Liquid Nonsense

We finally had our employee appreciation afternoon today after having it rescheduled on us twice. The plan involved us leaving the office at around 11:30, heading to lunch, drinking and afternoon of games at Jillians, then just leaving early. All of these things happened, but I'd like to summarize the good parts of the day.

A very peculiar social dynamic takes over when your boss's boss decides to take the employees out for an afternoon of drinking. Especially when there is no prior precendent set that says drinking during business hours is either good or bad. When we sat down to order food for lunch, our boss placed his drink order first. It was a diet coke. The faces around the table become a mish-mash of horror, disappointment, and even general "blah." As per the standard at work, I decided to be the loan dissenter and ordered a beer immediately following his non-alcoholic choice. The faces then became happy again since nobody had to feel alone anymore. Ironically, our industrious leader decided to change his decision to a beer after I ordered mine. Why do these people have so much difficulty asking for what they want? Craziness I say.

The gaming at Jillians was actually quite fun. Jillians works much in the same way that Gameworks does in Tempe. You go in and put money on a card and then just spend the afternoon swiping the card in various games. I can summarize the game playing with the following:

Afternoon of arcade games, $50.
Additional beers, $8.
All your professional colleagues and boss getting to see you play DDR and do horribly, priceless.

Since the whole Dance Dance Revolution thing wasn't panning out quite as I had hoped, I decided to waste the rest of my money on skiball. I probably played about $75 in skiball. Your probably thinking I'm committing hyperbole, but I'm really not. It took me the better part of an hour and a half of non-stop, continuous skiball to use up my cards. My mind entered a meditative state, and I become one with the little brown wooden spheres. Luckily, I don't really suck at skiball, so I had tons of tickets. My winnings are as follows:

1x Large adorable snake, plush
1x Large iridescent tropical fish, plush
1x Yo-yo
1x Shiny working handcuffs

I would like to summarize my rewards much in the same way I did the gameplaying:

Hour and a half of skiball, $50.
Beer to continue playing skiball for so long, $8.
The look on coworkers faces' as they ponder how the handcuffs will be used, priceless.

The giant snake has become the new mascot of my team at work, so he (all snakes are male in my mind) will be following me back to work tomorrow to take up his throne on my desk. The yoyo will very likely be thrown at Simon at high velocity. I have plans for the fish, as it was selected specially. I don't feel the handcuffs need to be explained, as anyone over the age of 13 knows exactly what they're for.