No road hazards to report today… in fact, radio traffic reports of a rollover on the 210, at Waterman, with “traffic backed up in both directions,” are highly exaggerated, expired information, wrong location, or simply erroneous. Sure, it could even be something that WILL happen later… but I heard the report first, then passed through the area, and saw nothing but 80 MPH speeds, and light traffic… in both directions.
Or, maybe it was practical jokers who called this in… but what a lame practical joke, if that’s the case.
Don’t get me wrong: I love a good practical joke. In fact, my other, non- Kdog job places me in a corporate office environment every day, a place ripe for practical jokes. Offices are boring, quiet, stuffy, and polite… so the occasional entertaining diversion of some levity is appreciated by most people… but not by ALL, which only adds to the fun. We’ve even had the police summoned to this office, due to extremely uptight management types.
My first practical joke here was simple. Near the corporate restrooms, there is a shelf. Typically, when somebody enters the restroom, they use the shelf to park their notebook or their coffee cup. One day, somebody forgot a coffee cup there… and it sat there for a couple of days. This was the seed of inspiration.
Over the next couple of weeks, I went to as many yard sales as I could find… I purchased every coffee mug in sight. Big ones, little ones, “Best Dad Ever” ones, Santa Claus ones, “Monday’s suck” ones, insulated ones, you name the ones, I got ‘em.
(Completely spontaneous musing here: Why hasn’t anybody ever sold a shot glass that looks like a little mug? It could be marketed as a, “mug shot.”)
Over the next few weeks, I’d set one or two coffee cups on the shelf every day, each with a little coffee in it. And… I would “forget it” there. Soon, there were ten cups… then 20…. and then 30. The shelf became full of “forgotten” coffee mugs, and some even had to be placed on the floor. I would arrive early each morning, and refill each, as the coffee was evaporating… just to keep them looking fresh.
Finally, pay dirt: A manager finally lost his cool, and stood there ranting and hollering at the entire office staff about how so many people could be so careless as to forget all of those damn cups. It was great… of course, nobody owned up to forgetting a single cup. To this day, there’s only one person in this office who does not think that every other person must be a moron who left a mug sitting there.
Then, another time, I had a few years’ worth of old cell phones laying around in a drawer at home. What better final act for these devices than to set the alarm clock on each and every one to go off simultaneously, and then place them strategically all over the office? It was pretty good… at 10:10 AM, the beeping began. It emanated from desk drawers, conference tables, even the planters in the lobby. At first, people politely ignored them, but over the next few minutes, the cacophony was quite annoying, and the hunt was on. Eventually, all were located and disabled… it’s a good thing, too, that the perp had been very careful to wipe all identifying info from each and every device ahead of time… because the HR department certainly used every CSI trick in the book to try — unsuccessfully— to figure out whodunthatone.
Oh, but one April Fool’s Day— whew. I’d taken two pairs of shoes, and some old pants. I cut the pant legs off of the pants, and glued them to the pairs of shoes. Then I stuffed the shoes and pant legs with balled- up newspaper. I took these creations into the men’s restroom, and placed them strategically in a stall. The orientation of these things was tailored so that any person looking under the stall opening (to see if the stall was occupied) would see what APPEARED to be two men, facing each other, and standing very close to each other… perhaps even, I don’t know, hugging or making out. Hey, at least give me credit for not orienting them in a “George Michael/ public restroom” way. After emplacing the diabolical devices, I locked the stall door, and crawled out. Hey, it’s a dirty job, but SOMEBODY’S got to do it.
Within minutes, a senior manager entered the restroom. From my office area, I could hear him, ordering “… you men” to “come out of there!” Of course, they did not, so moments later, he gathered a small crew of subordinate managers to enter the restroom with him. They did so, but also had no success at ordering these two deviants, who stood very quietly, from the stall.
The police were summoned (unbeknownst to me). Simply observing the flurry of activity and the frenzied activity of management trying to solve this problem had already made this the most worthwhile practical joke I had ever performed. Tears of laughter (perhaps even joy) streamed quietly down my face, as I tried to remain stoic… and “concerned.”
Before the police arrived, somebody figured it out… a very brave junior manager had finally reached under the stall, in order to drag one of the terrible men from the stall, only to find, of course, less than an empty suit, let alone a human or two. The police were notified that this was no longer a full emergency… but top management still wanted an investigation to be initiated, in order to find out who had done this awful thing. Of course, the snickering police officers politely declined to become involved, as no actual crime had been committed.
Since the police would not assist, the company’s HR department was ordered to interview every single person in the building, in order to weed out the perp. Oddly enough, out of about 80 people or so who worked in the office, the HR manager, a guy who had a sense of humor, and seemed to like me, interviewed every employee… except for one. There was only ONE person that he somehow forgot to interview. That was Kdog. I’m quite certain that the HR manager knew exactly who was responsible… and quite deliberately “forgot” to interview me.
(Update:, I have subsequently received a report that the traffic signals around 30th and Waterman are malfunctioning… you may want to find an alternate route)