Because Mensa is away and Blanket has sadly not heard her utter the words “I would rather die than…” in almost a MONTH,  Blanket is happy to produce the first of our new segment:

Why Ad-Campaign has to leave work two hours early! (minimum)

• I’ve got to pay my (adult) son’s parking ticket.
• I didn’t make it in time to pay that parking ticket so I’ve got to go today.
• I’m getting a haircut
• My tooth hurts so I’m going to see if my dentist can see me
• I need to go pay my car insurance
• (day immediately following the previous) I need to go pay my registration
• I am going to referee a hockey game

There is a list somewhere… and once Blanket finds it there will be more reasons that Blanket and Mensa are the only ones capable of putting in a full day of work.

Mensa is gone.  Thankfully not in the Attila sense of the word gone (forever), but it sure feels that way.  In order to combat the new sense of work meaninglessness, I, Blanket, (that’s like I, Robot but way less profound) think about other things.  (Things that do NOT include that I was without Mensa during a full moon working day, or how many commas I used in the previous sentence).

Blanket has decided that she would be very good at Improv Theatre.  Well, if she wasn’t pathologically afraid of public speaking, didn’t absolutely hate most social interactions, and wasn’t cursed with coordination issues that would send her plummeting off even an imaginary stage. She’s also apparently unable to prevent talking in the third person.  What I really mean is that I’m great at coming up with strange nonsense off-the-cuff.  Which isn’t a useful talent at all, but its a segue into my conversation about my favorite coworker before Mensa.

*I can spout nonsense like this because nobody reads this blog - not even Blanket’s mom.  This is totally fine because our blog amuses us and really beyond that I have no obligations to the internet.*

Back to my point, where (unbeknownst to you) I was about to wax poetic about the past.  This doesn’t usually happen because if you’ll recall: Attila existed in the past.  Long before Blanket had Mensa; I had Sweetie Pie.  Her name says everything about her.

Sweetie Pie worked in our Hill office and was friends with socialists.  When Attila was particularly horrible, Sweetie Pie and I would rebel by making it seem like we were too busy to do the tasks she wanted us to.  (Don’t worry we’re all amazed I’m still employed)

Because we had to appear busy, we would talk via email about vaguely work-ish things for five minutes or so (until Attila got mad and did the thing herself) and then we would go back to our regularly scheduled duties.

The following was one such instance:

Sweetie Pie emailed Blanket the Bossman’s summer schedule for review. (*background info:  Bossman was about to spend a week on a Navy Vessel)

SP: Did I forget anything?

B: You did not.  Oh how fun the reminder of Sailor Bossman was though.  I wonder if we’ll be able to call him “Salty Dog” when its all over with…  And can you just imagine the headline if something goes wrong?! “Lawmaker lost at sea after accepting invitation to ‘experience Naval life’”  That could be bad.

SP: hahah that’s funny … would be terrible, but comical none the less.

B: Agreed, terrible but comical; and almost a given.  Like doesn’t it seem like the plot of a made-for-TV movie?

SP: Lol if Bossman was the action star I can’t imagine the quality of the movie… maybe on Lifetime.

B: Lol, no no Bossman wouldn’t be in it; someone like that guy from Law & Order would play Bossman in “The true life account of the tragedy that befell a freshman lawmaker as he endeavored to connect with members of the Navy”  And someone awesome would be cast in the role of Mrs. Bossman - like Angelina Jolie.  Lol but there would be a really exaggerated emphasis on wildly un-confirmable events that happened whilst his ship went down.  Like: Bossman nearly saved the whole ship riding on a dolphin but failed at the last moment because all the odds and nature were against him (also the water was just too cold and his knee so tragically injured in a past “soccer” accident).

SP: Hahah that was probably the funniest thing I’ve heard in a while!!

B: Hard to believe I’m actually getting work done eh?  Maybe it should be a sea turtle instead of a dolphin … but that’s so Pirates of the Caribbean its almost too much.

SP: Agreed … the dolphin has sort of a girly appeal to it, where as the turtle is more angry and manly.  Either would be entertaining.

B: If we’re going for manly and we’re talking the East Coast, we might as well go all the way and it was a Polar Bear he wrestled off an ice flow and subdued to his will.

SP: That’s the money maker right there.

B: Then there will be a DVD sale with all proceeds going to help the families of federally elected lawmakers who have been lost, killed or maimed fictitiously in the line of duty.

Blanket frequently develops scenarios like this based on mundane events occurring in the office.  I should write for a sitcom; but for that I’d probably have to be funny. Lame.

Now that Sweetie Pie is gone, we don’t have Hill People with senses of humor.  Emails now look like this:

Seal: Did Bossman sign that form?

B: I filled it out and gave it to him for Mrs. Bossman to sign at home and then for him to bring to the Hill with him and give to you.

The fact that you did not receive it makes me think one of the links in the chain broke.  To be fair, I knew going into it that any link in the chain after “I filled out the form and handed it to him” had the potential to throw this off the rails.

Seal: *Crickets* so… no?

Come home Mensa!

Before we started working for Bossman, we barely even recognized that this profession existed.  We certainly didn’t have a freaking clue what this office did and probably wouldn’t have dreamed of referring people here (due to that lack of knowledge).  Now that we do work here, we can say that most people are not really like us.  We get referrals all the time.  The trouble with this is as follows: although it seems that a lot of people do in fact know that we exist, nobody actually knows what we do.

For instance, the other day an accountant told a German citizen that lives in our riding to come and see us for assistance in translating her German Tax forms into English.  Even if this was GERMANY, we’re pretty sure that this wouldn’t be our job.  What possessed the accountant to suggest this?

Sometimes, we feel like this office has a reputation straight out of Oz. “Oh just go see the Wizard, he can fix your problem!”  Then people become incredulous and really angry when, like the Wizard, we can’t help.  “What do you mean you can’t move space and time?!”  Cue the flying monkeys.

So this means that we spend a lot of our time trying to explain why people have to go away.  All the while they are trying to convince us that we’re just stupid and that we actually can help.  Yeah, sometimes it feels douche-y to tell a guy that took nine buses to get here that he’s in the wrong place … but if he had called first, we could have saved him the trouble.

Let’s return to the German Lady.  We informed her that we are unable to translate German into English for her and suggested that she hire a professional translator.  She kept repeating over and over and over that “No, no, ‘Sally’ said to come here and you could help me.”  She said it so many times we wonder if she thought that she could will it to be true.  That after enough repetitions, Blanket would say: “Oh! You’re right, I AM a German translator!” and copy out the document for her.

But in the end, we suppose that we can understand how that accountant felt, because we too passed the buck.  We told Ms. Germany to call the the German Embassy and ask them for their advice.  We feel our brush-off was more logical though…