The Official Rick Bell Blog

The Dark

Alone, I sit motionless in my chair. It’s dark. Not dim, but thick, heavy, black. If light is energy, the darkness that envelopes me is the complete absence of activity.  Darkness so thick that it matters not if my eyes are open or closed. Darkness so impenetrable that even my dreams are robbed of color.

It hasn’t always been this way. As a child I knew light. Bright, sun-filled days at the park. The soft glow from a lamp as my mother read to me at night. Even as I slept, a nightlight thoughtfully placed by caring parents brightened my dreams.

But that was long, long ago. Black is all I know now. Not even the smallest fleck of light could pierce the thick, cold walls of the room I call home. I sit motionless and alone. I pray to die.

My prayers go unanswered. I still draw breath. Then, the smallest spark of a thought… “look for a switch… find the light.”

I arise. My legs, heavy from sitting for countless days, buckle at first then take strength. I move forward, arms outstretched. Five, six, seven paces. I touch the wall that surrounds me.

My hands search vigorously. Nothing. Nothing. Then I brush against it. Not a switch or touch plate like I knew in my childhood home, but a knob. A knob that resists attempts to turn it counterclockwise but has some give when turning it to the right. Apprehensively I give it a twist. It moves a half of a turn--180 degrees. Then resistance. As I release my grip it begins to click--the rapidly repeating click of a kitchen timer.

At first there is only clicking. Then a bright burst emanates from the center of the room. My eyes are ill prepared to handle this illumination. I blink uncontrollably as I turn to face the light. Dark. Light. Dark, dark. Light.

Slowly the room comes into focus. Where I had imagined cold, dark walls stand rows and rows of heavily-laden bookshelves. Tables dot the room--strewn with paper, pens, paint and brushes.

What I had called an empty, lifeless prison now beckons me to read, write, paint and create.

For hours I devour every distraction the room has to offer. My dark, depressed thinking leaves me. I am alive for the first time in years.

Abruptly the soft clicking stops. The light flickers and then all goes dark.  But not as dark as before… now my thoughts have color. I remember the knob. I must get back to the knob.

Stumbling through the dark I find the wall and search madly for that knob. My hand finds it way. I turn the knob as far as it goes. The light returns.

This time I examine the knob closer. Hash marks and numbers are engraved on the underlying plate. Zero at the top, twenty-four at the bottom. Twenty four hours at a pop? Is that all I am given?

With this discovery comes thoughts, concerns, and a tinge of anger. Why a timer and not a switch? Why am I a servant to the knob? I should be able to turn the light on and off as I please. Why this continual resetting?

I turn to the light bulb in the middle of the room.  I hadn’t investigated this closely before. What kind of light bulb is it? What is its brand?

I try to examine it closer but the light blinds me. How am I supposed to enjoy something I don’t understand?

Then more doubt and concern. What is it that causes this light to burn so brightly?  Electricity? I’ve never quite understood electricity. I search the shelves for a dictionary. Finding one, I search for answers to my questions.

Electricity: A general term for a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge… well that was helpful. Even my big fat dictionary can’t clarify this mystery.

How can I depend on something I can’t understand? I hate the light. Light that had left me for so long. Light powered by a force that won’t reveal itself to me.

The timer expires. I knew it would. But this time I welcome the black. The blackness understands me. It never leaves.

I sit. I wait. My thoughts lose their color. I am alone. I am home.

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The Sock Drawer

It bordered on pure genius.

Since the invention of protective, yet decorative foot coverings in 1647, man has struggled with MSS--missing sock syndrome. Unless you shop at the 49-cent store, socks come in pairs. Yet regardless of how careful you are, pairings often fail to materialize after wash day.

I had a drawer full of uncoupled socks waiting for their mates to return. Then the brainstorm hit. Why buy a variety of socks? All a married, heterosexual man with no prospects of hitting it big on the party circuit needs is three kinds of socks—black, tan and white.

I don’t need designs and patterns. Argyle socks are for primping little pansies. Real men only need black, tan and white.

So off I went in search of the perfect sock. As with most important quests, the path eventually led to Costco. Where else can one undertake life-altering expeditions while enjoying free samples of spiral-cut ham and chicken wings?

August 3rd, 2006. That was the day I discovered GoldToe® brand dress socks. Comfortable, perfectly-fitted dress socks in black and tan. I bought 16 pairs of black and 16 pairs of tan. Throw in a 24-pack of white tube socks and I was set.

If I loose a sock, no worries? The stray will still have dozens of potential mates. Given a loss rate of 4 socks per year, I was good for five years plus… then it’s time for new socks anyways.

I had conquered the frustration of the missing sock. I was in control.

“Rick, your socks don’t match.”

What the heck? Did my wife just say what I think she said?

“You’ve got one navy blue sock and one black one.”

She’s crazy. I donated all my old socks to charity. I only own black, tan and white. Today it’s black’s turn.

“Look for yourself. The socks don’t match.”

I decided to humor her. Black and navy blue are sometimes hard to distinguish so I thought it best to remove the socks and hold them up to the sunlight streaming though the kitchen window.

I pitied her. She seemed so sure of herself. Little did she know I had devised the perfect system. I was the master of the sock drawer.

“What the… ?”

It couldn’t be. The distinctive gold toe pattern notwithstanding, I was looking at one black and one navy blue sock. Maybe a stray hadn’t made its way to the charity bin. This had to be an aberration.

I rushed to the sock drawer. Grabbing all the “black” pairs, I made my way to a window.

Of the eight active pairs (eight were still in the packaging awaiting their call to duty) four were mismatched. It couldn’t be. I had been duped. Somewhere along the line, a four pack of navy blue socks had made it into the rotation.

I assumed I had only bought black, so each morning as I dressed I saw black. When I folded my laundry, I never bothered to take a closer look--dark socks went together. For months I was oblivious to the mismatch.

If my wife spotted the difference so easily, what were they thinking at work?

“He says he goes to the gym every day at lunchtime, but he’s still fat.”

“Yeah, and his socks never match.”

“Promotion? Why would I consider him for promotion? He’s a balding, fat boy who can’t match his socks.”

Darn those buyers at Costco. I had the perfect plan. I was going to master the sock drawer. I was going to master my life.

The Bath

The water was soothingly warm. Not to hot, no trace of a chill. Enveloped by lavender-scented bubbles I slid down under the water. As I sat back up and wiped the remnants of bubbles from my eyes she stepped out from behind the shower curtain where she had been waiting unnoticed.

Startled, I began to protest. “Shush,” she said, “Let me take care of you.”

Her hands, caressing my neck, brought much needed release from the tension that had been welling up over the past few weeks. A new job, a new house, no blogs.

As she lathered up my hair and gentle scrubbed my scalp I found myself escaping to a place I had not visited in years. No stress. Only calm and peace. As she rinsed my hair I let go of the worries of the day.

Her soapy finger worked out the knots of worry tied up in my shoulders. I had wanted some time alone. Now I savored the company of another.

Then she shaved me. I had never been at ease enough to let another bring a razor to my face. But I was completely under her spell. It liberated me to trust another so completely.

“Would you like me to wash your back,” she asked softly? The words were unnecessary. She could anticipate my every wish, my every desire.

I was being transported to another realm only to be jarred back to the harsh reality of the electronic age by the blaring ring tone from my cell phone.

“What!” I barked into the receiver.

“Is that anyway to greet your wife?” said the voice on the other line.

“I’m sorry,” I stammered, “I just wasn’t expecting anyone to call.”

“Well I just calling too… what’s that noise? Are you in a pool?”

“I’m taking a bath.”

“Alone?”

“Of course I’m alone.”

“Rick,” came the hurt voice of the woman next to me, “Are you embarrassed of your own mother?”

“YOU ARE TAKING A BATH WITH YOUR MOTHER!”

“It’s not like that,” I stammered. “She just came in to help.”

“YOUR MOTHER!”

“Why is she carrying on like that?” exclaimed my mom. “I gave birth to you. I can give my baby boy a bath once in a while.”

I slid back under the foam, taking my cell phone with me.

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Pants Down Guy

Who am I?

Every time I go to lunch with people from work the topic of discussion quickly digresses from work-related issues to blatant gossip about our coworkers who made the fatal mistake of not going to lunch with us. It was at lunch that I learned that a consultant I work closely with is known for gawking at women’s cleavage. The women here women call him “The Perve.”

Today, we somehow got on the subject of men’s bathrooms. I was at the table, so it’s not surprising that we got off on such a tangent. For the most past we covered the basic rules of etiquette for urinal usage—eyes straight ahead, no talking, and, if at all possible, leave at least one empty urinal between each urinal in use.

Our bathrooms at work feature three urinals. I had to explain to our female coworkers the difficulties encountered if you walk in and find the two urinals furthest apart occupied, with the middle one free. Of course it’s appropriate to take charge of the middle urinal. The fear, however, is that the people to the left and right of you will finish before you do. Once they leave, it appears as if you made the terribly inappropriate decision to just traipse in and occupy the middle urinal—thus eliminating the one urinal barrier option for any one following behind.

I hate being forced into the position of using the middle urinal. Unless you can do your business quickly—a very difficult proposition as my urethra narrows with age—you are almost always certain to be caught hogging the middle position with no one on either side to justify your positioning. But I digress.

Today at lunch we learned about a man who is a living legend at our Pasadena offices. Maybe you’ve heard of him. They call him “Pant Down Guy.”

Pant Down Guy, as the name might suggest, pulls his pants down to his ankles before using a urinal—thus exposing all newcomers to the urinal party to his gleaming white buttocks. I’ve made it 43 years using all sorts of public restrooms, and I have never seen such a thing. I nearly choked to death on a lump of sushi when I heard about this guy.

One of my coworkers, Ed, nailed my thoughts when he blurted out, “What is he… four years old?” No kidding. Who drops trousers once they stop getting escorted to the potty by mommy or daddy? They make zippers and little openings in the front of your man panties for a reason. Did he do this in grade school? How did he survive unscathed?

What’s sad is that like The Perve, Pants Down Guy has to go through life with a label that is never going away. If we’re hearing about this guy who works 600 miles from us, you know each and every one of the 2500 employees at his home office know him as Pants Down Guy.

Once I had my laugh though, fear set in. If he has a label, and if The Perve has a label, what are my coworkers calling me?

I’m sure I’ve been sighted picking at my nose—“The Picker?” There has been some incidents with bodily emissions—‘Stinky?” Until I started going to the gym two months ago, my wife use to point out that I looked to be about nine months pregnant. Am I “Pregnant Man” to my coworkers?

I wish. I suspect that my label has more to do with my sexual orientation. Today alone I had one contractor point out that I am the most feminine straight guy he knows. Not 10 minutes later, another coworker was asking me if I have ever heard the song “Woman Like a Man” by Damien Rice. She noted that the title reminded her of me.

I shudder to think what label follows me around.

5 Wickedly Fun Office Pranks

Ten years ago I left the comfort of a corporate corner office to begin a life running a computer consulting practice. The pay was better, but no longer did I have an office door to block out the inane activities of, how should I say, cubicle trolls. (Consultants get the worst seats in the place.)

Life as a consultant means life in cubicle land –-a disturbing world where humans are confined to little stalls better suited for raising calves for their veal than housing employees. Although they are billed as open, collaborative work environments, I believe cubicles are in fact part of a malicious social experiment designed to bring out the worst in human behavior. Petty infighting abounds as trolls jockey for the “manager” cube with three extra square feet of space or push for a seating reassignment so that they can get the prized cube with the partially obstructed window view overlooking a dreary parking lot.

There was a time when I aspired to be the next Hemingway or James Joyce. A time when I thought my words on paper might inspire a generation. Now I blog about urine-tainted canteen water and lacing my son’s Oreo’s with Tabasco. Not surprisingly, my creative output took a sad, juvenile downturn at the same time I was thrown into a world of five-by-seven holding pens. A hellacious existence where privacy is non-existent and broken wind is shared by all.

Dehumanizing as it is, cube life is my reality. I’m no better than a Foster Farm chicken being raised for slaughter…

In these life-force-sucking conditions it’s not surprising that my fellow corporate clones tend to work my rather raw nerves on a frequent basis. Now, instead of seeking to uplift and inspire those around me, I spend much of my time plotting their downfall.

Unfortunately, my creative force has been so drained I’ve found myself unable to conjure up ingenious ways to torment those around me. So to the Internet I turned. Surely I could Google me up some creative maliciousness. Sadly, though a search of “office pranks” turns up thousands of hits, few, if any, fired my imagination. For two hours I YouTube-d every office prank video I could find. Apparently the best minds of my generation are running on empty. 437 YouTube entries played out the theme of wrapping cubicles in cellophane or foil. Food storage products! That’s the best you can come up with?

Of course there were also countless clips involving encasing a favorite stapler or mug in Jell-O. That was funny the first time I saw the idea on the BBC version of The Office. It was mildly amusing on the American version of the same program. Now, it’s about as laugh inducing as this:

(Dude, good news... your YouTube video made it on my blog. Bad news. It's an example of the fecal matter that's cluttering up YouTube.)

Typical of the Internet, I found quantity, but the quality was sorely lacking. So off to the 7-11 I went. Quickly downing two 24 oz cans of Rockstar and taking a long hit off a can of Redi-Whip I was ready to do me some brainstorming. Here, for your enjoyment, is the best my Guarana Seed Extract/nitrous oxide fueled mind can create:

1. Torment the know-it-all. Book smarts and common sense rarely go hand in hand. Need to knock Mr. I’d-do-it-this-way down a peg? Try the inverted Log In screen:

A. Get a screen shot of your company's default log in screen (most variations can be Googled).

B. Rotate the image 180 degrees in Microsoft Paint or Snagit (whichever is handy.)

C. Save it as the default screen saver on your target’s PC.

D. When they notice it, encourage them to call the helpdesk immediately as they most likely have encountered the “Sev-180” virus.

E. Enjoy as the Help Desk makes them feel "this" big.

2. UnSave the Religious Zealot. You know the one… They have the little Footprints in the Sand poem taped to the side of their PC or a praying hands figurine prominently displayed on their desk. I’m all for freedom of religion, but I also like to be free from other people’s religion. So I did a little coding. Download the attached (virus free) Zip file, Download thebigO.zip   unzip the contents and burn it to CD.  Insert the CD into your victim’s CD drive when she isn’t looking. The CD will work like this:

A. The enclosed batch file counts down 300 seconds (you can modify the .bat file to any number of seconds you like).

B. When the time is expired, their PC's volume will be set to the maximum level.

C. Windows Media Player is opened and a clip of Meg Ryan in the throws of fake ecstasy (the clip from When Harry Met Sally) will play. (You can modify the .bat file and add any mp3 or wav file you choose BTW.)

Timing is everything. I suggest inserting the CD just before the target heads back from lunch. You’ll have the whole office wondering “Just what websites is she browsing when she’s supposed to be working?” (Note: CSI got you worried about leaving fingerprints on the CD? Just wait until they leave their workstation unattended and send mass “I’m praying for your lost, sin-encrusted soul” or "I'm not wearing any pants" emails from their account.)

3. Give the Speaker Phone Abuser his comeuppance. Tired of the coworker who loves to listen to his voicemail via speakerphone? (You know, the self important one.) Having worked in telecom for a few years I observed that about 70% of voicemail users set their voicemail PIN to the last four digits of their phone number. This tidbit in mind, here’s a little gotcha:

Log in to their voicemail and change their out going greeting as follows: “Hi, this is (fill in the name) and I am looking for boys 12-14 who like to experiment. Please leave a brief message and I will get right back to you.” Sit back and enjoy as they listen to their incoming messages after that. (Oh, just for fun, change their PIN so that they can’t change their greeting…). (Don’t know their PIN? Have a friend leave the raciest voicemail you can think up… watch how quickly they take THAT call off speaker phone.)

4. Derail the fast tracker. Jealous of someone who’s moving up the corporate food chain a little too fast? Why wallow in your petty little resentments when you can knock them off that fast track for good.

A. Log on to AdultFriendFinders.com and open an account in their name.

B. Be sure to use their actual name frequently in the spiciest profile you can write. (Lots of references to “I’m up for anything, anytime.”)

C. Google and paste a very sexy picture to your newly-created profile.

E. Place the email address and phone # of your target’s immediate supervisor prominently in the profile.

E. Sit back and enjoy as nature takes its course and you find yourself leapfrogging your former nemesis up the corporate ladder. (If you are too cheap to pull this off, save every random receipt you can gather for six months and submit a phony expense report in your target’s name... same result, minus the $79 annual fee for Adult Friend Finders (not that I know what the annual fee is BTW)).

5. Start the office feud to top all office feuds. If technology isn’t your thing, you can go low tech. Start stealing food from the communal refrigerator. Do it for a few weeks to make sure everyone gets riled up. Then, when you know your target will be away from his or her desk during lunchtime, steal something very distinguishable (like a Lean Cuisine box with someone’s name written on it). Dump the food and leave the empty box on your target’s desk. Call attention to your “discovery.”

Then again, you could stop being so petty, stop reading blogs when you should be working and start thinking about growing up… but where’s the fun in that?

(Got a better prank? Leave us a comment)

Tired of Beyonce-fied Corporate Pop? Treat yourself...

Thank You Joyce Rebhun - Tax Attorney

My thanks to Joyce Rebhun for helping me address a back tax issue. She did an excellent job handling my appeal. Thorough and detail oriented.

(New post on the latent bigotry behind teeth whitening coming this weekend...)