Coin Leak
I worked with a fellow once who had a talent for naming people. I can no longer remember his name, but I can still recall some of the monickers he made up for our fellow workers. He took word association to new heights. One guy was called the Admiral. My first take was that the guy was ex-navy, but it was never that simple. The Admiral owned a larger motor boat which no one had seen lately. The cleverness odf the name was its aptness, the guy did come across as a bit of a know-it-all. Another guy was called Spaceman because of the motel cheese incident. Again it was right on. This guy was legend for doing odd things. Odd things in the sense of things almost unthinkably odd. He was the support clerk for the team. He stayed back at headquarters and took care of the miscellaneous duties. He bought and sent out small pocketknifes for everybody in one instance. He had no authority and had done it just because he felt it would be a nice gesture. The federal government doesn't much approve of such ad hoc gestures and he almost lost his job. Another for instance was if he was the driver while we were going out to the job site he would slowly speed up until we would be ripping down some Pacific NW highway at 100 mph. As soon as you noticed and said something he would backoff and then start slowly speeding up again. One day everyone went to the control room for breaktime and someone noticed The Spaceman was missing. Someone looked out the window and there he was dancing on top of the transformer we had been checking earlier. A 500 mw transformer itself provides enough power for small city and it was energized! Most folks don't notice, the live wires in substations are not covered, if you get within a certain distance thousands of volt will arc over and you will drop like the strings were cut on a puppet. A 6 foot man on top a transformer stands awfully close to the overhead wires and eternity. So the guy was a true flake. Oh yeah, the cheese incident. We spent 30 days a month on the road and consequently we stayed in hotels and motels all the time. And guys would bring some of the creature comforts with them and settle down in these various (usually remote) places. The Spaceman had an electric skilet and a large bag of cheese curds. A pound or two of curds in the cooler so that he could fry a big panful up each night. The rancid oil and burnt cheese bothered the other guys so much that one evening someone stapled his power cord. This shorts the circuit and if done right it is hard to detect why the pan no longer works. As luck would have it the antiquated wiring of the motel shorted and all the power was lost for the day and everyone had to retire early. I wonder how many places have that oddball that seems to give everyone else a patina of the normal. A patina that isn't usually deserved.
When I ordered my coffee and "mango mongo" bar a few minutes ago at Starbucks, I took the change in my right hand and then remembered to put it in my left pocket, the one without the coin sized hole. I caught the baristas curious look and added "coin leak". Not brilliant, but it beats mumbling something about a coin sized rip in my pocket. So heres to a more colorful personal dialect.
Post script: Mr. Spaceman was in his forties and lived with his mother and put his entire salary in the stock market. This was back in the last year of the unlamented Jimmy Carter's term.
I worked with a fellow once who had a talent for naming people. I can no longer remember his name, but I can still recall some of the monickers he made up for our fellow workers. He took word association to new heights. One guy was called the Admiral. My first take was that the guy was ex-navy, but it was never that simple. The Admiral owned a larger motor boat which no one had seen lately. The cleverness odf the name was its aptness, the guy did come across as a bit of a know-it-all. Another guy was called Spaceman because of the motel cheese incident. Again it was right on. This guy was legend for doing odd things. Odd things in the sense of things almost unthinkably odd. He was the support clerk for the team. He stayed back at headquarters and took care of the miscellaneous duties. He bought and sent out small pocketknifes for everybody in one instance. He had no authority and had done it just because he felt it would be a nice gesture. The federal government doesn't much approve of such ad hoc gestures and he almost lost his job. Another for instance was if he was the driver while we were going out to the job site he would slowly speed up until we would be ripping down some Pacific NW highway at 100 mph. As soon as you noticed and said something he would backoff and then start slowly speeding up again. One day everyone went to the control room for breaktime and someone noticed The Spaceman was missing. Someone looked out the window and there he was dancing on top of the transformer we had been checking earlier. A 500 mw transformer itself provides enough power for small city and it was energized! Most folks don't notice, the live wires in substations are not covered, if you get within a certain distance thousands of volt will arc over and you will drop like the strings were cut on a puppet. A 6 foot man on top a transformer stands awfully close to the overhead wires and eternity. So the guy was a true flake. Oh yeah, the cheese incident. We spent 30 days a month on the road and consequently we stayed in hotels and motels all the time. And guys would bring some of the creature comforts with them and settle down in these various (usually remote) places. The Spaceman had an electric skilet and a large bag of cheese curds. A pound or two of curds in the cooler so that he could fry a big panful up each night. The rancid oil and burnt cheese bothered the other guys so much that one evening someone stapled his power cord. This shorts the circuit and if done right it is hard to detect why the pan no longer works. As luck would have it the antiquated wiring of the motel shorted and all the power was lost for the day and everyone had to retire early. I wonder how many places have that oddball that seems to give everyone else a patina of the normal. A patina that isn't usually deserved.
When I ordered my coffee and "mango mongo" bar a few minutes ago at Starbucks, I took the change in my right hand and then remembered to put it in my left pocket, the one without the coin sized hole. I caught the baristas curious look and added "coin leak". Not brilliant, but it beats mumbling something about a coin sized rip in my pocket. So heres to a more colorful personal dialect.
Post script: Mr. Spaceman was in his forties and lived with his mother and put his entire salary in the stock market. This was back in the last year of the unlamented Jimmy Carter's term.
posted by garrison at 2:55 PM
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