January 27, 2013

What’s the opposite of teambuilding?

I shouldn’t take it personally but I can’t help it. I’m not intolerant, but if he doesn’t stop that damned sneezing I will crush his larynx. Everybody sneezes. I do sometimes. But this guy sounds like a Quentin Tarantino movie. How can you sneeze like that and not hurt yourself? Imagine sitting in an office and hearing this every fifteen minutes for eight hours, day after day: four sharp reports of staccato gunfire combined with a wheezy whistle and a semi-articulate “a-HN!” that makes it sound approximately human. Almost of this world. Maybe he’s not really sneezing. Satan’s dog is barking at me. I miss my family.

posted by in anger, assholes, etiquette, health | * | 12 comments 

comments

  1. Joel Bernstein on January 27th, 2013 at 10:20 pm

    “wheezy whistle”

  2. Sheila Ryan on January 27th, 2013 at 10:26 pm

    I bet he hurts himself.

  3. Sheila Ryan on January 27th, 2013 at 10:31 pm

    What I’m good at are these filthy dirty coughing fits like the ones that seize old hoboes and rummies. Rasping barks that accelerate till machine-gun paroxysms take hold. Followed by a coda: gurgles and near-retching.

    The way I see it is this: A good coughing spell needn’t always end in expectoration, but it’s a satisfying conclusion to the event.

  4. Sheila Ryan on January 27th, 2013 at 10:34 pm

    Uh, MGS? I’m thinking it’s probably a good thing I’m, like, five hundred miles away and not sharing an office with you.

  5. Michael Grant Smith on January 27th, 2013 at 10:35 pm

    I can’t stand intolerant people.

  6. Michael Grant Smith on January 27th, 2013 at 10:39 pm

    That was a story, a work of fiction. So thanks for thinking it was my voice, because that’s a cool compliment if you did. And shut your fucking sneeze hole.

  7. Michael Grant Smith on January 27th, 2013 at 10:40 pm

    Great Expectorations.

  8. rick neece on January 27th, 2013 at 10:45 pm

    Sneezing is the one perfect place we show up in the world. We don’t control it. It shows up. Sometimes with snot.

  9. rick neece on January 27th, 2013 at 10:50 pm

    In answer to the query? Self-building? There ought to be a rung on the ladder for that.

  10. Sheila Ryan on January 27th, 2013 at 11:23 pm

    I kinda thought it was a made-up story, but you know, I’m like the guy in the Ganesh Versus the Third Reich promo. I don’t always understand what is fiction and what is not.

  11. Sheila Ryan on January 27th, 2013 at 11:27 pm

    “The one perfect place we show up in the world.” That’s so good, Rick. “We don’t control it.”

    Late last night — not real real late, but maybe 1:00 or 1:30, I got into an interesting conversation about the sphincter muscle and its anomalies.

  12. Michael Grant Smith on January 28th, 2013 at 5:48 am

    I’ve been called worse.