balding angrily

I wanted to conclude the Cols talk for the time being, even though she may come up in future stories.

She and Jerry had a running joke about her dad who passed away about a year or two before I met her. They always referred to him as “her/my dead daddy.” She never, ever got upset about this. She loved gallows humor or humor that crossed the boundaries of good taste. To give you an example, even though she was a practicing Catholic, she had a whole collection of sacrilegious nun dolls including a nun puppet with boxing gloves.

So we knew immediately after her death that she would approve of any laughter at the expense of her passing. Upon such a joke, someone in her huge group of left behind friends would say, “Cols is laughing her ass off right now.”

After four months, I wrote an email to Jerry to sell him on some architectural services. It was not sincere, as I was (as always) frustrated with my job. A little background: Jen-An is Jerry’s boss, and she had just moved out of her office. Jerry moved into it. This is my email to him:

I can’t talk to you right now unless it’s business related. As I have been made aware that I am lacking in my marketing abilities, I must ask you if the Human Resources Department of XYZ is looking for any interiors or architectural services.

Reliant Architects is a full-service architectural firm with an emphasis on the CLIENT. Say a head director in your department is moving to another office leaving her office to an undeserving underling. That undeserving underling will need to know how to use his new office effectively and efficiently.

We at Reliant Architects can and will meet your space planning needs.

Let’s suppose that there has been a recent tragic passing of a loved one. She will be greatly missed. She was an inspiration to all that met her. She has left a hole in the hearts of those closest to her.

She has also left a nice bit of office space for her department with which to contend. That valuable real estate, under the sensitive hands of Reliant Architects can be turned into USEFUL space for her department.

We at Reliant Architects understand your grief, and we also understand that there’s no use crying when a 10 x 15 area is up for grabs. We’ll get in there and turn it into something so spectacular that you’ll forget you even had a friend.

Reliant Architects IS Service.

Jerry forwarded the email to Jen-An; they laughed their asses off, and four years later, Jen-An sent it back to me. I had forgotten what exactly I’d written.