Silky

I'm not sure you remember this, but at one time in your life, you were a virgin. And then all of a sudden, you weren't. For girls, I assume it was traumatic and disappointing. Quick and forgettable. Maybe it was painful or is some rare cases, flowery and orgasmic. For guys, it's all exactly the same experience.

For a number of years, I traveled with a science museum exhibit. I was in Syracuse for four months and I met Mike. Mike was the first guy I met on the road that was about my age and had his shit together. He showed me the town and we had an occasional drink occasionally.

Conversation usually turned to girls. And sex.

Mike said that there is only one way to describe how it feels when a boy puts his pee pee inside a girl. Especially that first time. He said it and it didn't sound dirty and it didn't sound bad. It sounded just like I remember it.

Silky.

We laughed because it was true. Later on, we'd be in the middle of a conversation and someone would say, "silky." Normally you would stretch it out: sillllky. It was great to drop it into conversation when there were three or four people in the room. We'd always laugh and then we'd pause because in our minds we would go back to that time. Silky.

My stay was too short and soon I was packing up to leave. Without my knowledge, Mike took a piece of packing tape and slapped it on the side of my traveling filing cabinet. On it he wrote, "Silky." As we were loading the trucks I saw the tape and laughed out loud. I'm sure, because it feels so good to say it, I said out loud, "Silky." And then I paused to think.

Months later my time as exhibit manager was up and I handed the exhibit over to Dave. I trained him for a few days and left the exhibit for the last time.

Dave would call from time to time with questions. One day his question was why the word "silky" was written on the side of the filing cabinet. Telling him was hilarious.

Tonight as I was chatting with Dave via IM, I asked him what story I should write about.

"Silky."

And now I stop and pause to think...

Quart Percentage

I worked at a Baskin-Robbins store in Lancaster back in the late 80’s. The folks at Baskin-Robbins corporate thought that it would be interesting to have a contest to see which store could sell the most pre-pack quarts of ice cream and tied in monetary incentive to ensure that everyone was excited to participate. Our store manager Mike took the bait and set up an in-store contest with all the workers to see who could sell the most quarts.

At the time, I was working about 30-40 hours per week at the store. I would open at 9:00am and work until 5:00pm. I sold a shit load of quarts. Mike kept track of quart sales on a grid and updated it every few days. The entire staff went absolutely out of their way to suggest our customers purchase quarts instead of dipping. It was quite obnoxious.

It was easy to see on the chart that I was way in the lead on quart sales, but Mike had a final column which divided the number of quarts sold by the number of hours worked. When that percentage was factored in, I was in third place. I tried to argue that I worked the slow hours and that quantity should reign, but Mike would have none of that. So I redoubled my efforts and tried to outsell my hours.

In the end, I failed. One of the chicks who worked an average of five hours a week won. There was no prize for second place. Mike said to me, “Sorry, Doug. It’s all about percentages.”

But there was a caramel chocolate crunch lining to the cloud. Mike suggested that if our store won in the region, he would share the wealth. As Mike tallied up the numbers, he saw that we were way ahead in the region. Baskin-Robbins corporate was basing the winner on percentage increase in sales from the previous quarter. By Mike's math, our store was in the lead ahead of all the other stores due to the frenzied sales staff. There was no way we could lose.

Except that we did.

One other Baskin-Robbins store in the region had not sold any pre-packed quarts in the previous quarter. When they finally did sell a few quarts, the fine folks at Baskin-Robbins accounting set their calculators on fire trying to divide by zero. So instead they set the store’s previous quart sales at “1” and you can see that even if they only sold one other quart, their sales would have increased 100%. While our store's sales increased 65% over the quarter, the other store’s sales went up some ungodly percentage because they sold more than one quart. That store was awarded the win and our store was in a distant second place, but there was no prize for second place.

Sorry, Mike. It’s all about percentages.

{Author’s note: Damn right I made up most those numbers. I can’t remember those kind of details from that long ago. The numerical intent is solid. We did get fucked and I did have the most quart sales.}

Honesty is the best policy except that I’m lying

I went to MegaRed and Mike’s Cinco de Mayo party on Saturday. They are awesome hosts and always throw a good party. You can see the photos HERE.

The next day, my wife and I were flipping through the photos. I was pointing out the different people and that we were playing flip cup in the basement and which girls I thought were cute. She was somewhat interested. Then we came to this photo:


And I said, “…and this was the girl I was flirting with.”

Oh boy.

See, my definition of flirting is that I was talking directly to this one (female) person and was making an effort to get her to laugh. I wasn’t attempting to get her in the sack or anything of the sort. We were just standing next to each other during the flip cup game. I was just looking for attention from a very attractive, fun girl. Harmless. Right?

Oh boy.

Miss Sally gave me a look that caused my testes to slide back up into lower intestine and quietly build a nest. I think she said, “Oh? That’s just great.” And she walked off. Her feet left scorch marks in the Pergo.

So now I have two choices:

1. Quit flirting
2. Quit flirting

I think I’m going to have to go with number two.

Let this be a lesson to all you men!!

{Please note: #2 is actually “Quit telling Sally all the truth.” She stops reading after about the 200th word. It’s not like I’m lying. It’s just to protect her from the awful truth that flirting is the only thing I do well.}

{Please note again: I told this story to my co-workers and pleaded my case that I was just flirting harmlessly. Beth walked over and slapped me in the head. I guess the sentiment is Universal.}