1500 Posts

I have been watching the ticker creep up to 1500 for the past few months now.  I started thinking, back then, that I should do some deep thinking and links to favorite posts . . . the blog version of the episode montage.

But, I didn't really want to read over the 1500 posts to find my favorites.  I know which entry is the most read; the one where I give instructions for making gumbo.  But, as I thought about the creation and history of this blog, I realized that the best posts tended to be written about travels, foods, or when I was fuming.  Lately, I've not been cooking anything out of the ordinary, I haven't traveled enough to make posts about meals a steady feature, and I've hit a nice, even patch in life.

Then, my afternoon at work ended in such a silly and typically bizarre way, I decided I'd write about it instead of subjecting the 3 people who read this blog to any (more) navel gazing.

We were leaving after a long week.  Piles of reports are now sitting on my desk waiting to be mailed off.  Preparations for the meetings next week are well underway.  And, we'd had a full day of listening to the student intern babble.  (We call the intern "Baby")

Baby is enthusiastic.  Baby is more than willing to be used and abused in the name of her internship.  Lately, she has even been offering to buy our lunches.  So, on the way out of the office, Baby decided she should take our trash out, just in case there was food in it and just in case the regular cleaning person some how missed it.  We headed out, locked the building, joked about our drinking goals for the weekend, and she disappeared around the building with her book bag, purse, and our trash.  A few minutes passed and she didn't come back.  So I went to see if perhaps she were handing out her last dollars to homeless people, when I found her trying to figure out how to open the dumpster lids.  I asked her what what wrong, and she explained that her keys were in the hand with the trash bag, and she had tossed her keys in the dumpster too.

And, interestingly, my college education prepared me for exactly this situation.  Only, as a non-student, I have much better tools at my disposal.  I ran back to our office and grabbed the ladder and our extended reach/grabber tool.  As I returned to the dumpsters, I found baby perched on the side of the dumpster, ready to jump in.  I called to her to stop.  And then set up the ladder, climbed up, and easily reached in with the grabber.  (So much easier than the time I hoisted myself in and out of the dumpster to retrieve my roommate's keys.)  As I returned the ladder and grabber tool, my co-workers marveled that I knew exactly what to do in the situation.  I said it was why I was the boss, but really, one of my talents is being able to assess a situation pretty quickly and act.  I also pointed out to Baby that she hadn't thought through how she was going to get out of the dumpster, and you should never jump into a situation if you don't have a plan for getting out.