The Cat's Nuts

After a little harassment by Brad, I have decided that I’m going to take a break from my very busy work schedule and tell some tales of my life. Yes, I have three short stories to tell you, so here I go…

#1) The Tale of the Urine Trail
This past weekend Laura and I decided to head up to the Bronx Zoo to check out the animals and be outside in the heat. It was a beautiful day as Laura and I boarded the subway for the long ass trip up to the Bronx. Living in Brooklyn means that we have to go into Manhattan to get on the 4/5 train to head all the way up into Ghetto Bronx. We ended up on this 5 train heading uptown and there were a few tourists that were asking questions about the express trains. One “kind” person started to talk to them about it, but apparently he forgot to use his inside voice. This man has the loudest voice I have ever heard. It was honestly painful to sit in the subway car with him. Normally Laura and I would just suck it up as the crazies do their thing, but in this instance, we couldn’t stand it and had to leave. So at the next stop, after making a few loud remarks ourselves, we got up and moved to the next train down. Initially this seemed like a great idea. There were open seats, so we were able to take a seat on the way up to the zoo. Then we realized what situation we had walked into. In front of us was a nice Mexican family. About 6 of them in all, with 2-3 young children. As Laura and I are sitting there, the mother takes the little girl and stands here between her legs. I look down and see that the little girl is peeing on the train. I’m not talking like “Ohhh Mommy…I couldn’t hold it so I dribbled a little.” Nope, we’re talking “Damn…I gotta go and I’m going to let it rip”… At first I was thinking “That really sucks for that poor Mother.” Then I realized, as the woman reached into her purse to get her daughters underwear, that she had instructed her daughter to piss on the fucking subway. Granted, I’m not one to talk about pissing in public, but at the same time, there is a HUGE difference between pissing on the subway platform and pissing IN the damn train. I couldn’t believe it. Totally disgusting.

#2) Tale of the Peeping Perchers
Saturday night, Laura and I decided to stay in and not bother wasting time and money going out. Seeing as how I was flat out broke (I’ve been paid since then and it was glorious) we ended up staying in. Now, for those of you that may be too young to know, when two people are attracted to each other and left to their own devices, stuff happens. As it were, Laura and I were messing around in the bedroom, not doing anything too crazy, but messing around. At some point during the adventure of the evening, we decided that it was time to shut off the lights, so I got up to flip them off.
There is a strange thing that happens during the night when you turn off the lights. Instead of the windows just showing your reflection, you can see out of them, and if you looked out our window when I flipped off the lights, you would have seen the heads of around 8-10 people leaning over the roof of the apartment next to us, staring into our window. As soon as the light when out, they scattered. Needless to say, Laura and I were a little pissed off. We went into the kitchen, keeping the lights off, and went over to another window, and there we sat and watched, and sure enough a sentry came out on the roof next door to check on the “sexual miscreants” to see if there were any further hanky panky going on.
You know, I’m not a very timid person, and I don’t even care that someone was watching while Laura and I were messing around, but the fact that it was an entire group of people, just staring in and gawking, it just makes me a little ill.

#3) The Tale of the Awkward Lunch
Yesterday was the first day in which I was out at the client site. I picked up my car, a nice little Mazda 3 Hatchback and drove out to the middle of Long Island to meet up the with the Executive Manager that manages the project out there. From what I have heard, this guy is a Ivy League graduate consulting phenom who climbed the entirety of the consulting ladder at my firm in a matter of 6 years. Needless to say, I was excited to be working with him and learning from working under him. Upon meeting him, I was terrible disappointed. He was a smug and cocky individual. Within 20 minutes of getting into the office, he, my direct supervisor, another guy in my division, and I went out to lunch. I’ll give you a rundown of the fun points in the conversations:
a) “So do you know SQL Server?”
“Ummm not really. A little, but I was an Econ Poly Sci Major, so I didn’t do much that in school”
“An ECON MAJOR!...Jeez… (Speaking to the others) My God…we have to talk to the HR department about what we are really looking for in recruiting.”

b) (Coming from the Princeton Executive) “So Michael….these two guys are going to be the ones you can talk to if you have ANY questions….read: Don’t bother me”

c) The three of them were talking about how the client doesn’t understand things and asks stupid questions and how irritating it was to them. I chimed in “They must be Econ Majors”

Needless to say, it wasn’t the best lunch ever. I’m a little worried that I’m not going to be getting a whole lot of guidance of help here, so we’ll see. I should be getting back to trying to learn a little bit about this damn Informatica program. Oh well. That’s life I suppose. I did get an AMAZING paycheck yesterday in the mail, so it makes it a little easier to deal with, I’m not going to lie.