Getting the Feeling that I am Different Somehow....

Thats sweet, Mame ;-)


Ha ha!! I bet some people laughed tho..





.. didnt they? (despairing of humanity)

Well, I would have laughed, but not sure what that would have made me

That was one of the funniest things about it, Nimh.

The place erupted for about five seconds, then everyone realised that they shouldn't really be laughing, and it went silent ever so quickly, as if someone had held up a big sign saying "Quiet".

At the lunch break, I had many people make their way over to tell me that it was the highlight of the morning. The Chief Probation Officer did his best to stay neutral about the whole thing though.

On another tack, my brain can suddenly think of something that could cause hilarity or mischief, and it is away, totally off the wall ideas crashing in all over the place.
Example. Training course, a god awful two day boring training course (residential) being held by two young probation officers who had started up a training organisation, having come fresh out of "uni" and who hadn't even been in a small isolated office with a rapist/mugger/child abuser etc. one on one, let alone interviewed or worked with one before.
They were there, primarily to tell us how to keep ourselves safe, and dispensing such valuable earth shattering advice as "always have your emergency alarm to hand" and "try not to hold the interview late at night, in an empty office" etc. Talk about teaching people how to suck eggs!

Anyway, day one had been spent holding "mock" interviews, and by four in the afternoon, everyone was aware that this was a total waste of time, and personally, I was so bored that my teeth started itching.

Day two....Whilst putting on my suit in the hotel room, I realised, when I looked in the mirror to do up my tie, that my shirt was wrongly buttoned. You know, when all the buttons are put through the button hole that is one below where it should be......DING DING DING DING......I thought that this would raise a laugh, and ended up going downstairs with my hair sticking up at the back, buttons still wrong and tie done up backwards, so that the seam side was to the front.
I just wanted to see if there would be a reaction.

Everyone was so kind, and except for a few smiles, nobody said anything. We all sat in the big training circle, and about two minutes into the day, I started fidgeting. This fidgeting went on and grew in intensity for about five minutes, until everyone was aware of my plight, and were starting to quietly giggle (they knew me, so knew something was afoot).
I finally stood up in a huffy manner, wrestled with the neck of my jacket, and removed a wire coat hanger from inside that, as it would have appeared, I had somehow not noticed whilst dressing.

Everyone cracked up, including the trainers (to their credit), but I kept an absolute straight face and appeared embarrassed, which made it all the funnier. Ten minutes later we were all being told how to suck eggs again.

A few days later, someone let it be known that the trainers (two of them) were paid the equivalent of £700 per day (each) for that course, so I suppose they had the last laugh.

Bella?

NORMAL ??

yall almost made me spit my coffee..



;-)

Oh, Ellpus! How I wish you'd been in some of the meetings I've had to sit through! We could've kept them in stitches...all I need is someone to start it, and I'm off and running.

I come by it honestly.

When my father was in college, he pulled a world-class stunt that is still talked about by surviving members of his class. He attended a strict Methodist university (first mistake) on the GI Bill after WWII. Attendance at chapel services was a requirement, and my father was not exactly, um, well, religious. The truth is, he dreaded it. One night they invited a rather famous preacher who was known for his "hellfire and brimstone" sermons that went on and on and on...(groan.) They expected a big turnout, so they decided to hold it in the campus theater. Fun-lovin' Dad could stand it no longer.

You see, my father had a double major: English and Drama. Because of his Scenery classes, he knew the backstage area of the theater quite well and had easy access. Just before the service began, he sneaked behind the curtain at the back of the stage, directly behind the makeshift pulpit. Sure enough, there were large props stored there. Dad had saved some fireworks from the last holiday (you never know when you might need them,) and he had one of his best smoke bombs with him this particular evening. He taped it to one of the props about a foot off the floor, then laid the filter end of a cigarette across the end of the wick and taped it down, too. Then he lit the cigarette and left.

Taking a seat in the back of the theater, Dad waited. The preacher was just as bad as he'd feared. Good, he thought. It took the guy about twenty minutes to get really fired up. Just as he started shouting, clouds of black smoke began pouring out from behind the base of the pulpit, and the smell of sulphur filled the room. The entire theater erupted in laughter. (Obviously Dad wasn't the only one who hated this sort of thing.) They evacuated the building and everyone got the night off.

The school officials never traced the incident to Dad, despite the fact that all his friends were certain he was the culprit. Knowing that I had inherited his irreverent sense of humor, Dad waited until I was an adult to tell me this story. After I finished laughing, I asked him seriously, "What if you'd set the theater on fire, though?"

With a twinkle in his eye, he said, "I was pretty sure I wouldn't."