Monday, October 06, 2008

How did I become the cat and mold expert?

If you read my other blog about my ahem weight loss battle (fight, struggle, situation I completely and absolutely ignore until I catch a glimpse of myself in a window as I'm walking down the street, and wouldn't you know, SF has like one building after another to walk by, with windows, no less), you'll often read posts about a particular person who only wants to talk to me about food. Recently he asked me how a pasta lunch fundraiser was going to be served, because, as you know, I'm the expert of all things food related at work. I had to inform him that I didn't know how the food would be served as I've never once in all my 9 years working there bought any sort of pasta lunch from a fundraiser.

Anyway.

He's now moved on to cats. We've talked cats on several occasions; he's got two, I've got two. I have a brain, he doesn't seem to have much of one or just lacks all sorts of common sense. So we make an odd couple who can't get away from each other.

Today as I was walking down the aisle to my cube (by the way, I had to apologize to the crane men for showing so much interest in them in the beginning and then dropping them like a hot potato - time to move on and there are only so many jokes one can make about men who work high up), I saw my co-pest worker standing by my cube wall, waiting for me.

"What do you want?" I asked. So maybe I was a tad on the defensive because I had to assume he wants to talk about food. Again.

"I have a cat question for you," he told me, completely unfazed by my tone.

"Oh really? What is it?" I asked, thinking, now I'm the cat expert?

"My cat's been eating and drinking and acting normal, but she keeps sneezing," he told me.

"Take her in. She's probably got an upper respiratory infection," I told him.

"But she's eating," he stressed.

This is not the first time I've had this type of "I want your advice, however, first what I really want, more than anything in the whole, entire, gigantic world, is for us to talk endlessly and then you to tell me your advice" conversation with him and others, but mainly with him as of late. And, well, I don't play this game.

If you work in an office, you can understand it when I say the average office worker works maybe 5 hours total. The other 3 hours is a lot of talking, gossip, looking at crane men, taking their pictures, walking around, visiting, going to the lunch room, going to the bathroom, attending meetings that accomplish nothing, talking on the phone, IMing, emailing, looking at the internet and general merriment. So I really don't have the time to allot to his need to talk about every reason why he should or shouldn't take his cat to the vet. Just take your cat in.

"Take her in," I said.

"I don't want my other cat to get sick, he's sooooo old," he told me.

"Take her in," I said.

Then I realized I should be nice. I asked him a few questions about his cat's sneezing and overall demeanor, and then said, "Take her in," for the 100th time.

Somewhat satisfied with that answer and after a brief rumination about whether to take her in a cat carrier (she, apparently, pooped and puked all over the inside of the carrier the last time he took her in) or letting her sit on the seat next to him in the car, I mentioned that if she doesn't appreciate cat carriers, she may not appreciate cars either and could go on a rampage while he was driving. He informed me that he brought her home this way and she was fine.

Okay then. By all means.

Later on he showed up at my cube again.

"You're a MOM," he said. "Let me ask YOU."

Wow, I thought, first I'm the food expert, then the cat expert, and now I'm the person who answers only those questions a mom can answer.

"I am. Shoot," I told him.

"I ate mold," he told me

I. ate. mold. This is my first "mom" question. Heck, I ate mold just the other week when a pita pocket turned moldy on me and I didn't realize it until I tasted the grassy, earthy, dirt taste of mold in my mouth.

"You'll be fine," I said.

He proceeded to tell me how big the mold was (not very) and where it was located on the sandwich (crust), to which I responded with telling him he should have just picked off whatever mold was on the crust and ate the rest of the sandwich (and for those of you who throw out a whole chunk of cheese because one corner is moldy - shame!!).

"Oh HONEY, it was all around the crust. I threw it away. I wasn't going to eat THAT," he told me.

"Well, you're going to live," I said.

He walked away mumbling about me telling him to eat a moldy sandwich, which was so not what I said, and that was that.

Why do I attract such madness? Those gluttons for deadpan advice?

So now you know, all food, cat and mold questions should be directed my way.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

One of my girlfriends always calls me to explain every conversation she has IN DETAIL and then asks me to tell her what the other person was thinking. When I tell her they were probably only thinking of themselves, or lunch, she insists that SHE knows what they were thinking, and it's always something bad about her. I guess I am an expert on reading minds. I think we should handle this by offering some obscure, totally crazy advice. "My advice to you, is to start drinking heavily."

Nut Nut said...

Mind reader? Hmm...sometimes I think I'm supposed to be one too.

People who do this drive me nuts. The other day I started throwing out really oddball advicey tidbits to see if they would stick. The person didn't take me seriously, but also didn't get that I was making fun of her.

Kmommy said...

LOL!!! How old is this guy? Too funny!!! he ate mold? He needs more help than you can offer.

Nut Nut said...

How old is he...sadly, he is almost 40. And that makes him older than me.