Recap - Phoebe found an absurd video of a rubber chicken "singing" the theme song from Indiana Jones. I flung little chickens at Phoebe. Phoebe filled every inch of the office with chickens. I replaced Phoebe photographs with ones of Nicolas Cage. I put her stapler in Jello. I tried to scare her with a plastic spider, but that backfired badly. We filled Dan's office with teeth, and Dan scared Phoebe with a rubber snake. And here we are.
Sunday, April 30, 2023
The Great Chicken Wars (Part IX)
Thursday, April 27, 2023
The Great Chicken Wars (Part VIII)
If you're just joining us, here's the recap - Phoebe found an absurd video of a rubber chicken "singing" the theme song from Indiana Jones. I flung little chickens at Phoebe. Phoebe filled every inch of the office with chickens. I replaced Phoebe photographs with ones of Nicolas Cage. I put her stapler in Jello. I tried to scare her with a plastic spider, but that backfired badly. And here we are.
One of the deans in the office, Dan had taken off time here and there throughout the last several months to go to the dentist. Phoebe and I teased him about it.
"Where are you really going, Dan?"
"Yeah. No one goes to the dentist that often!"
It became a running joke in the office. Oh, you're going to the "dentist" again, huh?
"Are you having an affair with the dentist? What's really going on, Dan?"
One day, when Dan was supposedly at the dentist, Phoebe and I decorated his office with teeth. Many, many teeth. What? At least they weren't chickens!
Dan didn't find the teeth amusing, and started planning his payback. The plastic spider with which Phoebe and I had pranked each other gave Dan an idea. With a maniacal laugh and a decidedly evil smile, he brandished a rubber snake. With a length of clear fishing line, he tied it to the legs of Phoebe's chair, pushed in her seat, and carefully set up his phone, framing Phoebe's desk in the screen before pressing record, and walking away, rubbing his hands together like a cartoon villain.
First of all, you have to understand that we live in Florida. Schools are often situated around an outdoor courtyard. I have encountered snakes on school campuses. More than once! We have a family of raccoons on our campus currently. I've seen many stray cats, Sandhill Cranes, vultures, armadillos, hundreds of anoles, and other various creatures on and around school campuses over the years.
We were all out of the office when Phoebe came in and encountered the snake, but it was recorded on Dan's phone. I won't include the video here, but I will say that Phoebe let out a part-English, part-Spanish, part-gibberish expletive that sounded like the pained cry of a wounded animal. And I don't blame her. I would've reflexively jumped out of the second story window had I discovered a snake slithering toward me as I moved my chair away from the desk.
But, you know what they say about payback . . .
Tuesday, April 25, 2023
The Great Chicken Wars (Part VII)
Previously on The Great Chicken Wars, Phoebe found an absurd video of a rubber chicken squawking out the Indiana Jones theme song. She laughed herself silly and thus began her year-long obsession with chickens. Many chicken pranks ensued. Then a stapler was suspended in a pineapple flavored Jello mold.
Because the stapler in Jello just wasn't quite dramatic enough, I borrowed a plastic spider from a teacher who has an entire supply closet full of Halloween decorations because this lady goes ALL OUT for Halloween! I placed the plastic spider on top of a bag of candy in Phoebe's desk drawer.
Then, to give her a head's up, I placed a styrofoam cup on her desk like this -
Now I was not in the office when Phoebe discovered the spider nestled in her candy, but I was told her reaction was a matter-of-fact, "Oh, there's the spider." No reaction! How disappointing. I started thinking of other places to hide the spider that would be more dramatic. Hmmm, or maybe a spider just wouldn't elicit a reaction from her no matter where it was lurking. As I was pondering my next move, I sat down at my desk and grabbed some paperwork to enter on my computer. As I reached for the mouse, I saw a huge spider perched atop the device! I unconsciously and instinctively jumped back and let out a blood-curdling scream that would rival any screech made in any horror movie ever. In fact, you, my reader, most likely heard me from whatever part of the world in which you reside.
Phoebe about fell out of her chair laughing. I glared at her as I grabbed my phone to dial 9-1-1 because I was pretty sure I was in cardiac arrest.
"I can't believe that scared you!"
"It's a huge spider!" I defended myself while clutching my chest.
"But it doesn't even look real! It has GLITTER on it!" Phoebe laughed.
"I think I need to quit," I announced which only made her laugh even harder.
So . . . my spider prank totally backfired on me more spectacularly than Phoebe could have ever imagined or hoped for. And maybe I (a little bit) deserved that.
But I was still going to pay her back.
Monday, April 24, 2023
The Great Chicken Wars (Part VI)
Being such avid fans of The Office, I felt the need to try out a certain prank Jim pulled on Dwight. I wasn't sure it was possible so I had to see if I could actually make it work.
I'm happy to report that it is indeed possible to encase your coworker's stapler in Jello.
Sunday, April 23, 2023
The Great Chicken Wars (Part V)
Wednesday, April 19, 2023
The Great Chicken Wars (Part IV)
Previously on The Great Chicken Wars – Phoebe found a video
of a rubber chicken squawking the Indiana Jones theme song which cracked her
up. She put a pink rubber chicken on my desk. I flung little chickens somewhere near at her. She defiled my lovely, festive Christmas decorations with
chickens, then she got one of the deans involved by inundating her office with
several dozen rubber chickens. That about catches you up.
So Phoebe was out of the office for several days, and being a nice person, I wanted to show her how much we missed her so I decorated her space with paper chickens that were painstakingly cut out and colored.
And, because sometimes you just need to spice up your coworker's pictures.
Phoebe had the audacity to remove the beautiful Nicolas Cage picture right away. So I replaced it with "Asian Jim." (If you're not familiar with The Office, that link will explain it.)I am so good at showing my coworkers I care!
Tuesday, April 18, 2023
The Great Chicken Wars (Part III)
Because I like to crochet various things in order to procrastinate and avoid actual productive activities like cleaning, paying bills, and feeding my daughter I'm a nice person who likes to do kind things for others, I crocheted a chicken hat for my coworker. I'm not sure why since we live in Florida where on any given day, it's roughly the same temperature as the surface of the sun, and no one in their right mind would wear a crocheted hat. And honestly, no one, even if it were 20 below 0, would wear this particular hat in public. But I made it anyway because of the aforementioned procrastination tendencies.
By now it's December so I bring in Christmas decorations to make our office look festive. And what does Phoebe do to my lovingly arranged, festive adornments? She puts ornament "earrings" on the chicken hat, she puts the chicken hat in place of the star on the tree, she fills all the stockings, hung by the chimney with care, with rubber chickens . . .
Saturday, April 15, 2023
The Great Chicken Wars (Part II)
Previously, in the Great Chicken War, we learned how Phoebe split her sides laughing at a video of a rubber chicken squawking the Indiana Jones theme song. This led to Phoebe buying a pink rubber chicken and leaving it as an unexpected surprise on my desk.
Wanting to share the delight of the pink rubber chicken, I
hung it up on the wall along with a sign proclaiming it the office mascot.
Believe me, we see a LOT of crazy stuff here in the discipline office. It can
really get to you after a while so, for our mental well-being, it’s essential to have a little fun now and
then, and what’s more fun than squeezing a rubber chicken that makes the
torturous wail you would make yourself if you weren’t afraid of getting fired?
Did you know that Amazon sells chickens of all sorts? And
for a small fee, they will deliver, right to your door, a whole bag of
flingable rubber chickens. And let me tell ya, these things can FLY! Unfortunately,
I have terrible aim. Ask my kids. Ten years after this happened, they still
talk about the time I made them sit at the top of the stairs Christmas morning
while I poured myself a cup of coffee and got my camera ready before letting
them come down to see what Santa brought. They whined that they were hungry so
I tossed a couple granola bars up the stairs to them. Only, I throw like a girl monkey and the granola bars landed on the second step. Then down the hallway toward
the kitchen. Then off to the side in the laundry room. Then on the fifth step up, until I finally just walked the damn things up to the poor starved
children.
So at work, I grab one of my new flingable chickens, stretch it out, and let it fly. It nosedives into the floor nowhere near my coworker’s desk. I grab a second one and slingshot it across the room toward the front door. Again, it doesn't land in the vicinity of my coworker. Stretching out a third chicken, I hold it close to my face, focusing as if I’m staring down the barrel of a gun and Phoebe’s desk is in the crosshairs. The tiny rubber chicken takes flight, soaring on a trajectory that appears to be heading in Phoebe's direction. The air is still as the chicken glides gracefully ever-closer to the target. And then it passes her desk and keeps going, smacking the wall with a squish. This catches the attention of Phoebe who looks up toward the wall, then over at me. Her confused expression as I sit there giggling to myself makes me burst out laughing. She sees the chicken sitting on the floor and starts laughing. I'm not sure if her laughter was because of my abominable aim, or because chickens in any form, bring her giddy delight and happiness for unfathomable reasons.
It was great fun. Until Phoebe's retaliation (which was entirely disproportionate to little flying poultry!)
Tune in for the next installment.
Thursday, April 13, 2023
The Great Chicken Wars (Part I)
I carefully walk around the credenza toward my desk, eyes darting to and fro, ever-vigilant of possible booby traps. I scour the surface of my desk, searching for spiders, cockroaches, or any other creature that may be lurking under papers, poised to attack. I cautiously peer under my chair, praying I don’t find a snake coiled, ready to sink its fangs into me. My eyes furtively flick up to the ceiling because you never can tell from which direction an ambush will occur. I feel like Indiana Jones, in The Raiders of the Lost Ark, primed to evade poison darts, a mammoth boulder, and any other perils designed to exterminate me.
What has made me so full of paranoia, you ask? I’ll tell
you. It was a video of a rubber chicken squawking out (ironically) the Indiana Jones theme song.
So my coworker, Phoebe (names have been changed to protect the innocent, and the guilty. The very,
very guilty) is sitting at her desk watching this video, and gasping for air
because she’s laughing so hard. She brings her phone over to me, shows me the
video, which honestly, is completely and absurdly inane. However, I laugh my
head off, not-so-much at the video, but mainly because she’s still laughing so
hard I’m afraid she may stop breathing.
She then shows the video (that still has her in stitches) to
the deans in the office. Rachel looks
at the video, then totally straight-faced, looks at me and Phoebe and says, “I
can’t with you two. I just can’t.” This throws us both into more fits of
laughter. Tears are running down Phoebe’s face in little rivulets, and I’m
pretty sure I’m going to pee my pants if I don’t stop laughing immediately. The
dean clearly thinks we’re unbalanced, and honestly, she may be right.
The other dean, Dan shakes
his head and starts to walk away.
“You don’t think it’s funny?” calls Phoebe to his back as he
retreats to his sanctity of his office.
“Nope,” he said in his best no-nonsense, I’m an important professional voice. (But don’t let
that voice fool you. It isn’t true.)
The next day, I return to my desk after lunch duty. Monitoring a bunch of sixth graders at lunch is well, hmm, how to describe it . . . Think Chris Pratt and the velociraptors in
Jurassic Park. Anyway, I get back up to the office after lunch duty and this is what I see.
I burst out snort-laughing. Because it’s so unexpected (or well, once upon a time, back in those innocent days of September, it was unexpected) to see a random rubber chicken just staring at you, doofy expression on its face, from your computer keyboard.
This incident, of course, did not have me tip-toeing around my desk, scared that something was going to attack me. Oh no, this was just the beginning. This was the start of the Great Chicken Wars. Tune in
tomorrow for the next installment.