I haven't abandoned my blog, I just haven't had much about which to write lately. Today I have two funny stories courtesy of my friend Regina who works at a huge corporation. I'm giving her an alias for this one even though I've written about her before using her real name; I said I'd do this anonymously because I don't want her boss to recognize himself. Not that he knows me or reads this, but why take chances?

Part of Regina's job is to order catering for certain lunch meetings her bosses are involved in, and she tries to vary it though this is made difficult by budget restraints. She tried a new company who provided some delicious sandwiches for an admin meeting and thought she'd give them another try for the bosses. Well, her boss - a partner in this multi-million dollar firm - felt it necessary to call and chew her out from his Crackberry while in the meeting because he chose a chicken club sandwich and (gasp, brace yourselves) it had an onion slice on it. He berated her that he was allergic to onion and she should never, ever, EVER order anything with onion on it, ever, not even if she ordered non-onion dishes too. "I feel nauseous," he whined. He went on and on about the guy in front of him in line getting a chicken club, and it looked so good, and that guy's didn't seem to have onion on it, so he got one too and was soooo looking forward to it, and then there was an onion and he wasn't just disappointed (though he was that too) - no, it's worse than that. "I feel persecuted!" he says.

Persecuted?!? Really? Melodramatic much? But what makes it even more ridiculous in my opinion is that this guy is Jewish. Yeah, a member of an ethnic/religious group that's been discriminated against, subjected to violence and hatred, and dare I say truly persecuted and yet he's got his yarmulke in a knot over a freaking onion slice. Auschwitz, I'd call persecution; an onion, not so much.

Regina and I have had great fun mocking him. I told her that The Onion Persecution should be the name of our first collaborative album. We've been swapping texts.

Me: I feel persecuted by this tomato in my fridge.
Regina: Tomatos be like that. They'll be all up in your fridge, judging you, persecuting you, stalking you...
Me: I like persecuted by parsnips better.
Regina: Hooray for alliteration!

- later -

Regina: I feel persecuted by the mozzarella cheese on the garlic bread. It's very sneaky.
Me: It's the garlic. Peer pressure turns to mob mentality so quickly.

The other story happened today and is even funnier. Regina and one of her coworkers needed to have a quick one-on-one meeting so, since her boss was gone this afternoon (not the one who's persecuted by onions, there's a normal one) they used his office, sitting in the visitors chairs in front of his desk. His walls are all glass so perpendicular to them was the hallway and beyond that, their cubicle farm.

At her office there's this dweeb who we make fun of for a myriad of reasons. He's at the bottom of the food chain there but his favorite activity is stalking about holding The Wall Street Journal and summoning other dweebs to join him in important-looking discussions, whenever he's not primping his hair and checking his reflection from a variety of angles in the men's room. Regina's cube is just outside the men's room door so when guys come and go, she sees the aforementioned primping. So today Regina and the other lady are having their discussion when the dweeb walks by with a highlighter stuck up his nose.

Me: Wait, I need clarification! Was he picking his nose with the highlighter [she's caught him mining for boogers before] or was it just stuck up there, like for storage?
Regina: Storage! It was just hanging there, cap down, shoved all up in his nose.
Me: Magic-marker size highlighter or pen highlighter?
Regina: Pen highlighter.
Me: Please tell me it was pink.
Regina: Florescent yellow.

The other lady sees the bizarre WTF look on Regina's face, turns and looks. Dweeb sees them looking and snatches the highlighter out of his nose. But seriously, WTF?!? I mean, it's not like he was doing something weird in the not-very-private privacy of his own cube, he was walking down the hall with a highlighter pen shoved up his nostril!

Me: Well, maybe unbeknownst to us, today was Shove a Random Object Into a Random Orifice Day, and he figured -
Regina: Of the options available, this was the least...intrusive!
Me (simultaneously): Painful!

I feel persecuted by yellow highlighter pens.