Pundemonium: Aurelio Goes Fishing

Even while deep inside I contemplate metaphysics and Catholic mysticism; while driving to and from work and elsewhere listening to music ranging from hauntingly, softly beautiful John Michael Talbot, to rather shallow seventies and eighties charters; while bustling about the office trying to meet the needs of a corporate Director, his staff of three-and-half managers, and their own staffs; and while working with my willpower to start jogging/running a mile a day (may have sprained an ankle leaping off a high stream-bank yesterday evening; so what!)…

Even while all this is going on, still there are plenty of even shallower and sillier things happening around me at home, work, on the road, and just in my spinning head. Let’s have yet another look at the office.

Ben Thayer, the above-mentioned half-manager (i.e., his corporate title includes the word "Management", but not "Manager") continues with his own share of twisting our mangled-Saxon language. The other day, he was on the phone with an offsite colleague, discussing a corporate-wide, ongoing management-improvement initiative known as Full-Spectrum Leadership.

Trained in law, highly skilled in IT, and quite the fan of sports (a graduate of
Georgetown, he was a member of "Hoyas' Loyas"), he also has a bit of smarts to him. So on this call, I heard him say, "Do you remember learning in school about how lasers operate? They call it a ‘coherent' light – by controlling that process they're able to make it come out in just one particular spectral color – red, green, and so on. I've got a question: if it's called ‘full-spectrum' leadership, is it the opposite of ‘coherent'?"

I'd love to've heard her response.

Ben also sheds regular rhetorical questions on me, which I derhetoricize by answering. That same day, he walked up to my desk and asked simply, "Do you need more patients for a paradox?"

I responded without a pause, "Yes; twice as many." Ben began walking away silently. I called after him, quoting Robert Heinlein in "All You Zombies" (not to be confused with the eighties song): "And don't forget – ‘any paradox can be paradoctored'."

Recently one early afternoon, he came up to me with his lunch: some kind of sliced-meat-with-greens in toasted bread with some garnishments – I mean, garnishes. He asked, "Who was the comedian who said, ‘I would not join any club sandwich that would have me as its member'?"

As he walked back to his cubicle, I answered idly, "I believe his name was Reuben."

Ben responded instantly: "You and your rye sense of humor!"

I shook my head (though by now I was out of his sight) and observed, "Still sowing your oats, I see."

Our colleague Aurelio, who sees after some of our department's interests in Italy, has been developing a masochistic interest in puns. When I related this exchange to him, he chuckled admiringly and admitted, "I was just listening to Hall and Oates… and they were haulin' oats!"

He's been getting better at this pretty quickly. He emailed me last week (from maybe six cubicles away), asking me to walk down for a pun he'd come up with. So, sure; I went down to see how the student was putting into practice the course of study I'd been teaching him by sorry example.

Earlier that day he'd been laughing about a pun I'd used a while back, but had long since forgotten: How do Germans tie their shoes? Answer: With lots of little knots-ies. This must have inspired him, since now he asked me: "What is Italy's most hated seafood?"

This was so out of the blue that I groped for an answer, before offering the lousy, "Cala-Mario?"

Aurelio chortled in polite condescension, then answered: "No. Mussel-ini."

I gave him the groan that one deserved – I'm proud of the boy!

It's not all pun and games at work, though. I contribute to lightening the general morale by doing my best to keep my candy-bowl full – and not with cheapo, dollar-store third-rate knockoff candies, either. I keep a custom mix of several known brands, trying my best to include at least one or two different dark chocolates in there as well. (Ben and Gülden both like dark; whereas Electra's coworker husband once made a hilarious face of disgust when he ate one unawares.) Indeed, any of the folks from my department (and others, including denizens of several other floors of offices) do their best to deplete the bowl pretty quickly, while grumbling that I never put anything in there that they don't want.

So yesterday, I blinked in amazement at the rapid depletion of this sweet resource as I refilled the bowl once more – just beyond the top – and brought it over to Senior Manager (and boss) Mick. "Look at this!" I marveled. "I brought in two bags of mixed-variety Snickers, a bag of Snickers Dark only, and a bag of Peanut-Butter Cups. And this is all that's left!"

Mick, a regular customer (and still rail-thin) glanced at the bowl. "Brought them in Monday?"

"Thursday, actually," I admitted, and turned to put the bowl on the low ledge atop my cubicle.

This seemed to distress Mick. He vowed, "Then we'll have to pick up the pace."