Saturday, May 19, 2007

More Dining Hall Humor

Alrighty then, remember T-boy? We had another stellar week with the whiner. At the first of the week, he came in one morning and said that the night before, he had a really bad pain in his chest, to the point where he thought it was going to bust out of his chest. So, to help it, he took a muscle relaxant before he went to sleep, and that really seemed to help. He also said as he was working that day that he could still feel the muscle relaxant working. What? What? I've never known a muscle relaxant to work for more that 4-6 hrs. let alone more than 12. Then, on Wednesday afternoon when I was wrapping up my work, I had a box in my hands (about the size of an 18" X 24") and I was heading toward T-boy & Li Ma (remember her?) and I decided to throw the empty box over their heads and hopefully bank shot it off the door and into a bigger box. I was about 5 feet from them when I launched toward the target & my hand got caught on one of the flaps and instead of it going on a nice arching angle, it went straight up in the air & came down right on top of T-boy's head & ricocheted onto Li Ma's head before it landed on the floor. For not having either one of them in my sights as a target, I couldn't have hit the bullseye any better. After about 5 seconds, T-boy said, "OW,OW, I think I may have a concussion!!!" Now mind you, the box was empty, it didn't even fall down more that 2 feet, now how can you possibly get a concussion from that?! I profusely apologized to both of them because it was definitely not my plan to cause any pain & suffering to anyone, especially T-boy!
Li Ma was fine somehow, but a few minutes later I asked him how he was and he said he had a really bad headache to which I replied, "Well, go home & put on an ice pack, then heat, an ice pack then heat, repeat, take some Tylenol & rest until it feels better. Our cute little Spanish lady who works with him in the kitchen came back in the back room & I told her about it, and she said, "Maybe he needs to go to the doctor & get an x-ray!" And I said, "Yea, maybe even an MRI to make sure no permanent damage is done!" Somehow he was able to have a miraculous recovery from both traumas of the week. . .

OK, I haven't introduced you to our cute Janitor. His family moved here from Peru 5 months ago. They are members of the church & he served a mission in Bolivia, he's 22, very, very good-looking young man, and he's as sweet as he can be. He is trying very hard to learn English & asks a lot of questions and sometimes even asks us to write down the English words he learns so he doesn't forget. He's trying to earn his own money to go to college & he's just a really fine young man. Anyway, I tease him a lot & he teases me, kind 0f like the way Daniel & I are. So, the other day I was doing my little drunken root beer routine, & he asked me, "You imbite me."
I thought he said, "Bite me!" I asked our Spanish lady why she's teaching him to say such things & she didn't know what Bite me! was either. I guess in Spanish the "b" & "v" are pronounced the same way, so when I explained it to him he was so embarrassed & apologized to me about 4 or 5 times that day. I told him that I just thought that he was teasing me & it wasn't any big deal at all. I just reminded him that he needed to say the "v" the way it sounds. T-boy was getting our hamburger patties out of the oven yesterday & I walked in & the smell of those things is disgusting, so I just said, "How disgusting", to which our cute Boy from Peru said, "Why don't you like hamboogers?" I just laughed & explained what a booger is & to try to say BURGER more clearly . Oh, & he told me something so funny about a companion he had on his mission. The companion must have been from somewhere English speaking because Boy from Peru said, "You need to have passion with me!" Well, he really didn't mean that, he meant to say, "You need to have patience with me!" At least he's able to see the humor in all of this & take it & learn from it.

Anyway, that's all folks for another week!
Buh Bye!

Friday, May 11, 2007

The Drama of the Dining Hall

OK, OK,

I know it's been a long time since I last came on, but you have to understand, I only look at my e-mail about once every 3 weeks.... So cut me just a little bit 'o slack until I get the hang of this!

Thank-a-U!

Alright. . .Here I go again. . .

There are quite the interesting characters who reside daily at my place of employment. The first one we'll call T-boy. Now mind you, he's not actually a young boy but a man in his 30's shall we say. I don't think I've ever seen such a male-whiner. Case in point, he claims to have bad allergies, yet I have rarely heard the guy sneeze or see him hardly ever blow his nose. The other day he came in from retrieving something from outside where some of our things that we need to function are located, and he was rubbing the side of his neck. I asked, "T-boy, did you hit your head on something?" to which his reply was, "No, but my allergies are killing me!" Now correct me if I'm wrong, but do allergies really affect your neck? And then on another day he said, "Oh, my toe hurts really bad, it's killing me!" To which we asked, "What happened?" He said, "My allergies are really bothering me today and it's affecting my toe!" To which we are all thinking, "WHAT?! WHAT?! Are you kidding me?! Since when do allergies cause pain in one's toes? Did I miss something in Allergies 101? Now, If someone has seasonal allergies, don't they sneeze. . . and blow their nose. . . and have stuffiness. . .etc.? We all kind of think that since the poor guy lives alone, that when he's at work, he tries to summon up all the attention he can get. Talk about major drama! Another thing he does that drives me insane is. . . we have two Hispanic people working with us. A lady who's in her 30's who knows a lot of English but still does struggle at times, & a really cute young man who's just moved here 5 months ago from Peru & he's 22, went on a mission to Bolivia, and is trying very hard to learn English, and he's one that is EAGER to learn & asks lots of questions. They both work directly with T-boy & so almost every time when he tries to explain things to them, he goes into a Spanish accent, BUT, I know what you're thinking, I do that, too, but it's the way he does it. . . it's likes he's demeaning them instead of giving them the respect they deserve & just talk to them normally. It's like, what?, he thinks speaking to them in a Spanish accent & slower than usual will automatically help them to understand better, kind of like talking loudly to a person who is deaf. He also yells to the Spanish lady from a different room & expect her to just drop what she's doing & run in to see what he wants? Well, I called him on that & told him that he needs to walk out to where she is & talk to her there, like I said, with more respect. Ok, enough of him for now!

On to our next interesting individual. We'll call her Li Ma. Now Li Ma is one who would be fined a hefty fine by the Health Dept. if they could see her at work. She wears gloves, sometimes, & tends to lick her fingers & not wash her hands OR change gloves. The other day she was using some scissors to cut stems on grapes & had a glove on one hand but not the other. OK, how does one cut oneself on the fingers with scissors? And WOW, let me tell you, she literally freaked out!
I didn't realize she got upset so easily over something so small. She ran over to the sink, bleeding pretty good, & almost PASSED OUT. She started hyper-ventillating and had to be calmed down for about 20 min. before she could stand again. Heaven forbid that she break a bone, or have surgery, or cut herself with a knife or worse. And, she's the kind of person who if she blows her nose, she figures going over to the sink & rinsing her hands for 5 sec. with only water constitutes a really clean hand wash & then she goes back to her work. Icky, Ick! Needless to say, I never eat anything that she's been near. She really sees nothing wrong with it and no matter how many times I make suggestions to the contrary, it's just TOO HARD for her to change for some reason.

OK, my turn for confession about my behavior at work. Our boss went & bought a case of Cream Soda in bottles and IBC Root Beer in brown bottles for us to enjoy. For the last several days, WITHOUT ANY CHILDREN IN THE VICINITY (I want to make that clear), I imbibed in the refreshment of some Root Beer on several different occasions. May I just say, I can play a perfectly silly drunk to which I had my fellow friendly co-workers laughing hysterically at times as I slurred my words & stumbled around the room & generally made a bit of a fool of myself, at my own expense. Oh, how proud my parents would be, HUH?! I just try not to take life too seriously & have as much fun as I can, when I can, especially at work, because some days you just have to get through the day, right? Everyone there just kn0ws that it won't be dull when I'm around, and I'm sure it's much quieter if there's ever a day I'm not there, for sure!

Alrighty then, have a great day & I'll return when the mood strikes again. Thanks for your continued support of this looney lady!