Not for those weak of heart

This is a midnight ramble... My mind started composing whilst I was laying there, trying to go to sleep. If I didn't go write it down, chances are it'd never get recorded, so up I got and in here did trot. Don't read it if you're easily offended. I fear it may forever change your perception of me, but it's not intended to disgust you - it's just my attempt to relate a memorable event of several years ago.

This is a midnight ramble... My mind started composing whilst I was laying there, trying to go to sleep. If I didn't go write it down, chances are it'd never get recorded, so up I got and in here did trot.

I actually started to tell the tale a few minutes prior to passing the sign shown on the preview photo - when I saw the sign, I turned back, took the photo, then continued telling the story to my kids.

Talk about a coincidence. Or do you believe in coincidence? Fate, perhaps?

Office Trouble

This is a sad tale of woe and misfortune... Those of you faint at heart, please stand back. Those easily offended or disgusted, I'd advise the same....

The tale begins years ago, in the early days of my life. My family wasn't wealthy. Some years, we didn't even own a television. And even when we did, it was liable to be black and white (although color models had been available for years).

But this isn't about television... This is about diet. You see, we might not have had a television, and never had such things as cable, but... on the other hand, we were never hungry, either.

We didn't eat out often.. I can remember the occasional McDonald's or even better, Wendys, when we were travelling to a relative's house at Thanksgiving, but those stops were few and far between, once a year at best and sometimes not then.

But at home, we always had food. Somehow, Mom always managed to throw something together. It might be a tasty meatloaf, or some fish we caught in a pond or river, or more often than not, pinto beans. Don't groan, pinto beans are good. Served with cornbread sometimes, and cooked with bacon or hamburger meat, or just beans, we had them many ways.

This isn't about my childhood, though. Rather it's about an incident which occurred in my life as a young adult. My love affair with pinto beans continued into adulthood, but ... I joined the Air Force, went to basic training and then tech school, was served the bland foods of the chow hall as a single airman. And gradually my body forgot the old diets, and accepted the new.

Still, I did live there on the border of Mexico, and there were a number of places in Del Rio, not to mention Acuna across the river, where Mexican food was served with great pride and gusto, not to mention a lot of great spice. And later, when I could cook at home, I'd cook many a pot of beans, too.

But, my body didn't seem to accept them quite as readily as in years gone by. I don't know, but I think that perhaps after awhile your body gets used to your diet, and major changes sometimes wreak havoc. At any rate, one hot, summer lunchtime, I got back from lunch, and was sitting alone in the office - the others had gone out to eat when I got back.

And the phone rang. Over at Deana's desk. I went over and answered the phone, and of course, it was a customer with a problem. I signed onto the system from the terminal at her desk (an old MS-DOS based PC - not that most people now even know what DOS is... this was years before the Windows revolution). As I chatted with the customer, I felt this disturbance churning within me.

I looked around, and no one was there, so .. I let the pressure which had been building go.

--- skip ahead 15 years or so... I was telling this story to my kids the other day, and as I told them, they haven't ever smelled anything like that, in the whole of their lives. I am not stretching the truth here, or trying to be crude, it's just the truth. It was BAD.

I finished the problem call, and went back to my desk. A half hour or so later, Deana came back in, and set down at her desk... She got the funniest look on her face, "What IS that smell?" ... Shamefacedly, I fessed up.

Although the odor lingered in the fabric of the chair for a short time, the incident was soon forgotten. I thought.

But the story did NOT end there, for about two weeks later, Deana sneezed. Granted, it was a big sneeze, but still. Her chair, a pedestal-type office chair, snapped at the base, right under the seat cushion, and down she went... flat on the floor, on her back.

They (everyone in the office) swore up and down that it was all my fault. That there must have been something there that caused the metal to weaken to the point where this accident happened. And honestly, I wouldn't doubt it. Thank goodness she wasn't hurt.

Somewhere after that, I started slowing down on the Mexican food, and beans... and in recent years, I do still occasionally enjoy burritos, tacos, or a bowl of beans, but it's consumed at a rate far less than in those days. I have not caused any office accidents, train derailments, or other catastrophes in years.