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| The Ballad of Webster |
Ever met someone so absurdly stupid that everything they say results in you sending out a
mass email to all your friends telling them what the person said, on a daily basis, strictly as a
means to preserve your sanity and ability to utilize the English language? As you’ve assuredly
guessed by now, unless you yourself are as dumb as the person in question, I have.
It all started one cold January morning. I’d worked with this woman, let’s call her Webster, for
several months. She’d had a history of saying things that weren’t exactly intellectually
stimulating, but I usually just ignored her. But that morning, she said something so moronic
that it penetrated down through the thick layer of disinterest I’d managed to build up and
stabbed me in the brain.
She was having a protracted conversation with the woman on the other side of me, who merits
at least a paragraph of ridicule of her own. I'll refer to her as Shamu. As you may have
guessed, Shamu was not so much a person as a monument to indiscrete self-indulgence. You
would’ve needed a livestock scale to weigh her because she easily topped five hundred
pounds. I know this because one of my coworkers had accompanied her on the one (1) trip
she’d ever made to the gym in her life and spied her stepping on the scale. It couldn't count
that high.
I lack sympathy for most fat people because unless they have a legitimate medical condition,
the state they’re in is their own damn fault. Don’t come crying to me because you can’t put
down the damn sandwich and take a walk around the block. In Shamu’s case, I lacked even
more sympathy than usual because she was a dense, sycophantic, shit-talking, back-stabbing,
chin-hair-plucking sponge with a very bad weave. To make matters worse, she was from
Idaho and made dubious claims about being from the ghetto and having connections to
organized crime (her uncle was the Don of the Black Mafia in Arizona), despite her valley girl
accent. What pissed me off even more was that she got paid more than me.
But I digress. Webster was telling Shamu all about her family (who all live to be one hundred
years old while simultaneously dying young from cancer) when she got on the subject of her
mother. Apparently her mother was constantly shacking up with all sorts of different men, but,
as Webster said, she didn’t “condone or dis-adone anything she [did].” The word dis-adone
planted a fire under my ass that made me immediately run downstairs and tell everyone I saw.
At first, people thought I was joking. No one wanted to believe that someone who worked at
our company could say something that dumb. They gradually started to believe me because
every day from that point on, without fail, she would vomit steaming piles of stupidity and make
me spend my whole day gagging on the fumes.
I did learn a lot from her, though. For example, apparently she had to overcome a lot of
opticles to get to where she is today. She didn’t get furyalized when things didn’t work out for
her at first. Her husband was in the military, so she had smit her resume to lots of different
companies in lots of different places. Some were yoonyalized, some weren’t.
One day her husband (okay, a quick word on him: he was definitely either a crack addict or
completely devoid of any trace of personality) called and told her they were getting transferred
to Germany. This prompted a monologue so ignorant I had to sit on my hands to keep them
from involuntarily stabbing her in the neck with a pair of scissors. Apparently, they have a
whole different coacher over there. They speak Germanese and measure vehicle speeds in
perimeters per hour. But in spite of the coacheral differences, she was pretty sure she’d be
able to get countercustomed. Just when I thought she was done, she capped it all off with
“when I go over there I’m going to have to get the steering wheel in my car switched from the
left side to the right.”
Do me a favor. Sit back in your chair and think about that for a second. Just think about it. If
that statement doesn’t make you want to throttle somebody then there’s something seriously
wrong with you.
For four months, I was enraged and entertained daily. But all good things must come to an
end. I went on vacation to San Diego for a week, and when I got back I found out that Webster
had quit.
Apparently she got into a heated argument with my boss over what moisturizer does. My boss
took the position that moisturizer moisturizes your skin, while Webster maintained that it
actually dried out your skin. After a spirited debate, Webster chose to end her employment at
my company and by extension her association with me. She didn’t even leave her email. I had
really been looking forward to forwarding her emails to all of my friends so they could laugh at
her.
Three months after Webster left, I got a phone call. She was calling me from Belgium (her
husband ended up being sent there and not to Germany). She told me she was all settled, got
a new job and everything. She was good, the kids were good. And it turns out the steering
wheel didn’t have to be switched over after all. They drive on the right side of the road in
Belgium (or, as Webster called it, Beljan).
mass email to all your friends telling them what the person said, on a daily basis, strictly as a
means to preserve your sanity and ability to utilize the English language? As you’ve assuredly
guessed by now, unless you yourself are as dumb as the person in question, I have.
It all started one cold January morning. I’d worked with this woman, let’s call her Webster, for
several months. She’d had a history of saying things that weren’t exactly intellectually
stimulating, but I usually just ignored her. But that morning, she said something so moronic
that it penetrated down through the thick layer of disinterest I’d managed to build up and
stabbed me in the brain.
She was having a protracted conversation with the woman on the other side of me, who merits
at least a paragraph of ridicule of her own. I'll refer to her as Shamu. As you may have
guessed, Shamu was not so much a person as a monument to indiscrete self-indulgence. You
would’ve needed a livestock scale to weigh her because she easily topped five hundred
pounds. I know this because one of my coworkers had accompanied her on the one (1) trip
she’d ever made to the gym in her life and spied her stepping on the scale. It couldn't count
that high.
I lack sympathy for most fat people because unless they have a legitimate medical condition,
the state they’re in is their own damn fault. Don’t come crying to me because you can’t put
down the damn sandwich and take a walk around the block. In Shamu’s case, I lacked even
more sympathy than usual because she was a dense, sycophantic, shit-talking, back-stabbing,
chin-hair-plucking sponge with a very bad weave. To make matters worse, she was from
Idaho and made dubious claims about being from the ghetto and having connections to
organized crime (her uncle was the Don of the Black Mafia in Arizona), despite her valley girl
accent. What pissed me off even more was that she got paid more than me.
But I digress. Webster was telling Shamu all about her family (who all live to be one hundred
years old while simultaneously dying young from cancer) when she got on the subject of her
mother. Apparently her mother was constantly shacking up with all sorts of different men, but,
as Webster said, she didn’t “condone or dis-adone anything she [did].” The word dis-adone
planted a fire under my ass that made me immediately run downstairs and tell everyone I saw.
At first, people thought I was joking. No one wanted to believe that someone who worked at
our company could say something that dumb. They gradually started to believe me because
every day from that point on, without fail, she would vomit steaming piles of stupidity and make
me spend my whole day gagging on the fumes.
I did learn a lot from her, though. For example, apparently she had to overcome a lot of
opticles to get to where she is today. She didn’t get furyalized when things didn’t work out for
her at first. Her husband was in the military, so she had smit her resume to lots of different
companies in lots of different places. Some were yoonyalized, some weren’t.
One day her husband (okay, a quick word on him: he was definitely either a crack addict or
completely devoid of any trace of personality) called and told her they were getting transferred
to Germany. This prompted a monologue so ignorant I had to sit on my hands to keep them
from involuntarily stabbing her in the neck with a pair of scissors. Apparently, they have a
whole different coacher over there. They speak Germanese and measure vehicle speeds in
perimeters per hour. But in spite of the coacheral differences, she was pretty sure she’d be
able to get countercustomed. Just when I thought she was done, she capped it all off with
“when I go over there I’m going to have to get the steering wheel in my car switched from the
left side to the right.”
Do me a favor. Sit back in your chair and think about that for a second. Just think about it. If
that statement doesn’t make you want to throttle somebody then there’s something seriously
wrong with you.
For four months, I was enraged and entertained daily. But all good things must come to an
end. I went on vacation to San Diego for a week, and when I got back I found out that Webster
had quit.
Apparently she got into a heated argument with my boss over what moisturizer does. My boss
took the position that moisturizer moisturizes your skin, while Webster maintained that it
actually dried out your skin. After a spirited debate, Webster chose to end her employment at
my company and by extension her association with me. She didn’t even leave her email. I had
really been looking forward to forwarding her emails to all of my friends so they could laugh at
her.
Three months after Webster left, I got a phone call. She was calling me from Belgium (her
husband ended up being sent there and not to Germany). She told me she was all settled, got
a new job and everything. She was good, the kids were good. And it turns out the steering
wheel didn’t have to be switched over after all. They drive on the right side of the road in
Belgium (or, as Webster called it, Beljan).
Comments? Email me at Admin@SurlyTaco.com
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