He's Toying With Us

It's been over a year since Joe mentioned Captain Nice. Or Mr. Terrific! I'm a little concerned.

Yes, he does still end sentences with "Arrrurrghrgrurrgh!" when he thinks he's said something particularly goofy, or when he's frustrated, or whatever the hell other reason he makes that stupid noise. And he still somehow manages to to add extra syllables to both "hello" and "you" in his stock greeting "Hello-o. How are yew-oo?" when he's making personal calls. I'd commend him for finding a way to stretch "you" into two syllables if I didn't want to hit him repeatedly with my stapler.

He even threw a "Holy D'Artagnan, Batman" or two at us recently. I think I heard Hassan chop not too long ago. "There you go thinking again," is another one. Oh, and "They always spoke so highly of you" is another old standby; he even uses it when referring to inanimate objects.

Joe's old gems never fade away, they just lie dormant until you've let you're guard down. "What if I don't want to" is still as strong as ever, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. It's almost enough to make me open the windows and shout "Shoot me now and get it over with!" But I mustn't stoop to his level. Mustn't I?

He still lives and dies by the word of Howie Carr, still hates the font Palatino because it has "Latino" in it (speculation, of course, but still, I'll bet he avoids using it) and insists there are "Asian Agents," a secret organized union of illegal Asian pan handlers in New York City. Asian Agents. Really.

He still has a grotesquely forced laugh that makes you want nothing to be funny ever again, ever. He still stands unimaginably close while he talks to you, and absolutely cannot walk past your desk without commenting on what's on your screen. It's usually a drawn-out "Oooohhh, pretty", or, "Oh, that looks really good." To be fair, he's trying to be nice, but many times the layout you're working on was designed by someone else in the office, or even by a third party, so his praise without the slightest knowledge of the history of the project rings hollow. He still lingers too long after awkward pauses, seemingly unsure when to clomp away. He still hovers around your desk asking personal questions all day, and just doesn't understand the concept of personal space in general.

He still doesn't wash his hands after he uses the bathroom. He'll still lie about it if confronted. He still can't go a day without exposing us to lethal levels of hairy butt-cleavage.

But he hasn't brought up Captain Nice or Mr. Terrific. Not since last January. He started rambling on about old TV shows a few weeks ago, and I thought for sure they'd be peppered in there. But, hold on, sorry, he did his idiot machine gun laugh while I was typing. Anyway, he was talking about some old show, and my ears perked up and suddenly I got all excited, just waiting for him to say "Hey, here's one, Meeester Tay, do you remember Captain Nice? But it never happened. But the fact that it didn't, and that I was actually disappointed about it, kind of horrifies me.

What have I become?

Posted in: Joe,work