Skip to main content

Dust Worthy

I work hard.  My desk is always covered with stacks of things that someone, somewhere on this campus needs me to attend to.  It's good to be needed.  However, there are times that I must ignore everyone IMing and emailing and calling and sending smoke signals to tend to the cleanliness of my workspace.  Today was that day.

Fortunately, I had one good conference call, that thanks to the technological wonder that is the wireless head mic, I could multi-task and dust while listening.  This task, however, brought a few things to mind - the most important question being, "When do you know it is time to dust your office?"  

The custodial representatives here will not touch your desk or bookshelves if you have anything on them.  Apparently there are liability issues.  The biggest liability issue I see is that the mountain of paperwork I huddle behind may fall like an avalanche if they breathe on it too heavy.  But, that's a topic for another day - back to the question in hand.  If you have any suggestions, feel free to add them in the comments!

"When do you know it is time to dust your office?":

1. When you move a stack of paper and  dust devils dance lazily across the budget report you were to turn in three days ago.

2. When the dust bunnies begin to propagate shamelessly in front of you.  Bad Bunnies!!!

3. When co-workers wear a dust mask when entering your office.

4. When turning on a fan starts a haboob.

5. When your kids visit and start building a sandcastle.

6. When the cleaning crew leaves a can of furniture polish and a couple dust rags squarely in front of your computer monitors.

7. When a movie crew shooting a film about zombies versus vampires stops by requesting to shoot a death scene.  (Clarification for my mom, who is not a big zombie or vampire fan:  when you kill a zombie or a vampire, they turn to dust.)

8. When you water the plant on top of your credenza and the overflow causes a mudslide.

9. When you show up in the morning to find a band of bedoin wanderers have set up camp and are asking where to water the camels.

10.  When the campus history department instructors begin bringing their classes by to see a modern-day replica of Dust Bowl conditions.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Uno Lampino

 El Hubbo started the conversation with "Now, promise you won't kill him." That immediately got my attention.   "He broke one of your lamps when he came in the house with the weed eater.  Like beyond repair." I asked, "Why was he bringing the weed eater through the house?" "Well, he cleaned it up and he feels bad," El Hubbo said.  "I thought I should call and give you warning.  We've spent so much time and money getting him to this point....." "Ugh."  I hung up. Upon my arrival home, I saw the lampshade on the counter.  Then I saw the boy child.  I grabbed him in a big hug.  "Your daddy called and told me you wanted to take me lamp shopping.  That is so sweet of you!" He looked a bit bewildered but relieved that I had not immediately gone for the jugular.  "Uh, yeah, ok." "I'm so excited that I'm getting new lamps for the living room!" "Wait?  Lamps?  Don't you mean 'l...

A Simple Virtual Christmas Letter 2020

 I used to send out a Christmas card with usually funny pictures of my offspring and a Christmas letter.  A couple years ago, I noticed I received only a couple Christmas cards and I noticed how expensive my little project was, and I noticed how expensive Number One Son's braces were going to be, and I decided that the card and letter tradition had probably gone the way of others. and it was time to stop.  My holiday spirit died a little that day. And, then, a miracle.  It's 2020 and I have received a record number of Christmas cards!  Actual, in the mailbox, Christmas cards!  And, several virtual cards (which I still give points for as it takes time and planning.) My holiday spirit enjoyed that little boost.   So, as it is too late to assemble the actual card and letter,  here's the resurrected virtual annual report of the Martinez Clan: Number One Son has grown to the point he looks his mama in the eye.  He sidles up to her often to se...

Doin' Cowboy Stuff

"Steer's out!" was the call El Hubbo got last Saturday.  We were outside on our back porch, enjoying our newly cleaned up space, when our friend and neighbor down the road called. He'd just gotten two steers the night before, and we'd gone to help him unload. "They are a bit bigger than I thought they were going to be," he said.  He'd planned to get a couple steers to feed out and then have butchered.  Usually that translates into a 300 - 500 lb calf, and you feed them out to about 1000 - 1300 lbs.  When we arrived, we were greeted by two solid black, 900+ lb steers who were not too happy with their current circumstances.   Mean would be an understatement.  They were in the trailer, but they eyed us with a "We're bigger and badder than you" look in their eyes.  El Hubbo and I looked at each other a bit surprised, and then we hopped out and got to work.  The trailer was backed up, the gates were opened and out they charged!  Around the h...