THE WYMAN WEEKLY

Underemployed. Unattached. Unimpressed.

Issue 41 February 22, 1997

 

 

 

My three favorite words these days? Ninety-nine cent Whopper.

 

WORK

 

I don’t know about Big Health - the place I’ve been working at since the beginning of the year. Plusses: I get to wear jeans every day and there are as many babes working in this place as there is working at your typical Dayton’s store. Minuses: I have recently heard the word “process”; and worse yet, the words “process improvement”; and even worse yet, the words “continuous improvement.” The coffee is the absolute worst I’ve ever had in an office, which is pretty bad because I’ve been subject to those flavored coffees that wannabe sophisticates have slipped into the coffee machine without telling the rest of us.

 

IDLE TIME

 

(Deleted) thought that Manfred Mann originally did “Blinded by the Light.” Our discussion of the issue prompted me to go home and listen to Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. She went home and listened to The Roaring Silence. The other day she asked me if I “talked to God.” “I talk to an angel like you five days a week,” is what I wanted to say, but I can’t keep a straight face when saying something like that and plus she’s married.

 

GOOFING OFF BY WANDERING AROUND

 

One of the VP’s pretty much has me busted for wandering the hallways too much. I don’t think he cares, though. He’ll ask what I’m working on, and then will usually end up talking about having a margarita. (Don’t ask me to explain it, it’s just what he does.) Earlier this week, he told me that I should go home and “have a few margaritas.” It was a Monday, so I didn’t. The receptionist definitely has me busted, but she isn’t telling anybody. “I’m bad, I’m officewide.” I said to her once as I walked by.

 

SLEEP

 

I haven’t been getting enough sleep lately. And I’m not a morning person, which doesn’t help things. You would think my forty-yard dashes to the bus stop every day at 7:25 a.m. would wake me up, but they don’t. I don’t truly wake up until about 10:30 a.m., by which time I’ve had about six cups of coffee. (They can put a man on the moon, but they can’t figure out a way to take coffee intravenously?) Anyway, enough whining. This makes me think of about the only thing that I miss (I would say that I miss my coworkers, but I don’t think there are any left to miss as they’ve all mostly quit anyway) about my days working at Big Construction’s suburban office in F.B. (What’s F.B. stand for? Well, the ‘B’ stands for “Bloomington”...) They had a huge warehouse located about a half block from the office, in which they kept all the old project documents. “I’m gonna go pull something from the archives,” I would say, and then walk over to the warehouse. Then I would find a chair and take it to a dark corner of the warehouse, away from the pressures of the work world, and grab some quality nap time.

 

PLEASE, NOT TONIGHT

 

Had a dream a while back where I heard this song by Smashing Pumpkins on the radio. And the song ruled. The guitars wove around each other while they were biting at you, Billy Corgan’s voice actually had malice in it, instead of the fake-o evil effect that he tries on that “world is a vampire” song. The song beat the hell out of me, and I know that once it was over, I’d wanna hear it again. And inside, I was wishing it was an old Pumpkins song, so that I could say “see, I was right all along, they used to be okay but suck now.” And I was hating myself for thinking this and not being able to ‘fess up to the reality that the Pumpkins might be better than I give them credit for.

 

It was just a dream, though. That’s what I keep telling myself.

 

OOH LA LA

 

A couple of days a week for the past few weeks, I’ve had these unusual (for me) occurrences while walking the skyways from my bus stop to work. This tall, attractive brunette would say “hi” to me. Like I said earlier, I’m not a morning person, and it was a major struggle for me to even come up with the energy to say “hi” back. Then earlier this week, instead of “hi” she said “good morning.” Two words! I figured she must be interested in yours truly. So yesterday, between Northstar Center and Norwest Center, she was smiling at me and I struck up a conversation. As I talked, I saw a glint of light flash off of her hand as she tossed her hair back and flashed her Stacey Williams-like smile. Turns out that she thought my name was Henry and that I was a friend of her husband’s.

 

I was bummed about this and was counting the hours until beer thirty, then I realized this was one of the few times I’ve struck up a conversation with a complete stranger of the opposite sex and wasn’t the one who came out feeling embarrassed.

 

WHATDYA SAY? HUH?

 

Last weekend, my first thought upon walking into the 400 Bar for the Run Westy Run show was that maybe I was having a dream where the Westies were playing in my living room. Half the people in the bar had a Grain Belt (the real kind, in the brown bottle) in their hands. I tell ya, it is an uncomfortable feeling to pay three bucks plus tip for a bottle of beer that you’re paying thirty-six cents a bottle for at home. I really should make a run to the Liquor Depot and buy many cases of Belt before the price goes up ... or charge them advertising for all the plugs I put in for them here. Oh well, dems da breaks, and the bartender looked remarkably like Neve Campbell, and I get the feeling that Neve will never be in my living room. And if she was, I’d be the one bringing her bottles of beer.

 

As I turned from the bar to find a nice wall to stand against, I heard a girl say that she had just touched Kraig Johnson. But I thought she said “Greg Johnson” and thought of the all-time WCHA career assist leader and three-time All American out of the University of North Dakota. Then I was thinking of “Craig Johnson”, who a few years ago was a standout player at the University of Minnesota. Then I realized she was talking about a member of the Westies, and remembered that those other guys are probably off playing hockey somewhere and getting paid to do it.

 

Run Westy Run put on a fine show, and I need to see them more so I can work on my Top Five Kirk Johnson outfits of all time. This time around he looked like a college kid. I have many fine memories about this band, one of which involves them impairing my hearing at the Uptown Bar years back. In fact last time I was at the Uptown, I stared at that big stack of speakers that still sits stage right and figured it was probably responsible for about half of any hearing loss I’ve incurred over the years.