Paranoia

I think that someone is stealing little things from my office. First, I had a pair of headphones disappear. That was right around the time I moved from my cube into a closet an office. I could have sworn I had the headphones in my new office, but it was possible that I just lost track of them. Also, they were pretty crappy, kind of falling apart, old school headphones that probably came for free with a portable tape player (yes, tape player), so it wouldn't make any sense for someone to take them.

Next, I couldn't find my hand sanitizer. I looked in all my desk drawers, my cabinets, my purse, my file drawers. Then, I dug around in all the drawers of my old desk, which I'm sure the person currently sitting there just loved. It was definitely gone. But, I figured, it was a pretty small bottle, so maybe I used it all up and just forgot.

Then, my Tic Tacs vanished. That was when I really started to think that something weird was going on. A couple of mornings ago, I was going to a meeting with my boss. She came to my office to get me, and, since I had just been drinking coffee, I popped a few Tic Tacs into my mouth and left to go to the meeting. I got back around lunch time, had a bite to eat, and intended to have some Tic Tacs. They were gone. No Tic Tacs in my desk. I knew they were there just a few hours ago. In case I had put them in my purse, I emptied the whole thing out. No Tic Tacs in my purse. Maybe I did put them in my purse and they fell out in the car. No Tic Tacs in the car. What the hell?

Am I going crazy? The story of the time someone stole my computer will probably convince you that I am.

When I moved into my office my computer moved with me. It was finally set up close to the end of the day, so before I went home I checked that the computer was hooked up correctly, I could log onto the network, etc. Everything seemed fine, but when I came in the next morning, the computer was off, which seemed strange because I had left it on the night before.

I reached under my desk to turn on the tower, and it was gone. I knew it had been there the night before. Why would someone have taken my computer? I was pretty pissed off because I had been roaming around from cubicle to cubicle for two days trying to find unused computers to work on while my office was being set up. Finally I had an office to myself, and what do they do? Take my computer for no reason without even telling me.

I called the office manager find out where my computer was, and I'm getting ready to be all huffy and annoyed. She picked up the phone at the same moment I noticed a significant detail. I never had a tower under my desk. I had a desktop computer sitting right there under my monitor. "Uh, wrong number," I mumbled as I gently hung up the phone and began my day without further incident.

So you see, I can imagine opening a drawer someday and finding my headphones, my hand sanitizer, and my Tic Tacs innocently sitting there as they had been all along. In the meantime, does anyone have any surveillance equipment I could borrow?

The Duckling Drinks Pinot Bianco

Alois Lageder
2004 Pinot Bianco
$11.79 at Central Market

Dry Italian white. Bright and refreshing. Flavors of lemon and tropical fruits. Sea-salt finish.


















In case any one was feeling sorry for me that I didn't feel well enough to make it to yoga or go out on Friday night, I want you know that I endured my suffering by getting drunk on wine and watching Red Dwarf until I passed out. It was rough, but I made it through.

Scarred for Life

I'm about four-years old, and I'm sitting in the waiting room of the pediatrician with my mom. The room is crowded, and I'm nervous about sitting next to someone I don't know. My mom is encouraging me to go ahead and sit down. "Come on, they won't bite," she tells me.

It never even occurred to me that someone might bite me.

I panic.

There's a Special Place in Hell for Us

S and I like to watch history shows on PBS, and the Holocaust is often a topic. After a Nazi atrocity is mentioned, S will mutter, "allegedly..." under his breath every time.

And I laugh.

You Don't Say...

TIGTA Finds Inappropriate Email on 74% of IRS Employees' Computers

Thanks, Traivor!

I Want to Believe

Things aren't looking good at all for Floyd Landis. His back up sample also tested positive for unusual levels of hormones. For clarification, the test actually detects the ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone, not absolute levels. Normally, a man has a 1:1 or 2:1 ratio; however, a ratio of up to 4:1 is allowed by cycling authorities. Landis' results: 11:1.

Landis offers a five-pronged explanation to account for these suspicious findings:
1) Dehydration
2) Cortisone he was taking for his necrotic hip
3) Consumption of beer and Jack Daniels
4) Thyroid medication
5) His overwhelming, totally awesome, natural manliness

I am in no position to judge the validity of his defense, but I leave you with this Landis-inspired product from the Onion.

IBS = TMI

I have Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). I don't really like to talk about it because I find the word "bowel" extremely off-putting and embarrassing. Fortunately I don't have a serious case, and it's usually only an uncomfortable inconvenience. Occasionally, however, it is extremely painful. What happens is that the muscles at some point in my intestines go into a spasm, and nothing I ate or drank earlier can go through. Sometimes when the affected area is in the upper portion of my abdomen, it presses against my diaphragm and makes it hard to breathe.

I found out I have IBS after a trip to the emergency room several years ago. I had always suffered from a touchy digestive system, but after 3 days of unremitting pain, I was afraid something had gone terribly awry. The good news was nothing was seriously wrong and I wasn't facing imminent death from gastric torture, but the bad news was that IBS is a chronic problem, and it might never go away completely.

IBS is often the reason that I don't make it out to social events and I just stop answering the phone. It gets worse with stress, so after a crappy week at work I often have a lot of pain on Friday night - just in time to wreck any going-out plans I might have had. One of the things I regret missing most was Ann T.'s engagement celebration. I was flattered to be asked, and I was really looking forward to the wine tasting. But I had to cancel just hours beforehand because it hurt so bad. Once I missed an interview for a job I really wanted at the Writer's Garret.

I do have medicine that helps, but it makes me feel slow and stupid and gives me a terrible dry mouth. I also can't drink when I take it, so it puts a definite crimp in my social style. Lately, as I had to take it more often, I found that it would wear off sooner and sooner, leaving me with 8 hours of pain to cope with until the next dose and no other options to try.

However (and I'm probably jinxing myself), I haven't had any problems in over a month. The main difference in my habits is that I've starting doing yoga once a week. I've tried exercising and eating better in the past to help reduce the symptoms, but this is the first month I can remember that I didn't have any pain at all. I usually have flare ups around that time of the month, so we'll see in a couple of weeks if I just got lucky or if I've actually found a way to deal with this condition without the drugs and the ruined plans.

I'm still a big flake and might not answer the phone when you call, but at least I'll be ignoring you because I want to. :)

You came to the right place, I guess

Looking at my referral log, I discover that Unruly Duckling is the 2nd Google hit for "Lesbianism Test" I was hoping that StatCounter would provide some amusement.

Faith and Begorrah!

Your Inner European is Irish!

Sprited and boisterous! You drink everyone under the table.

Who's Your Inner European?

Pretty accurate considering my roots are in Ireland. However, the only way I ever drink anyone under the table is if they crawl under there to wake me up.

What Would the Internet Do?

I'm sure you all know of one of those people who feel compelled to forward you every damn thing that comes into their email inbox - pictures of kittens, delete-this-and-you-hate-Jesus chain letters, jokes you thought were funny in the 6th grade, etc. I am on the email list of one such person.

She works for the IRS in a department that's in charge of outreach programs to low-income taxpayers, so the financial literacy program at my job works with her a lot as a member of a coalition. She may send 20 messages in a day, all from her government address. One time she even invited her whole address book to her daughter-in-law's baby shower!

I've put up with these stupid emails since I started working here because she seems like the kind of person to hold a grudge and make my job difficult if I piss her off. I also believe that she would cut us off from other organizations and resources if she gets mad at us. However, a few months ago she forwarded the email referenced in this Snopes article along with some hateful, bigoted commentary about the entire religion of Islam. Keep in mind this is coming from her irs.gov work email. I was so disgusted and angry my head nearly exploded. I immediately sent out the link to the Snopes article to everyone who received the email, and one person contacted me privately saying she was glad I did.

My boss got the same email, and we talked about how we could address this with her supervisor without getting into a big, nasty showdown with this woman that would make it difficult for us to carry out programs for our clients. We don't have any idea who her supervisor is or how to get the phone number. Getting through to the IRS isn't the easiest thing in the world.

Before we could decide what to do the IRS lady sent out an email apologizing profusely for sending out false information and filling our inboxes with unprofessional messages. She promised to only send out work related emails from then on. We figured she had already gotten in trouble, and that was the end of that.

Well, that lasted less than a week before the stupid "humorous" emails started again. At one point she sent out an advertisement for tickets to the Evander Holyfield fight. WTF?

Here's where the dilemma comes in. Last week the person who took my old position called me to ask if I had seen the IRS lady's latest email. She forwarded a bunch of pictures taken during the demonstrations about the cartoon of Mohammed of protesters with violent messages on their signs. She didn't add any commentary to the email, but the forwarded message included ugly statements about Islam again. This time, however, she had specifically left me and my boss off the email.

Something has to be done about this, but I have no idea what. Yes, those pictures were accurate, and angry crackpots were carrying signs about butchering and beheading those who mock Islam. But, that is just as wrong and crazy as those excellent "Christians" who disrupt military funerals to chant "God Hates Fags" or Catholic priests who molest children and work to cover it up. This woman has no right to spread hate and fear of an entire religion, much less to use government resources to do it. (Just because the president, the military, and the congress does it, doesn't make it right. That might not be a completely fair assessment, but I thought I'd beat you to it.)

At the same time, we need her help (or at least her department's help) to run a program that does a lot of good for the people we serve. If we make it harder for them to get the services they need by standing up against one wrong, we commit another one. Addressing her directly does no good. Even if we could figure out where to complain, doing so anonymously seems cowardly. Doing nothing seems even worse.

WWTID?