From the archives - "And this is why I DO love to come to work..."

Our company recently did some renovations to our buildings and parking lots...including asphalt paving and designating handicap parking. I am fully and completely in support of designated handicap parking spaces, but at our office it is really kind of ridiculous. The signs even have the "$250.00" penalty wording on them. Since we very rarely get handicap people in our office and, truly, who would enforce that here anyway, usually company employees park in the handicap space when they are either too lazy to walk the five extra steps to the office or if all the other regular spaces are taken. Well, yesterday, one of the guys had parked in the handicap space. We all pick with each other all the time...so I decided to give him a "ticket". It was real classy - written on copy paper with a red sharpie - and indicated that he needed to make the check payable to me. He didn't say anything to me about it, even after he got here this morning.

Well, along about 10am when I have to go to the post office, I called Kathleen (one of the other girls in the office) to see if I could forward the phones to her so I could go. I told her that she needed to speak to Stephen (the handicap parking offender) and remind him that he needed to pay up on his parking ticket. The one thing I can ALWAYS count on from Kathleen is for her to take it one step farther than I EVER imagined. Following is a transcript of our e-mails relating to the incident (TW is another employee - Tony & SD would be Stephen):

From: Kathleen
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 10:34 AM
To: Jennifer
Subject:

OK TW was not cooperating with SD’s citizen arrest so I had to put him under house arrest also and now he is Stephen’s girlfriend (or prison bee-otch as the thugs like to say).

SD did ask if a work-release program was available.
From: Jennifer
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 10:37 AM
To: Kathleen
Subject: RE:

WOW – you took this whole parking ticket to a new level that not even I would have gone to. Your commitment to my delusion is impressive.

And tell SD no – I want cold hard cash!!!!

From: Kathleen
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 10:41 AM
To: Jennifer
Subject: RE:

Hey when it comes to money I don’t joke around. I am designing my torture chamber right now and now that they say water boarding is a true form of torture – I may go that route so there won’t be any marks that can be used as evidence against me.

BTW – did you know he drove down the street with it on his windshield before he noticed it

From: Jennifer
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 10:42 AM
To: Kathleen
Subject: RE:

No – I haven’t seen him today & he didn’t call me to talk to me about it yesterday evening. That is hilarious.

What is “water boarding”?

From: Kathleen
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 10:48 AM
To: Jennifer
Subject: RE:

I am not sure exactly – I think something to do with pouring water over their faces and into their mouths. Just sounds bad and not very pleasant. And now that I have just been ambushed and hit with a rubber band – it is WAR!!!

From: Jennifer
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 10:51 AM
To: Kathleen
Subject: RE:

How in the world did you hear about it as torture? Do you get some kind of newsletter or something? I have never heard of that. Is it really hot or really cold water? Dirty water? Salt water? B/c pouring water over their faces and into their mouths doesn’t sound all that bad…unless it’s really cold or really hot or dirty or salty. I really think you are making this up.

And I know how long it takes you to shoot a rubber band…you may just want to raise the white flag…

From: Kathleen
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 10:53 AM
To: Jennifer
Subject: RE:

I am crying from laughing so hard!!

I really did hear about water boarding on TV with the Iraq prison thing. I don’t know how to actually perform it – but I will do my research:)

From: Jennifer
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 10:58 AM
To: Kathleen
Subject: RE:

Do you think that researching water boarding online is the best thing to do? I’m thinking the gov’t will be on you like white on rice if you start looking that kind of stuff up. And I’m not going to defend you against the gov’t. I am a single mother…I have to be able to raise him. You have Bert Bert to depend on. Maybe if you go to prison, you can go to the one that Martha Stewart went to. I’m sure the cell she was in is just so lovely.

From: Kathleen
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 11:01 AM
To: Jennifer
Subject: RE:

That would be sweet. TW told me research firing squad etiquette.

And that, my friends is why I DO love coming to work here.