man routinely spends his pipe smoking breaks walking the building perimeter, conversing with various construction workers, gaining insight on metro building plans, and becoming the end all, be all, informational authority on the vacant lot next door.
Me: (yelling over the cubicle wall) There’s someone standing on the sidewalk. (teasing) Did he clear this activity with you?
Mustache Man: (walks over to my window) His car is pulled to the curb! His trunk is open and he’s looking at the lot! (hands on hips) He better not trample my potato crop.
Me: Um, I think he just has a flat tire.
(pause)
Me: Wait. You have a potato crop?!
Mustache Man: Yes. I planted a potato. Down there (points three stories down to the adjacent dirt lot, owned by the neighboring church.)
Me: (nose pressed to glass, staring a little slack jawed)
Mustache Man: I’m rather disappointed. It hasn’t started sprouting yet. And I even water it.
Me: (internal dialogue: wtf? We’re in downtown Minneapolis…) Uh, how, exactly, do you water it?
Mustache Man: I fill my coffee cup with water and dump it each time I go out. What do you think the church employees are thinking when they see me down there?
Me: So you’ve managed to plant a potato crop, under the cover of darkness, maintained solely by observation from the 3rd floor and random cups of coffee-tainted water, sown in a city lot, recently voided of oil drums and asbestos-lined construction debris?
Mustache Man: Imagine their surprise when potatoes start to sprout!
Me: I’m calling your wife.
