Meeting of the Minds

Friday evening I went to a staff dinner for work. I’m usually pretty skeptical about these kinds of “team building,” or bonding exercises. At every other place I’ve worked, it’s usually been implicit that once the day is over, spending extra time with your coworkers would be akin to asking for more root canals at the dentist. Therefore, I typically try my damnedest to skip out on these things. I’d rather sit at home watching a PBS special on the art of Venice, or whatever, than listen to Sally from accounts payable talk about her herniated disk.

Yet that evening I found myself not only sacrificing a perfectly good Friday night to be in the company of my fellow office drones, I also volunteered to drive to the location of the dinner. In my car I had our office’s Sally, Karen, who lent me a book on home remedies for cats. (I think that pretty much says all there is to say about Karen.) Also riding with me was my work-buddy, John, and his wife.

It’s always funny to see how people’s official work personas erode when they’re taken out of the office context. Sometimes, folks will surprise you. One guy, who I thought was pretty closeted, remarked to a female staff member who was mock flirting with him, “Honey, you’re just too much woman for me!” Another girl regaled us with frickin’ hilarious stories about working for a plastic surgeon in LA. Personally, I present myself to my coworkers with a veneer of genial blandness. This helps maximize stunned responses when I selectively mention that a weekend’s events landed me at a leather bar where I was fed cherries by a shirtless bartender. (So many hot gay men just wasted on my poor little lezzie eyes…)

On our way home from the dinner, we got on the topic of teaching English in Japan. John was sitting in the front with me, and his wife and Karen were in the back seat. At some point in the night, John and I had broken down a barrier that allowed us to approach out-of-office normality. I was telling a story about how certain Japanese exchange students I had met in college got the wrong impression of me and decided that I was huggable. I grew up in a cold, unsentimental, Yankee family. We don’t do touchy-feely. If you’re a stranger to me, the last thing you should consider doing to get in my good favor is give me a bear hug. However, somehow my “please keep your distance” vibes translated into Japanese as, “SQEEZABLE!” God only knows why.

John commiserated with me by sharing that when people first meet him, they think he can’t speak English (he’s Korean-American), and then they assume that he’s a ‘mo, mainly because he’s a snappy dresser. It’s true. I thought it when I first met him.

“I’m like Harold from Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle,” he lamented.

“Oh my god! I’ve thought that before, but didn’t think it would be polite to say!” I felt relief that he saw the similarity.

“Yeah, people always assume I’m the catcher,” he joked. “So you’ve seen Harold and Kumar? I tried to get my wife to watch it with me, but she thought it was crap and turned it off thirty minutes in.” I could tell that I had earned some coolness points in his eyes.

Here his wife chimed in to say, “It was so bad! That’s a terrible movie!”

“Harold and Kumar is a quality film,” I said, not even facetiously. “Dude Where’s My Car? – with the aliens? Now that’s crap. Harold and Kumar is a brilliant piece of comedy in comparison.”

Karen, completely confused, then asked, “What’s Harold and Kumar?” I’d discovered earlier in the evening that Karen apparently lives in a bubble with her cats. She hadn’t even heard of Lost.

“It’s a movie. I’m not really sure you’d find it funny. It’s kind of frat boy humor. It’s about two guys who get high and then drive around looking for White Castle burgers” I replied.

“Well, I find lots of movies funny. You never know,” Karen replied, defensively.

“What movies do you think are funny? Maybe that’ll give us a better idea of what you like in comedy,” John said with far more diplomacy than I could’ve mustered.

“Well, I thought Sideways was a very good comedy,” Karen said earnestly. Immediately, John and just looked at each other and busted out laughing.

“Sideways won an Oscar!” John exclaimed.

“Harold and Kumar features a giant, walking bag of pot!” I added.

Karen, who didn’t understand how what she had said was so unintentionally hilarious, huffed out an, “I don’t get it. I don’t see how this is funny!”

John and I looked at each other and shook our heads as if to say, “Well, you don’t. But we do.” And in that respect, I guess the evening was a success. John and I, thanks to Karen’s cluelessness, had now officially bonded. Granted it was at the expense of laughing at a fellow coworker, but I’m sure that HR would've shrugged their shoulders in approval.

P.S. - I am completely in love with Be Your Own Pet's song, "October, First Account." It makes me want to ride around in a 1980 AMC Pacer not wearing a seat belt. I would upload it, but the file seems to be protected. Damn. But I just thought I'd share.