Episode #176: I Learned Something New

The greatly missed family dog Lucky, who passed away a few years ago from a variety of ailments plus old age. Fondest memory I have was when he would launch himself off the porch deck to the backyard, and inevitably face plant the concrete landing more often than not. Very cringey and the whole house would try to stop him from doing it. The only time we didn't was during the winter, when the snow would cushion the blow.

"Hey Ted! What are you doing, and who are you talking to?"

"Bob, I'm talking to my friends out there in the blog world. Why?"

Bob squints in the direction of the wall that Ted is talking at and says, "Ted, you're talking to a wall. You better go back to your desk and take a chill pill of some kind. You need it."

A bit annoyed, he says, "Is there something that you puffed up your ego with that you now want to bother me with?"

"Excuse me? I'll have you know that my ego doesn't need to be puffed, thank you very much. And since when do I 'bother' you with my pearls of wisdom?"

"Like, every single hour of every single day, you poor excuse for an ineffectual middle management suck up. So what do you want to bother me with now?"

Bob frowns for a moment, before grabbing Ted's ear and dragging him back to his desk ala Curly Howard. He throws him into his chair, and says, "Listen here, you pencil neck geek, I have learned something new today and I expect you to sit there and listen to me explaining it to you. Got me?"

"Why?"

"Because I'm your boss and you're just a toady, so if you want to keep your job, you have to sit there and listen to me."

"Fine," says Ted, who instantly forms a plan for malicious compliance.

Bob pulls up a seat, points a finger in Ted's face and says, "I was on You'reATuba the other day, I learned something incredibly fascinating. Listen, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah...."

Ted is already tuning him out, but Bob is too arrogant to notice him. He points up to the ceiling and suddenly one of those cartoon thought balloons pops up above his head, and begins to fill up with words. Words like, "I actually learned something new today too, but it's basically a fun factoid that you can work into a conversation about movies. Google 'how many swear words are in the South Park movie?' and you'll get my answer."

Bob is still rambling on, only now he's frothing at the mouth as he starts becoming one with whatever verbal excess that is pouting out his mouth. He starts jumping up and down like a manic primate as he speaks. In the meanwhile, Ted is taking this all in with a major poker face, which seems to directly feed into Bob's little tantrum of verbal abuse and spittle. Because Bob is such an oblivious boob, Ted has no problem in once again pointing above his head, and again producing a thought bubble.

"I have a writing update that my close friend G.B. Miller wanted me to pass along to all of you good people. He's still making solid progress with his trilogy (over 230k words written), although he's hit a very tiny road block in the form of the dreaded middle of the first part of the overall final confrontation (he says there's at least two, maybe three) where he's having a tiny issue getting everyone to like, actually travel towards that first part. But he assures me that it's just the tiniest of road blocks that he has to go around. Once done, he'll be good to go. Maybe. Hopefully."

Ted returns to his regular scheduled program that's already in progress, and is alarmed to find that Bob has now channeled his inner primate, so in addition to frothing at the mouth, he's also beating his chest and grunting quite loudly. He waves his hand to get Bob's attention, and after about twenty seconds, does.

"Say Bob, need a banana?" Ted asks all innocent like.

Bob turns red in the face and explodes. He immediately grabs Ted and starts thrashing him all over the office like a piece of American Tourister luggage. Ted eventually winds up on the floor quite the battered specimen of humanity. But he's a battered specimen of humanity with a trick up his sleeve: a drugged banana.

He hands the banana to Bob, who immediately takes it and swallows it whole. Exactly ten seconds later, Bob collapses to the ground in a heap, snoozing away in his own private Ohio. Ted eventually peels himself off the floor, finds a telephone still in working order, and calls for animal control. Animal control arrives, sedates Bob even more, before taking him away to a place for people with very tired minds and over-active imaginations: Washington DC.

Tune in next week, when we hear Ted say to Bob, "You know Bob, the shortest complete sentence in any language today, is 'no'.", and hilarity ensues.

{c} 2023 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved