Quickie

We're getting ready for our annual Fourth of July trip to Prudence's parents home in south central Michigan.  We'll be gone a week.  Outside of another 2 day trip to The Henry Ford (our membership - which was cheaper than buying 2 day passes the last time we went - expires 7/6 so we're gonna squeeze a couple more visits in), a whole lot of nothin' will be going on.  We'll play pool (the billiards kind), fish, swim, and do some boating.  We'll attend their small town Fourth celebration and parade - complete with 20-30 tractors, fire trucks, Shriners, horses (and their crap), 2 or 3 marching bands, and some quickly put together floats.  The kids will actually ride in one sponsored by the Kiwanis group Pru's parents belong to.  Looking forward to my mother in law's cooking - German potato salad, cucumber salad, asparagus, etc. - and eating a steak or 2 on the grill. When not doing family stuff, I plan to read, write a post or 2 (several things on my mind), FINALLY organize pictures from Hawaii, and spend some quality time with my beautiful wife.  As I look at what I just typed, it doesn't look very relaxing.  So I better build some sleep time in there as well.  If anyone figures out how to get more than 24 hours out of a day, please let me know :)

But my intention tonight was not to sit down and give you an itinerary of my weekend.  There's a quick story and picture I need to share.  Sometime in the last couple of weeks, Weimie shared an embarrassing story about The Thing That Grew in the Garage Fridge.  It made me think of a few food items in my desk at work that will soon be teenagers.  Let me introduce you to... Banana, Orange, and Mustard Packets.

Banana is the oldest of the group.  Back in the early 1990, when I could still show some restraint in my eating, I occasionally brought in some healthy snack choices.  Banana was one of them.  But apparently there must have been Hostess snack cakes in the vending machine that day and I forgot he was in my desk drawer.  It wasn't until about a year later that I found him when I was moving to a new job within the company.  He was in pretty much the same condition as you see him here.  There may have been a faint odor to him, but you had to get close to smell it.  Since it had lasted this long, and I have a penchant for novelty items like this, I decided to keep him wherever I went in the company.  So here he is at age 12 (going on 13).

Orange's story is similar to B's.  But he was created on purpose.  A coworker who knew about banana "planted" O in my desk, and he wasn't found for 6-8 months later.  He went thru some odd smells.  At first he was rotten, then he became somewhat of a potpourri item.  Ultimately he was left with no smell...which is good thing.  He's about 10 years old.  He gained a 1/2 brother (not pictured) about 8-9 years ago when someone else brought some rotting fruit to my desk.  They could sense I had a soft spot for garbage.

Mustard Packets was given to me 3 years ago when I joined my current work group.  One of the guys after hearing the story of Banana and Orange, brought out his own collection of expired condiment packets and asked that they join the menagerie in my desk.  Who knows how old they are, but then again who cares?  I kinda felt like a parent of 10 kids expecting number 11: what's another biohazard added to the mix?

So there you have it, Weims.  The story of the rancid desk fruit.  Sometime I'll have to share a picture of the crap (yes, literally CRAP) I have on my bookshelf...

I hope everyone has a fun and safe Fourth of July!  See you in a week or so!