The Lesser Evil

You know what's sad? It's not the iminent disappearance of apostrophes (although that is NOT good news). It's that I'm blogging because I'm avoiding something else. I should be writing articles for that magazine, but I'm not yet motivated (the deadline is next weekend...plenty of time). I've already poked around the internet for the daily news about those lousy celebs. I checked out all the cute puppies and kitties on cuteoverload.com. And I've checked out everyone else's blogs (James must be really sick...I hope that he gets well soon). I have no more excuses for not writing my articles, except that now I'm blogging instead.

This isn't the way it's supposed to be. Blogging (or "blobbing", which is how I keep typing it) should reflect the quirky dynamism of a person's life. Perhaps that's my problem. I hang around engineers all day, who talk nothing but engineerese.

Now there's something I can blog about.

I was stuck in yet another meeting the other day with a room full of engineers. Don't ask me what kind of engineers. I don't know. They're all the same...too occupied with the minutiae of cameras and recording devices. They worry about focus, depth of field, sharpness, brightness, and colour. They argue about spacing and placement and regulations and materials. they argue about timelines. And I drift off, because it's all really fucking boring. This past week, my mind drifted to a strange place.

These engineers come from everywhere, usually places in Europe and Asia. It's a wonder they can understand each other, but I guess that engineerese is universal. The European ones are from countries that end in "~ia". I have no idea which Asian countries are represented. But they're all characters.

While they were arguing about millimetres, I looked around the room, picturing them all as Muppets. Some were easier to picture than others. There's a squat, square man with a heavy accent, bushy curved eyebrows, and a quick sense of humour. There's an annoyingly polite Asian guy ("correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe that I am...") who wears huge cargo pants with pockets which are stuffed full of something (he looks kind of sumo-ish, with his heavy, bowed legs). There's a short, balding ornery Scottish guy who's always ready with a scathing judgement and harsh self-criticism (and who cannot pass a box of Timbits). There's the rabbity little Italian, transplanted from a small town in northern BC, who is loud and completely politcally incorrect.

I was mentally remaking them out of foam, fake fur, and googly eyes when the most intense engineer turned his icy focus onto me: "And how are the manuals and carton coming?" This is the moment in which I always get myself into trouble. They lull me into a stupor with all of their techno-talk, and then they abruptly change their focus onto me. It's like getting woken up by someone throwing cold water at you...shocking, confusing, and makes you have to pee a little. At the first of these kinds of meetings, I embarassed myself by lying. It wasn't until I was back at my desk that I realized that I had given a status report ("they're almost done") on something that didn't exist.

Now I'm more careful with my answers.

(See, now this is where I go so wrong. I have no idea how to end this. I'll publish it now and maybe find an ending later.)