I'm Going to Open with a Joke

My career.

Oh, just kidding.

Sunday night during dinner, HannieC leans over to me and cups her hand over my ear to whisper to me this "secret joke" that she made up by herself.

HannieC: Knock knock.
CherkyB: Who's there?
HannieC: Pooh.
CherkyB: Pooh who?
HannieC: Poop!

This is one funny kid. You know, if one of your parents is funny, you have a better-than-average chance of growing up to be funny yourself.

Same thing goes if you're funny looking. Sorry, StinkyJ's kids. Maybe you'll take after your mom. Or, maybe you'll go through life telling a knock knock joke about a monkey that doesn't make any sense at all.

Speaking of StinkyJ, today he was lamenting how I was (rumored to be) leaving. Now, he always tries to make everything seem like it's in my own best interest, even when he's really pitching his own best interest. He's not really being manipulative, he's just self-delusional in the fashion of, say, Steve Jobs claiming that a mouse should only have one button. He really believes it.

So he's going on about how great my career is going here and how well the future is set up, and I'm putting that through the old StinkyJ translator that adds words to the effect of "for me" after his references to me. Like, as examples, "You're so well set up here [for me]. Your future is really looking good [for me]. You can make a huge impact [for me]." In his little soliloquy about the wondrous beauty that is my future [for him], he says this (a direct quote - I wrote it down right there):

I don't know why you're leaving. It's all good here, except for the wife part.

I'm not sure insulting my wife was the best approach to get me to stay on in my role as "the guy who does whatever thankless jobs StinkyJ finds too boring". Now, normally this kind of talk would invite a punch in the mouth, but you really need to think these things through.

First, StinkyJ still has that broken leg he got from (allegedly) falling down the stairs drunk. So if I smack StinkyJ, then BrainkyP is going to take a look at that and start weighing his options. He's going to think, "CherkyB shouldn't be smacking a guy with a broken leg. Hmm. But I'm still mad about that whole best man thing at StinkyJ's wedding. Hmmm. But I'm also still mad about that time CherkyB dumped the recycle bin on my head because I kept putting garbage in it. That little bastard. I'm gonna f- him up!"

Now, I don't have a great history of fighting with BrainkyP, but I do know that we were at one of those idiotic company team building events where they had a bounce house and gigantic boxing gloves, and he beat the living hell out of me. (Just for completeness, I would like to note that the place also had absolutely free beer coming out of a tap in the side of a building, and I was maybe taking better advantage of that than was BrainkyP. But even I don't believe it when I use that for an excuse.) Plus, he weighs maybe 90 lbs. more than I do. I have more guns, but not readily available at work, so that is of little practical use. So, BrainkyP coming in as backup for StinkyJ is clearly a problem.

My only hope here is JohnnyB coming in to back me up at that point. Now, JohnnyB is substantially bigger than BrainkyP, so if he comes in on my side, I think we win. But JohnnyB may be thinking, "Hey, this is a great time to get back at that guy that's always accusing me of being a Bolshevik," and go all Uncle Joe Stalin on me. Or he may be thinking how lining up against his boss, BrainkyP, might be a bad career move. So, no guarantee that he comes in to even the odds and doesn't come in to pile on.

But, ultimately, the decision hinged on this: if Me, CherkyB, StinkyJ, BrainkyP, and JohnnyB all get fired for fighting, we probably have to shut down the department. That'd put like 200 people out of work. So, being a softy at heart for the livelihood of 200 families, I stood down.

I figure StinkyJ's wife, who is a regular reader of the blog despite never leaving comments, will punish him for being so rude.