If I were given the choice between opening a door marked “All-Day Meeting” or another one marked “Five Minutes of Root Canal” I would stop and think hard for a moment and then say, “This is a stupid metaphor”
If it’s even a metaphor. I know it’s not a simile. Or an analogy. Maybe it’s an allegory.
I’ll start again.
Today I drove to Raleigh for a meeting on the grounds of what used to be called Dorothea Dix Mental Hospital and is now probably called something else. “I wondered if, like the Simpsons when they visited Ned after he went loopy, I would be given a sticker that said “SANE”” This was a meeting of very smart and committed people volunteering their time for an extremely worthwhile cause, and I was happy to be involved. But dang, y’all.
First of all, and I won’t belabor this point, it’s time we abandoned the business suit, for men and women. ‘Nuff said.
Then there are the roundtable introductions, which no one ever hears, since we’re all practicing our own in our heads. I think the woman to my right said, “Hello. I am a leopard. Grrrrrr”
And then there’s PowerPoint. “Can you see this in the back? No? Okay, I’ll just read all the slides out loud. First, a little background. Millions of years ago, after the Earth cooled and developed an atmosphere…
I will admit that my mind tends to wander a bit during an all-day meeting, and then it starts to get me in trouble. I find myself imagining the most inappropriate thing I could do at that particular moment. “What could I do right now” I wonder, “that would be incredibly embarrassing, but not so embarrassing that I would have to leave town? But that doesn’t satisfy me. “What could I do right now that would be so embarrassing that I would have to leave town tomorrow and never return? Before I know it, in my mind I am naked and dancing on the conference table singing “Inna Gadda da Vida in Elmer Fudd’s voice and throwing poppyseed muffins at people. Then I have to go to the men’s room and think about lost puppies until I can keep a straight face again.
As for my suit, it is charcoal gray and unremarkable except for the label, which declares “Pronto Uomo: Firenze” Because this is the year 2497 and I am Buck Rogers, I was able to take out my subspace communicator and send a text message during the meeting to Memsy, who told me that “Pronto Uomo is Italian for “Ready Man” Surely he is one of the lesser superheroes. “We’re leaving in five minutes” “I’m ready!