keeping up appearances

i want to post something but nothing's really happening these days. except jury duties that i can't speak of... and more or less every minute that i'm not sitting in my car i'm thinking about sitting in my car. speaking of the car, steph drove it to the dealer to have some scratches on the bumper (that were there when we bought it) buffed out this morning, biggin' up my girl, rispeck.

man, nothing happens when you're on jury duty, 'cause everything that happens stays in your head. OH CRAP! i just remembered one thing that DID happen!

we had the day off jury duty today so i was in the office. wah. hoo. anyway, there was a "town hall" meeting wherein a bunch of management tells us what's going on and why we're a great company. afterwards they opened up for a Q&A (which is a comical abbreviation of "question and answer") session with the audience. after a few of the normal "are we addressing some crap i don't really care about but i really love/am pathologically desperate for attention?" sorts of questions from some nerds, we were all suddenly transported to a magical dreamworld. literally.

some guy i've never seen before, with a french accent, decided his question would not be fully understood unless it was preambled with a vivid, five-minute description of a dream he had a few days ago. his anglais confused my ears a little but the short of it was that he dreamed there was a flood and all of us, everyone gathered together for this meeting, were there with him. the waters were quickly rising and all was surely lost until, lo! on the horizon, a boat! a big boat! captained by a man who would grant us sanctuary on his fine schooner if we could provide him with but one, small token... a pan!

luckily for us, we *all* work at Williams-Sonoma, purveyors of fine cookware for 50 years, huzzah! when we brought forth our pan offering the boat man was displeased and barred us from the safety of his vessel, but why?! surely, these pans are pleasing in form and exemplary in utility!

ah, but they aren't GREEN. none shall board this last ship of hope who has not made their product environmentally responsible. upon this revelation, he violently awoke, drenched in a cold sweat...

seriously, he said that. the amazing part was while we were all still slightly dazed by the vision and before we could collapse into convulsive laughter, one of the executives actually started answering the question that was buried deep within the hypnotic tale: yes, we are addressing the issue of making our products "green" because, and this is key, that is a BIG TREND RIGHT NOW.

no, not due to any moral imperative or to gain passage on a big boat when the flood comes, rather, to enable us to sell more crap. to hippies with lots of money, apparently.