monday – The Gatekeeper

By David Colton

DAVENPORT, IA — Before he went to bad last night, Terry Lard poured himself a nice, big glass of ice water.

Of course, he was conked out by 10:30, and his wife Linda had her own glass of water on her side of the bed.

Over the course of the evening, Terry didn’t take a single sip of the big water next to his bed — even by the time he arrived at work the next morning, Terry was a thirsty man.

So, as is standard procedure at his State Farm Regional office, Terry beelined for the water cooler as soon as he got to the office.

“I knew it was cold from the outside of the cup,” said Terry Lard, amateur falconry expert, “but I had no idea what I was getting myself into.”

Terry said that upon impact, his teeth felt like ice cubes against his gums. He said the feeling is usually unprecedented, with one exception:

“The only time I’ve felt this type of tooth pain before was when I drank that Coors in Mark’s sauna,” said Terry, “The mountains on the can were blue.”

For Terry, the temperature of the water cooler is something he will have to deal with for the rest of his days at State Farm — at least, until Susan from HR responds to his numerous complaints.

By David Colton

THE WORKPLACE — After several seconds of deafening silence, Dennis Herblemann realized the circle of people standing in the break room must not have heard him.

So, he tried again to weave the same exact joke — verbatim — back into the conversation in a natural way.

“… It’d be called a can’t opener!” said Herblemann, a 34-year-old who routinely does explicit work-conversation prep in the car his way to work.

In a second crushing blow, Dennis once again received stone-cold silence from his colleagues, who were presumably still brooding over last night, where everyone had to stay 20 extra minutes so Susan could finish making copies.

“Honestly, all this says to me is ‘Dennis, nobody likes you or wants to spend any time with you,’” said Herblemann, who has worked at this company for 13 years.

“Back to the drawing board!”

Meanwhile, Trey — the new guy in accounting — came out guns blazing in his first week back since flying to Vegas for a poker tournament.

“So then, me and my buddy Jack, both absolutely plastered, won $60k in one hand, from the toilet. Talk about a fuckin’ royal flush, am I right?” said Trey, who might be under 30 according to workplace rumors.

Of course, workplace colleagues were incredibly receptive to Trey’s Vegas routine and at one point appeared to actively tighten the break room circle in an effort to squeeze him out.

Then, Trey did the unthinkable.

“Yo, guys, here’s another classic: What do you call a can opener that doesn’t work?”

Tag: monday

Cold Water Hurts Teeth