The Touchdown Duck

The misfits at work do a lot of stupid things. I include myself in the group of misfits.

We have an award that gets passed around work to honor the stupidest things we do - it's called "The Touchdown Duck". The Touchdown Duck was around long before we bought the business, but it's an excellent tradition that we've embraced.

I think in the last year - I've been the recipient of the TDD more than anyone else at work. One time, I received the award for loosing $30K in Quick Books - fear not, my talented aunt was able to recover the funds. Another time, I got the duck (I think I just kept the duck) for not putting stamps on a pile of mail. I certainly received the duck for bringing the granola bars with worms to work and there are probably a hand full of other times too. Who am I kidding? The duck is pretty much permanently on my desk.

Buttin got the duck for dropping his cell phone in a urinal (I guess he really had to talk to someone) and Barbie's husband, Tubby-Tub (again, it's a nickname) got the duck for dropping his cell phone in a Taco Bell trash can. Barbie got the duck for downloading a virus to her computer while trying to gather breaking news about "Sober House". We've had misfits receive the duck for various things - including kicking a rock in our parking lot and shattering our entire glass entry door (as if our place wasn't classy enough without adding a plywood door with screws coming out of it) and for backing one of our vans into a dumpster so hard it collapsed the van door.

Well, I currently have the duck & I'm not sure what I did last to deserve it; however, I think I'm giving the duck to away to our little team of office chefs. Last Friday (July 3rd), I just wasn't having the best day at work (probably stressed out because of bills or lack of naps), but we decided since we were having everyone work - we'd have a BBQ. Everyone likes food! My favorite kind of sausage is V&V, so Buttin made sure that in addition to the hot dogs, hamburgers, shrimp & chicken (geez . . . there were only 10 of us) - he also bought some V&V sausage.

First of all, it took the misfit chefs (I think there were 4 of them) about an hour just to get the fire going (apparently - matches, charcoal and lighter fluid were new concepts). Meanwhile, I'm starving, stressed and quickly approaching grumpy. Finally, around 1:30 - the first batch of food comes into the office. I'll give our little chefs credit - they knew I was hungry and also knew that I loved this particular kind of sausage, so I think they made sure that it was included in the first round.

The sausage, hot dogs and chicken breast all looked like something out of an episode of CSI. To say it was burned would be like me saying cookie dough is just OK. Barbie and Tubby-Tub's 7 year old daughter, Cayman, was also at work and she had a hot dog - she said it tasted like chemicals. Barbie had to go to Jack In The Box to get her some food (which Molly got to eat because Cayman wasn't having a very good day). Anyway, I was so disappointed - my precious - was burnt to a fine crisp. This is sausage that is already completely cooked - the only purpose of grilling it is to warm it up and maybe give it a little of that "chemical" flavor Cayman was talking about. I would have been better off just microwaving my sausage.

Oh well - at least someone else gets the Touchdown Duck.