Deviled Eggs and Water Polo

We made it!  Two posts during the month of November!  Well, they were two posts that were pretty far apart, but at least there are two posts.  I really will get up to a weekly blog post, here.  I did it in 2008 and I can do it again, even if I am ten years older, heavily medicated and no longer possessed of so many quick ideas to go off on a rant about.  By the way, speaking of time passing us by, it's now officially Cold in North Texas, except on days when it's Unseasonably Warm.  Like yesterday, for example, it got to 70.  Tonight it will be below freezing.  Which night does Grayson the Cat decide to run out the front door and gallivant through the bushes?  Yeah.  And there I am, crawling after him, without a coat, while Joan yells from the doorway, "He went that way!  No, the other that way!  You're getting colder!  Warmer!  No, not that kind of warmer..." 

Anyway, we caught him and hustled him back inside.  Now he's chasing a wad of paper across the floor, periodically picking it up with his mouth and carrying it off as prey.  They told us this guy was two years old when we picked him out, but I swear he was only a year and a few months, because he's still filling out and he's got a serious case of kittenager.  Any day now he's going to ask when he can borrow the car.

Last Saturday, I got up at about five in the morning to drag myself down to the pool, as usual.  (Well, somewhat usual.  Sometimes I sleep late and don't get there 'til seven.) I drove over to SMU's new pool, which is awe-inspiring and 18 feet deep, too, and much to my surprise, the building was locked up and nobody was there.  This wasn't because all the sane people stayed home, either.  I got on my cell phone, checked the Web site, and discovered that practice was canceled because of a water polo tournament.  A water polo tournament.  Just imagine.  I have always wanted to try water polo.  The only thing that holds me back is that I don't own any of those rare swimming horses. 

So I turned around and went back to my car, where I faced a dilemma.  As long as I was heading down to the pool and it was less than forty degrees out, I'd taken with me about twenty deviled eggs.  Yes, I frequently travel with deviled eggs.  Seriously, though, the eggs were left over from Joan's pre-Thanksgiving work potluck. My office often lets training classes use its conference rooms on Saturdays, so I'd had the idea that after practice I'd drive over to the office and drop off the deviled eggs for the lucky trainees, whomever they were.  But I didn't know what to do first; drive up to J.J. Pearce High School, which also has an early swim practice on Saturday, and drop off the eggs on the way?  Or forget about the eggs, go home like a normal person, and go back to bed?

I decided to get on Twitter and take a poll, as seen on the right of the screen here.  I actually got one response.  So I headed up to J.J. Pearce High School, planning to stop at my office and hand out free eggs.  Because why not.  But just as I pulled into the parking lot, I got this urgent text message from my boss, asking me to head over to the office and do something important.

Well, what a marvelous coincidence that I was already at the office.  I got out, eggs in tow, and went over to the main gate.  Here I ran into my second dilemma of the morning:  My code wouldn't work when I punched it in. So I texted my boss back:

Which she did.  But it didn't work any better than mine had. 

This building - Maybe I should explain about this building.  First of all, there isn't a ground floor.  Where the ground floor should be is a parking garage secured with two gates.  Outside the parking garage is a door secured with a number pad, which is supposed to open when you punch in the code.  But no matter which number code I punched in, mine or hers, the number pad just danced around and laughed at me. 

At about this point I was getting pretty annoyed.  My boss asked me if there wasn't a gate around the back of the parking lot.  Which there was, and I'd forgotten all about it.  So I headed over there to check it out.

 At this point I could just imagine what the security footage must look like.  Frame after frame of absolutely nothing and then suddenly I show up, checking doors, rattling gates, yanking on uncooperative padlocks.  Could the Richardson police be far behind?  This would be fun to explain.  "No, Officer, of course I work here.  Would I be trying to break into a law firm less than a mile from the police department if I didn't work here?  I mean, I may be crazy but I'm not stupid..."







My boss thinks of trying to open one of the front gates, which might get me inside enough to try the security codes on the back stairs door.  And if that works, I can scoot up two stories to where my desk is, print the letter and all will be grand.  However, neither one of us has the code to the padlock on the front gate.  So while I bumble around, my boss starts texting everyone in the office who might have a code to the front gate. 

And then she finds somebody.  And I dial in the code.  And...

So into the building I go.  Up a flight of stairs.  Stop to pant for breath on the landing because these are pretty steep stairs and my knee's been complaining for a couple of days.  Up another flight of stairs.  Punch in my code at the door panel at the top of the stairs and...click.  I'm in!

I get on my computer.  I find the letter, fix it, print it out, make some envelopes to mail it.  And then there's the problem of who's going to sign the letter.  Finally I decide to just turn to forgery, since burglary's not exactly working out for me. 

So I leave the deviled eggs (remember the eggs?  I bet you guys forgot all about the eggs, didn't you?)  on the receptionist's desk, where anybody who comes in will basically be forced to see them.  And I take my letter and I open the door to the back stairs.  The way this whole morning has been going, I wouldn't have been at all surprised to run right into my boss's boss, or one of the partners, for one of those moments where we both go "AAAAAIGH!!" and scare the living cr@p out of each other.  But that doesn't happen.  It's 7:15 in the morning.  Nobody's due for another hour at least. 

And then it occurs to me that my boss never once asked me what in the name of all things holy I was doing outside the office at 6:30 on a Saturday morning with a passel of deviled eggs.  I mean, that's kind of a pertinent question, don't you think?  But it never happened.  Maybe she thinks I travel the world and hand out free eggs at odd locations. 

Well, anyway, that's the story of Jen and the water polo tournament and the deviled eggs.  Y'all have a nice day, now.