BLAT!

BLAT!

Read the next five paragraphs at your own risk. Not for the squeamish.

The workday started out fair enough yesterday. Feeling good. Projects cooking at an even burn, no hypertensive emergencies. I'm in control.

So I'm sitting at my desk, flexing my decisive powers of whose job is going to get worked on next, and I lean over to grab a pen, and not being one to waste an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, I decide to let pass a little squeak of methane while I'm in the midst of the lean. Oh what a mistake that was. It is amazing to me how the course of your life can turn on a dime. One moment you're the king of your castle, the master of your destiny, and POOF in the flickered twinkling of an eye, your whole house of cards comes tumbling down. I knew in that burning, sputtering moment, that I had opened a Pandora's Box of indescribable horrors upon my unsuspecting undergarments. I don't know whether I gasped or hissed through my teeth, but the entire room went silent at that moment. Oh that they hadn't heard the tattle-tale blorking of my insouciant guts. I made my best attempt to nonchalantly crabwalk to the door for an emergency restroom consultation, fending off questioning coworkers along the way. Why do people need to ask you rambling questions, when it's plain that you are trying to make a hasty exit?

Well a few moments and about 25 crabsteps later, the test results were in. My briefs were pronounced dead on arrival. Not even a full organ transplant would have saved them. They were promptly removed from life-support, gingerly entombed in several layers of Scott two-ply and waste-binned. The worst part was the subsequent pants-assessment, which led to the discovery of a large and painfully obvious in & out skidmark. Since I don't ride my bike to work, much less have any water puddles to ride through, I had no face-saving excuse for the new tattoo on my Wranglers. Maybe if I lived in the South, it would escape notice. "When in Rome..." as they say. I even considered splashing water all over my backside and saying I fell in, but figured that would be just about as embarassing. These are indeed times that test a man's mettle.

I quickly discovered that sidestepping down the hallway with my back to the wall was a very suspicious activity. So I dropped that plan and simply walked fast with much zigzagging so as to make identification difficult. I made a quick stop by the office, informed my confused comrades that I had become quite suddenly and severely ill, and left hastily while avoiding the more heavily populated areas. Thank heavens I kept that newspaper in the car.

I'm not saying Jack in the Box is to blame for this, but I am so tempted to blame my kids and that wretched McDonalds playroom. What was I thinking.

Regretfully Jeremy