It's Another Day for You and Me in Paradise

Here are some purdy flowers to take your mind off of the bitter bile I'm about to spew. Nice.

It must officially be Fall, because the students are back in full force, driving the wrong way on one ways, crossing the street in front of your car when the light turns green and traveling in packs even though they're all on their cell phones talking to other people. If you've never lived in a college town before, it's hard to imagine what happens at the end of August when several thousand people, mostly under the age of 25, invade. It made me cranky when I was still in school, but now I just try to sit back and watch the homeless people and the Emo kids deal with the overpriveledged college students from the North Shore Suburbs of Chicago. Today that one toothless, homeless woman who sits in front of the old Hills Bank, was screaming at all the cars going the wrong way down Washington Street. If I had had any money on me, I would totally have given her some for that.

The other thing Fall means to me, is that at work we have our Fall kick-off retreat at work. Apparently, someone has invested way too much time and money attending motivational seminars and feels like they have to put it to good use. Some of the offices get really into it, but in keeping with our slacker ways and bad attitudes, the people in my office roll our eyes a lot and create really stupid scenarios in our head about how we'll defy the forced cheese.

Last year, we were supposed to do a "getting to know each other" activity. I don't know about you, but the less I know my co-workers, the better. I'm forced to spend eight hours a day with them. Isn't that enough? Anyway, we were supposed to bring items that we felt best represented our interests. Most of the women brought some craft or other they were making. The IT guy brought a remote control for his TV and a controller from his XBox. He joked that they were more important than his newborn son and that's why I think he's so awesome. I suggested that we bring items all of the same theme. You know, to promote team work or some such bullshit. Like, one of us could bring a video camera, someone else could bring hand-cuffs and a riding crop, maybe the ex-nun would want to bring her leather chaps or assless pants - whichever she was most comfortable in, and I could look around and see if I could round up a ball gag.

This year, we're supposed to bring in a picture of us from high school or before. I imagine we'll have to guess who's who, or something equally lame. My co-worker John has threatened to bring in that scary pig photo I had up on my blog a few days ago and say it's his senior picture. I've already double dog dared him, so he pretty much has no choice but to follow through. So, maybe after we get fired at the retreat, the toothless, homeless woman will share her corner and we can help her yell at cars all day.