My parents have been visiting from Australia for the last month. They’ve been staying with my wife and I in our new house, and it’s been pretty fun. Lot’s of meals out, watching tennis, and playing late night games of dominos.
Today they are leaving for Australia, so for one last hurrah we went out for a big family dinner at The Outback. We’re a big eating, steak loving kind of family, so The Outback seemed like an ideal choice. We were seated in a booth for seven, ordered our drink and were joking chatting and having fun.
At the table next to ours was a group of about 20 people who were having some type of golf & dinner company function. As our drinks arrived, the boss stood up to make a few announcements.
“Okay” I thought “he’ll make his announcement, they’ll clap, he’ll sit down and I can go back to ignoring them.”
I don’t know what the hell these people do for a living, but if that guy is the boss, I feel sorry for them. He prattled on and on about nothing for like 10 minutes. At no time did he ever venture into any territory that I would label as “Important Enough to Bother Saying.”
I was unimpressed.
Then he starts calling up every person at the table to give them their “gag” gift from the golf tournament. I use the word gag loosely, as the word itself implies that the presents were somehow humorous. They were not. Rather, they made me want to either a) throw up, or b) punch that dude in the face. One lady he called up, who was a bit of a fatty, was given the gag gift of a banana holder. The joke was “I’ve noticed that you bring your lunch to work, and that you’ll never go out with us, so I got you this to keep you banana from getting bruised.”
. . . BWAHAHAHAHAHA, oh man, that’s the best joke ever. The way you made fun of the fat lady for her decision to eat healthy and save money, it was priceless! And we all know how she hates bruised fruit! BURN! Eat it fatty, and I don’t mean a banana! Great joke John, you’re super!
Oh and let’s not forget the married couple from the office who received a series of sexually explicit joke posters and books. Way to maintain the bounds of appropriate office behavior and acceptable restaurant decorum. Bravo! It’s not like there are families with children sitting all around you, or people who just want to enjoy their meal and not listen to you prattle on like a complete imbecile.
It’s not like he was receiving a warm reception from his coworkers either. Polite laughter all around. Not one genuine laugh.
At this point my brother and I had had enough. We started laughing obnoxiously at all of his jokes, and saying stuff like “a banana holder!? Isn’t that hi-freaking-larious?” After forty minutes of this lifeless debacle, he finally wrapped it up.
Someone from the office party said “great job John, where did you find all of this stuff?”
I replied “John, you are a living God. It would be my honor to cup your balls while you take a leak.”
Which prompted my brother to say “sorry, I could hear you because my head is up John’s ass.”
Me and my brother thought this was hilarious. The rest of our table just kind of shook their heads.
If I ever worked for a tool like that, you can bet that 90% of my day would be spent sharpening up my resume for the inevitable job hunt after I choke John to death. I thought that people like that existed soley in the realm of television and movies. I’ve never actually witnessed the trainwreck in progress.
It was obvious to me that he didn’t actually know any of his co-workers, and that he had never had a conversation with any of them which didn’t involve work, weather, or sports. I am so lucky that my job involves none of that nonsense, because it would drive me to homicide.
