Free Food

We have a retreat coming up for work. It is on a random Tuesday, during working hours, so we all will be forced to attend. And it is the entire department of Institutional Advancement. This is a lot of people that typically never converse on a daily basis. Okay, make that a weekly and maybe even monthly basis.

Most of them I will say hello to when passing in the hallway...then I turn to my fellow coworker and ask 'who was that again?'. Without fail I forget their name within moments.

They are luring us downtown to The Toledo Club with the promise of a free breakfast and lunch. They know exactly how to get us. The free food department. It seems that everyone around here uses food to lure us to celebrate something or work on something.

We often have free food in the Alumni office. For example we always celebrate a birthday in the office with a cake at our weekly meeting.

In September alone we have 4 birthdays. I am going to be starting on my winter fat suit early this year.

Two weeks ago it was free pizza to say farewell to a coworker. We all like said coworker. Not the issue. I dont really know that we would have rallied together and made her give us a farewell speech if there wasnt the promise of a free lunch from Gino's.

Either way, she thinks we love her unconditionally. When in reality it might have been the pizza.

For the afformentioned retreat we receive an email last week with the following request:

In an attempt to get to know everyone better and have a little fun in the process, we are going to have an activity at our retreat that I will need everyone’s assistance with. Please send me something special about yourself that people might be surprised to know (examples: I grow orchids as a hobby; Woody Hayes recruited me; I am a certified scuba diver; I am a state champion archer…..)

We will be reading these statements at the retreat and everyone will get a chance to guess who it is. I am going to keep these a secret so that I will be the only one with all the answers.
Thanks…and we want to hear from everyone!!!




Wow, right?




This is quite obviously one of those office workers who just loves doing fun little 'getting to know you games' during meetings.
This kind of stuff makes me sick to my ass.

But this did get me thinking of what my statement is going to be.




**crickets chirping**




Yeah, I have no clue what to say.

I actually have a lot of interesting things about me that I could offer to the group, but I am not sure that they are PC for a department retreat.



What do you think they would think of these?

---I like to dig the lint that collects in my belly button each day and I am saving it all to knit a sweater.

---I wore a dress made entirely made of duct tape to my senior prom.

---I used to wear my jeans backwards just like Kriss Kross.

---I keep my vintage collection of slap bracelets on display in the family room.

---My cats are in my will.

---I clear my ears of wax buildup using a ballpoint pen, who needs to spend money on Q-tips?

(okay, I am not as weird as I let on, only a few of these are true)

(yeah, none of them are true)

But I still have no idea what to tell these people. One persons 'interesting' is another persons lame. I have a feeling this entire meeting will be 'interesting'. I am eagerly looking forward to it.

I will show up and eat their promised food. I can almost guarantee that I will still forget all of their names but I will remember what I ate. The power of food.