At Sun we have lots of whiteboard walls where people can (well, could, theoretically) scribble down brilliant ideas while they’re discussing deep technological issues over coffee. What they mostly get used for is trenchant corporate humor, as above (note that the “Clothing Optional Teaming Area” has been so named for a very long time).
Recently, Lynn copied the Nerd Venn Diagram onto our coffee area wall, just to see what would happen:
Some responses were philosophical:
Some inscrutable (to me, anyway):
(I would have used a loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou.)
Some topical:
And my personal favorite:
^ the intersect of “times of true bliss” and “times with pants on”.
The Borders bookshop at Dulles airport carries a book called “What Every American Should Know About the Rest of the World.” Placed on a shelf too high to reach.
A little while ago I was wandering around Amazon.com, looking for a mother’s day present for my mom. Bath stuff seemed like a good idea, so I went to the “Health & Beauty” store, which turns out to be Drugstore.com. How could I resist taking a peek at “Sexual Well-Being” (yes, it’s very prominent on the page)? Vibrators and sex toys? Wow. What is America, ahem, coming to?
Then I just about fell out of my chair laughing. I Rub My Duckie Waterproof Personal Massager – They may be older, but rubber ducky’s still the one.”
This is one of the cleverest pieces of marketing I’ve seen. Any American woman around my age is familiar with Sesame Street (original home of The Muppets). Before I ever lived in the US and saw the show, I had a Sesame Street record (bought at the PX in Bangkok), which included Bert’s song: “Rubber ducky, you’re the one, you make bathtime so much fun. Rubber ducky, I’m awfully fond of you…”
During one of my many trips to Silicon Valley, I was on a shuttle bus at San Francisco Airport, heading towards the rental car building. Four men got on together, talking animatedly, obviously colleagues on a business trip together. A cellphone rang, and all four simultaneously dived for their pockets. I burst out laughing, and one of them smiled at me ruefully. “It is pretty funny,” he admitted.
A friend of my stepmom’s was riding a commuter train out of London one evening when she witnessed the following: To the great annoyance of the other passengers, some guy was talking very loudly on his cellphone, bragging about a huge deal of some sort he’d just done, millions of pounds’ worth of business, etc., etc. He went on for quite some time, until everyone knew far more than they wanted to about his coup. Then the phone he was talking into… rang.
While having my morning coffee, I overheard a man talking to the waiter:
“I married two sisters. No, really. My first wife caught me with her sister. [Meditatively.] Who do you think is worse: the husband who sleeps with his sister-in-law, or the sister who sleeps with her sister’s husband?”
…there’s a novel in there somewhere…but probably not the sort I would enjoy writing!
Deirdré Straughan on Italy, India, the Internet, the world, and now Australia
