We have a winner!

OK- If feeling a glutton for punishment- go to http://www.charminggeek.net/post627.htm and double click on this carrot image. You will either love or hate the carrot song.....


There are several "nevers" in the world that are accepted as universal truths.

Never enter into a land war in Asia. (It's hell getting take-out delivered)

Never play poker with a guy whose first name is the same as a state's e.g. Chicago Slim or Minnesota Fats (who- if both are present in a room simultaneously cancel each other out - this is known in the gambling world as a "full house
flush")

And

Never wear your best white shirt (which is a killer to iron but that you will not trust to your dry cleaner- a man who knows where all your stains are buried and how they got there- still deemed not quite worthy to iron THIS one..) because you have several back to back high mucky-muck meetings and an after work liason with an estranged friend and want to look "FANTASTIC".

Because you will work straight thru lunch- order from the sushi place- and get CARROT GINGER DRESSING down the front. For those of you who do not eat in sushi restaurants, this is the substance for which Agent Orange was named. The salad dressing moved with lightning speed from my chopsticks directly down the front of my shirt with a short but meaningful stop down the inside of my shirt. Why oh why did I eat salad with CHOPSTICKS (because you were too lazy to dig for the fork in the bag. Shut up. I hate when the little voices get OUT of my head- but if I up the meds they disappear and then I kind of miss them... )

I ran- as quickly as I could to the ladie's room and patted (not rubbed) the multitude of orange specks off the front of my beloved shirt. Now I was soaked- but the stains seem to have been demolished. Breathing slightly slower I walked back to my desk pulling the wet shirt a bit away from me to mitigate what I thought was a mere translucency and ran into...

OK. I wasn't sure WHICH VP he was. There seem to be a half dozen or so guys on the other side of the hall I SHOULD know. The Big Kahunas. Truth be told I wasn't sure he wasn't the company's CEO- as I had only seen him once and that was the day I started. I WILL get to know them all on sight but this one- nothing, nada, ZIP. And worse- he GREETED me by name. "MELANIE!" he said. How's it going? He smiled. I smiled back. "Hi there!" I said trying really hard not to let on... scratching desperately at the little gray cells for a CLUE.. "Thanks for the e-mail- you were really on it..." he smiled. I cringed. I have sent out about a million e-mails and that was just in the past 2 hours... He mentioned something about being on the road and glad to get the information, not generally a policy, etc... AHA- light at the end of the tunnel! I had made an erroneous (but small) assumption last week and he noted it in a reply e-mail at the end of the week. I knew who this was. As my boss said- if he CAUGHT your mistake he meant he was READING your e-mails- a really good thing for a rookie to have happen. I thanked him for his understanding of my greenhorn error and he was very gracious and smiling as he walked away.

I walked into my office terribly pleased that I had pulled off a teensy coup. My office-mate turned as I walked in and her eyes went wide.

"Is that a LIME GREEN bra?" she whispered.

And thus we have the winner of my new company's first wet white shirt competition. Lime green. Sheesh.