Q & A Monday

I have thoroughly enjoyed Q & A Mondays. Much like my Ipod after work, I’m glad I brought it back. It’s a simple concept really, I ask you for questions, you provide them and I answer them with as little effort possible. And that leads to me a little issue with this week’s Q & A session. You see, as I detailed above, the whole process depends on my asking you for questions and then you submitting them.

Hence the little dilemma I am facing this week. Apparently, (and I blame the Olympics and possibly the higher prices for corn) I forgot to ask you for questions at the end of last week. In fact, I straight up completely neglected to mention it. While I enjoyed writing last Thursday’s post, I can assure you that the joy was not great enough for me to have forgotten to remind you to send me your burning questions. Inadvertently, I extinguished the questional flame. I realize that questional is not a word and that I probably just mixed metaphors for burning and stuff, but it just goes to show how completely amiss I am starting at this week.

Will I ever be able to forgive myself for such a heinous and woeful lack of respect for you, the question submitting public, with my inexcusable lack of mental recall last week, you ask. Well, sure, it’s just bunch of questions. Ok, I didn’t mean that. Clearly, I’m just using rudeness and meanness to hide my shame. I have no excuse; I even have MS Outlook and could have sent myself a reminder through its calendar. Don’t worry though because I have learned something from this embarrassing situation. I just can’t remember what it is because I forgot to use that Outlook calendar thing again to remind me. Perhaps it’s time to hire a personal assistant. You know the kind I mean, right? The one that will show up for me at work, the dentist, my funeral and all the other places I don’t look forward to going to. That way, I will only have to focus on reminding myself about upcoming things that I do not want to forget. I won’t be able to pay this person much, but I will share my cheese, which as well know is the strongest show of love and respect that one person can bestow upon another. Well, other than linking them or mentioning them on your blog. But cheese tastes better.

Fortunately every cloud as a silver lining, every tunnel has a ray of light at it’s end and that little piece of mold can be cut off the block of cheese without harming the rest of it. Somehow, through the darkest of times, I received two questions for the week even though I forget to remind you all. Does the fact that the two questions came from longtime beloved readers of this blog WHO HAPPEN TO BE MARRIED? Yes, most likely, but that’s not the point here. The point is that I do have to questions to answer this week and I shall get to them now…

First up this week is Patti who asks ‘I know this is a bit personal, Michael, but since you brought up the topic here, how tall are you?’ She also asked 'I've often wondered how the makers of the TV commercials for AFLAC get the duck to quack on cue? Any idea?
Yes, it is a bit personal, but then so is telling everyone I got in trouble for blogging at work in about every third post I write. Patti, I am 7 feet two inches tall. That of course is in kilometers or meters or whatever that other measuring system is that they use in the Olympics and high brow places like France and Target, thereby giving all of us Americans no clue or unit of measurement to base the Olympic distances on. In our world of measurement, I am a 4-year-old oak sapling, plus 2 branches. Alright fine, I am 5 feet 6 inches tall and am tired of repeatedly telling people to stop being taller than me. Constantly showboating their tallness is just plain rude.

The Aflac duck is a very good question. I’m pretty sure it’s through some form of electrocution. It really is the best way to get people to do something they don’t want to. Although I’m sure to be fair, the Aflac people would refer to it as ‘electrical line delivery stimulation,’ but it’s still the same thing.

Our second and last question this week comes from Patty’s husband Ralph. I’m actually not even sure his recent blog comment was meant to be a question for today, but when times are tough, you don’t turn away the free filet mignon. Ralph asked ‘If you take beach volleyball, can you even follow the ball in motion? If you take up javelin, and were good at it, could you finally receive as an aim the respect of your co-workers? Does this mean that your newest co-worker a 'Refuge' from the real Tom Petty? Or is she a real 'American Girl'? Perhaps she 'Won't Back Down'
Wow, as you can see those are all excellent questions and I shall take them on one by one. No, yes, no. Thanks for your questions this week and…ok, I guess I SHOULD respond to them appropriately. It’s not like I’ve got a huge list to tear through this week. I would love to play beach volleyball and probably would not be able to follow the motion of the ball. This will most likely be attributed to that white, lightheaded vision you get after something of great velocity strikes your head.

I would also like to take of javelin and believe I could earn the respect of my coworkers, mainly because they will have no other choice but to respect me after I accidentally impale a judge measuring distance. Seriously, have you all seen that video where the judge has a thrown javelin go straight into his shoulder? I can’t stop laughing whenever I think about that. HELLO! How do you not pay attention when you are down field from someone throwing a large pointy object in your general direction?!

My newest coworker might just be a refugee. Or perhaps she is a traveler, like a Wilbury, just traveling with other Wilburys who are traveling and she happened to travel with those Wilburys to our office. Hmm, sorry if I was a little heavy on the hints there. Or maybe she is the symbolic Alice who fell down a really large manhole cover and landed in our ‘Wonderland.’ I hope you all used your exaggerational air quotes when I just referred to my office as a ‘Wonderland.’ I’m pretty sure she will realize one day that she shouldn’t come around here no more because we have no windows in our ‘Wonderland.’ All the same, please remind me to sing her the Unbirthday Song tomorrow.

Ok, that is this week’s Q &A. Have a great last official week of summer and remember to get those questions in for next Monday. Seriously, I’m going to lose my credibility if I forget to remind you again at the end of the week.