Pundemonium: The White and Wrong of the Sweet

I haven't had an internet connection at home since sometime over the weekend. So these last few evenings, I've been trying to figure it out – and I'm not any kind of pro on getting onto the internet, establishing/troubleshooting connections, etc.; I'm much better with programs, and a teeny bit of coding. The connection icon in the system tray showed a signal was getting through at some 11.0 Mbps, or "Excellent"… so why wasn't my older-build Internet Explorer kicking in? 

Dunno. I blew out IE 6.0 and reloaded it from an XP-Pro OS disc I keep handy (and that's another sentence I would have been clueless on a few years ago). No go. Well, then I wiped out the Linksys driver and reinstalled that one, too… nope. So this evening I tried a hardware approach: went to the main router (pronounced "route-er", folks, not "rout-er") and firewall-PC, and began unplugging and replugging various connections, powering down and up, and tested on that unit. 

Sometimes your car refuses to budge, even if you can get the engine started. No, the engine won't start. But lights come on (and someone is home) and bright, radio and HVAC run fine, ditto horn.

Battery seems charged fine, right? Maybe a little corrosion? So you pop the hood, unhook the battery, pour some cola over the terminals, hook back up. On older cars, you take a hammer and tap the starter, maybe turn the fanblade counterclockwise a couple rotations (with the keys out of the ignition!!). Slam the hood, shake the car a bit, maybe kick a tire to make sure the pressure's okay, then get in. 

Car starts fine now. 

There was a debate in front of my desk a day or two ago. Hugo – who rarely touches my candy-bowl – sneered at the mini white KitKat bars (also have dark and regular, plus Reese's mini-cups). He insisted white chocolate isn't chocolate, and began reeling off some regulations covering composition, etc. 

Ben's ears sprang up, and so did he; he strolled up to the desk. "Why don't you weigh in on this," I invited. "So to speak." (Pun ignored.) 

Ben pointed out that his wife is some kind of badge-carrying official with Federal Consumer Affairs Bureau, and – while helping himself to several mini-cups – he began spewing out more regulations, including recent changes… but didn't seem to be coming down on Hugo's side. 

At this point Priscilla wandered up – the talk of chocolate had had an irresistible subliminal effect on her. While she was reaching for a sweet, Ben flung a rolled-up foil wrapper at Hugo, and missed by a country yard. "Terrible!" he admitted, admitting, "That's because I'm not left-handed." Then, glint in eye: "But I'm still sinister." 

"At least half," I corrected, remembering – like Ben – the Latin origin of the word. 

Hugo, firmly: "No; he's all sinister." 

My face must have lit up at this instant, as I suddenly recalled a real stinker of a joke. Ben's eyes grew wide, and he blurted "Uh-oh." He whirled about and began hustling away (this is impressive in a six-foot-plus man who must weigh in excess of 300 pounds). "That's it!" came his voice, already around the corner – "I'm out of here!" 

(This is much the same reaction my older daughter takes when she sees me struck by stinkfully punny inspiration… though she usually immediately orders me to keep my mouth shut to avoid the embarrassment.) 

So I turned to Ben, who was still standing in front of my desk (when did Priscilla disappear? I think she got caught up in Hugo's wake), smiling in curiosity at what kind of rotten egg I was about to lay. 

I asked him, "Did you hear about that guy who had his whole left side amputated?" 

Ben tilted his head back, thinking gamely (though lamely), but he quickly conceded, and rolled his eyes back to me in acknowledgement. I continued, "He's all right now." 

Without comment Ben about-faced and began dragging himself in obvious pain back to his cubicle – but then stopped, and leaned into the cubicle of the boss who sits behind me. (Mick and Ben have done dueling puns more than once; Mick – tall, thin, half-bald, soft-spoken; could be a career accountant – is so dry in the humor department that he practically crackles when he speaks; utter deadpan and thus easily underestimated.) 

I couldn't see, but Ben must have leered mock-tauntingly. "Did Mick hear that one?" 

Mick, taciturn; very dryly: "I heard." 

My eyes widened – this man's hand-in-glove with our mutual boss, the Director, and with his boss, one of the VPs. "Sorry, Mick!" I blurted. 

Mick: "Not as sorry as I am." 

I think earlier that same day, Mick and Ben were urging me to go to Florida and get a job on DisneyWorld's Jungle Cruise ride, since the "guides" toss about outrageous puns. Having been no nearer Florida than Savannah (and that twenty-one years ago), I gave them a "Do tell" look. 

Mick took the ball. "Why did Captain Hook cross the road?" 

I shook my head in bafflement; I couldn't make a connection. "Because he was wearing alligator shoes?" I offered weakly. 

Mick shook his head. "To get to the second hand store." 

This morning… was it Priscilla? No; Gülden, my lovely Turkish coworker. Gülden brought in something I dubbed a Danish pizza: picture something pizza-sized, -shaped, and -cut… but the whole thing is a Danish breakfast-pastry, each slice being filled with cherry, apple, or cheese. Yum! 

By close to quitting time, there was still one slice left, and Priscilla set it out on the group-table near my cubicle. With Hugo standing nearby, Ben made a beeline for it… and cut it in half. I verbally pounced and gave him a hard time, with apologies to Priscilla: "No man does that! If I ever see half a donut, half a cookie or brownie, or half a slice of Danish there on the table, I know one of our female coworkers cut it – it allows her to have it, yet not have it." But a man doesn't do that! We just gulp it down; we wimpier men might wash it down with a diet cola, of course… 

Ben grinned. "But I cut off the good part", he said, muffled. He pointed at the remainder that Priscilla had dropped on my desk. Sure enough, it was just crust and sweet glaze; Ben had purloined the much sweeter apple filling, and little else. 

"You get your man-card back!" I proudly proclaimed. He was redeemed! 

"And he screwed everyone over," Hugo pointed out. 

"Right!" I added. "Now that was lawyerly."