April 25, 1990
Dear Everyone:
Stress:
The confusion created when one’s mind overrides the body’s
natural desire to choke the living daylights out of some jerk who
desperately deserves it.
Last weekend, “Jeannie” and went shopping in Walnut
Creek (before going to Orinda to see the new-and-improved
Lawrence of Arabia) at a boutique that specializes in really strange
and silly things. There, I
bought 2 squooze balls (one black, one red) and a Wham-It.
These are stress-reducing devices.
The squooze balls are just what they sound like:
a round ball which, when squeezed, squished, stepped on,
whatever, gives easily and then, when you release it, quickly returns to
its original size and shape.
It provides a release from stress and a lesson in life:
When the boss steps on you, give way and then come back up.
The Wham-it is about 18 inches high and shaped like
a bowling pin or old-fashioned milk bottle.
It has a weighted bottom.
You inflate it, set it on the floor or table and beat the hell
out of it. It is designed
for abuse.
(Speaking of milk bottles:
Is anyone else watching
Twin Peaks on
ABC, Thursday nights at 9:00?
If you are, and you watched FBI Special Agent Dale (D.B.?) Cooper
determine the identity of the murderer by throwing rocks at a glass milk
bottle , then you’re probably as baffled as I am by the underlying
mystery: Where, in this day
and age, did Agent Cooper find
a glass milk bottle?)
Getting back to the stress-reducing devices:
I brought the squooze balls and Wham-It into the office Monday
morning. At first, only
“Melanie” and I were in the office and we took turns playing with the
squooze balls and a weird thing that “Melanie” had got from one of her
nieces: a sort of miniature
pom-pom made of rubbery threads.
It has many of the same stress-reducing properties of the squooze
ball.
When “Kevin” showed up, we inflated the Wham-It and
tried it out. It works
great. Now, every time
“Alma” or “Ashley” does something incredibly insensitive and/or stupid,
we just whack the Wham-It.
About 8:30, “Rowena” showed up.
She was an hour and a half late, but we soon found out why.
She’d been to Reno last weekend and won $10,000 on a slot
machine, just as she was leaving.
Being handed $10,000 cash would probably make me late for work on
a Monday, too. At any rate,
she wanted to show it to us, an envelope stuffed with $100 bills, before
taking it to the Credit Union, which she did as soon as they were open.
This set off a lot of talk about gambling and taxes
and did you know that you can offset your winnings with your losses
before figuring out how much tax you have to pay?
Neither did I. It
seems that those dead lottery tickets are worth something after all.
On the other hand, I only learned this year that you can deduct
the value of blood donations from your federal income taxes, which gives
new meaning to “blood-sucking tax people”.
When “Rowena” got back from the Credit Union, we
introduced her to the Wham-It, which she promptly drop-kicked down the
hallway, but that was probably due more to elation than stress.
She’s going to get the backyard fence she’s been wanting for
years.
In other news…
I’m compiling a list of Owners with boxes in any of
the four main Records Centers along with the names of the Records
Coordinators for each Owner.
This is so that I can send out Destruction Review Reports for the
Records Centers. This is
something that I have been trying to get done since the beginning of the
year, but “Alma” always has some reason why it has to be put off again.
However, “Alma” announced in a meeting in February
that the Destruction Review would
go out by the end of March.
But when it came to telling me who the Records Coordinators are, she
kept putting me off, saying we would have to have a meeting with
“Murray” and “Rowena”.
Fine, I said.
When? We settled on a
date and time and when the meeting finally took place, “Alma” kept
saying, “ask “Carla”…; ask “Melanie”…”.
It quickly became evident that we needed input from the whole
group. So we set up
another meeting at which “Alma” told everyone to take copies of my
list back to their offices and to let me know by today which
Coordinators go with which Owners.
As of today, I have actually got information from
some of our people and I’m adding names to my list.
At the moment, this list is only 48 pages long;
but I expect it to grow a bit.
Theoretically, I will order the Destruction Reviews to run over
the weekend and send them out next week.
However,
there is still the matter of the cover letter, which “Chris”, our
manager, has taken in hand to go some tinkering with.
I bet “Kevin” a quarter (my limit) that the reports
won’t run this weekend.
“Kevin” goes to Reno, Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe all
the time and knows a sucker bet when he sees one.
He wouldn’t take me up on it.
I got my state income tax refund last night and
took it to the Credit Union this morning.
My account may look a trifle anemic compared to “Rowena’s” right
now, but at least I have enough to pay the insurance premium on my car.
Love, as always,
Pete
| Previous | Next |