Thanks for seein' about a girl, friend. here's where I'm writing my own history—for you, for me and anyone else who needs to laugh to keep from cryin' every once in awhile.

Trick Treat

As seen today in the realm of corporate cray-cray: “… Where they hung the jerk who invented work in the big rock candy mountain …”

 

Yo.

Let’s play “The number of directions in which I can go with the image above.”

1. Unpackaged Halloween Candy in an Open Container I don’t know about y’all, but candy cawn in an obviously used, nondescript mug of questionable cleanliness is exactly what yo mama warned you about when she told you not to go trick or treatin’ at the one house in yo’ neighborhood that was undeniably sketch.

2. How’m I S’posed to Eat This? I don’t know how y’all were raised, but IF (and that’d probably be the last “if” on Earth) I was, say, Cookie Monster crazy ‘bout candy cawn and just had to have me some sugar-spiked morsels, I would pick up the cup, tip it over I’mma-Little-Teapot-style and pour myself some.

But that’s me.

And maybe, hopefully you.

HOWS-IN-EVUH … you know you know that one co-worker who ain’t like us. There is almost always that one person who operates by “the world is my oyster” creed. This person walks, coughs, uses a cell phone, commandeers 3/4s of train seats and snarfs community catered food with the wildest abandon. This is the person who’ll go elbow-deep into that mug, as boundless as a NASA all-star on a moonwalk.

Note: Re-read those last two sentences; note the word “cough.” Note that said cough is rarely, as in never ever properly covered. Whoa no. This person coughs in one of two ways:

1. Dixie Chick style. As in wide open spaces. As in the personification of Al Gore’s inconvenient truth.

2. Hands on style. Despite myriad advisories, HR postings, PSAs and shout-outs (CGA, Holla!) this person coughs John-Coffee-like-the-drank-in-The-Green-Mile-in-that-part-where-he-hacks-all-the-ugly-cancerous-flies-up-in-the-air style dead into the center of their hand. Unwashed, unencumbered and unaware, this is the hand that will eagerly shake yours, grab your pen, swab every door handle in a 60-foot radius, go to the potty, scratch, pick and touch 57 more candy cawns than the ones they will actually ingest.

It’s flu season folks. You’ve been warned.

3. Since When Does Candy Cawn Need to be Randomly Rationed? Like, for real. Why pour an indiscriminate amount of candy cawn into a MUG? Bring a jar. Something clear and see through and clean looking. I can’t guess how many there are in a damn travel mug.

Where is the lid?

Will the ration be refilled?

Where is the bag?

Are these trans-fat free candy cawns? Gluten free-ish? What about almost everybody's kids' peanut allergies?

These are the days when you can't just up and brang folk food 'cause everybody's literally got their somethin' that'll cause them to asphyxiate within a 10-inch radius, feel nauseous, get aromatically offended or all irritably bowled, etc.

I mean, couldn’t you have provided a spoon or sumpin’ to facilitate the sharing?

Also, I need a label or sumpin’. Some kind of “Heyo! Happy Halloween. Get crunk on candy corn!” sign.  I’d like to think a group e-mail would’ve alerted us to the treat, but then the person probably didn’t want anyone to know it was from them, which takes me right back to #1 and the word “sketch.”

Honestly, I didn’t even know the mug had anything in it until I was heatin’ up my breakfast sammich at the microwave. Mind you, the mug was sitting on top of the microwave, but I relocated it because between the microwaves and the BPA levels and the fumes from whatever ethnic fish dish said microwave could be cooking at any given time … well, those candy cawns, in my humble opinion, just wouldn’t be right for consumption. Not that they’re right anyway being exposed to folks' funky elements and all, but you know.

And mmmhmm. I know, I know. “Danita, they were probably just trying to be nice. It’s the thought that counts.”

Well, you ain’t countin’ all the associated costs, friend(s). What about my Emergen-C intake? Or that portion of my paycheck that pays for my medical and dental costs (what is in candy cawn anyway?!)? Or the time it takes for me to figure out who this benevolent culprit is?

I work in an accounting department and I’m confronted with a mug full of unaccountability.

Increasingly the world is all trick and no treat.

An Addendum to Trick Treat + Word Association

Lend Me Your Ear ... and Just One Text!