The Killer Pistachio

I have a colleague who is very excitable -- let's call her Squeaky. The other day she was eating pistachios. One nut was not quite open so she tried to bite the shell open. Instead, the shell pinched on to her inner lip. She started running around the office squeaking, "Get it off! Get it off!" I tried to get it off, but I was afraid I'd rip a big chunk of lip off along with the shell. Fortunately, The Only Guy In The Office whipped out his Swiss Army knife and pried the pincher off without drawing blood. It was quite exciting. Beware, pistachio-eaters!!!

passive-aggressive use of punctuation

I don't know about all that "pen, mightier, sword" stuff, but I do know this: There can be plenty of sting in a well placed period, gentle flirtation in an ellipse, and some nasty, passive-aggressive crap in a colon when a comma would suffice. Don't get me started on slashes.

Brief background-- I am a writer for a nonprofit that puts out a magazine for its donors. The top editor just left because, well, she hated it here. Shortly thereafter, the program assistant left. That left me & dear old Jeff, my boss. Jeff is loathe to talk to me; as communications VP, he considers it a waste of time. His palpable resentment toward his employees is all too plain to see, if you look between the lines-- or dots, as the case may be....

Jeff,
I was wondering if we should discuss the upcoming issue of [our publication] since [top editor] has left.

His response...

[Youworthlessemployee]:
We need to discuss this, not via e-mail. Let's meet Monday, we'll resume department meetings at 10:30am.
/Jeff

"Department", mind you, refers to me...and him. We know he has a comma on his keyboard; look: he misused it twice in a two-sentence missive. But where a comma inserts a soft pause, a moment of savor even, after a salutation, a colon is a gut-punch-- like my name has been forcibly extracted from him under extreme duress, and he was using it only to serve the barest semblance of politeness.

Or am I just being sensitive?

Mommy?

When Number Two refers to his wife in our office, he calls her "Mom." With a big wad of chewing tobacco in his mouth he says things like, "Mom says that the highway is closed up north so you should all take an alternate route."

I swear. I can't take it anymore.

Counting to Ten Slowly

My boss is eating potato chips with the suite door open and he has been sitting on a letter all day that needed to get sent out because someone was supposed to get back to him with the address and he freaked out b/c he can’t get a hold of them and so I looked it up on the Internet in 2 seconds and called to confirm in 5 seconds and he’s still eating potato chips with his mouth open and my head is going to pop off.

Modern Theory of Relativity

I’ve decide to adopt Odd Todd’s modern theory of relativity. I really think it's going to change my life.