THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2009
The greatest text message of all time?
"Told my boss I was taking off sick. Went skiing.
Having slept a restful six hours and woken earlier than expected I thought it might be productive to discuss a hilarious text message that I recieved yesterday. Here it is:
Now I have a goggle tan." - Wednesday, 12/9/09.
The message is incredibly brief but tells an aweful lot in the few words used. A good writer writes less and still gets the story to the reader. I only mention this because this quote came to mind after I read this text. I was bursting out in laughter when I recieved this text message. I invite any readers reading this to chime in on the discussion board, regarding the most epic text messages of your lives, as well as your thoughts on this particular text. With that, lets dissect the sucker!
For any of you who did not successfuly guess as the work of this particular ski fiend, he's a cuber (a cuber is somebody who works in one of the corporate office, usually in a boxed in desk, aka cube). A frother skiier growing up makes for a lousy transition into professional cubing. It also makes texts like this. Let's first consider the time of this text, Wednesday. That's right in the middle of the week. Not Monday, or Friday, this cuber needed a shred-fix mid-week. Extremely desperate. Althought the ski season could be said to still be on the brink, let's be honest, its started. With the weekend's off, this cuber could not wait, he called in sick, forgot the spf (pretty idiotic), and wound up with a goggle tan.
The text was originally intrepreted (on my part) as a purely informative text (like, listen to my latest cube blunder...) but on further consideration may have been a genuine plea for help. How the heck do I hide this goggle tan? I look like cyclops! A goggle tan is not easily hidden although I would have to say a baseball cap and a neck turned to one side (the side of the boss's desk recieving the top of the cap's brim) would at the very least prevent the boss from seeing the tan upon entering the workplace. Furthermore, it would give your excuse brainstorming more time to come up with a winner (food poisoning from Jack in the Box this morn... my skin's having a terrible reaction). The baseball cap and sideways neck may call even more attention to the obviousness of the pathetic (pathetic because it probably wasn't waist deep pow in early December) mid-week shred.
While skiing is probably a non stop craving for this particular "call in sick to shred offender" we must also consider how much one's dislike for the current job might have affected this spontaneous shred strike. Cube life. I have heard the horror stories from more than a handful of firsthand cubers, but damn, is it really that bad, that a half bald and half tall mountain could be that pleasant a get away? I will refrain from insulting mountains on a name basis that I have never actually ridden myself. Then again, I definitely ditched a few classes in college for pretty mediocre waves at el porto (don't feel any guilt naming this particular wave).
What made this hilarious text happen? I think it was probably a culmination of factors. The first of which would have to be a serious craving to ski after a long off season. Second, cubing sucks, no matter the amount of free time you may get paid to spin circles in the cubey chairs while day dreaming about pow days. Third, a complete disregard for one's skin health will hopefuly teach this keen skiier a lesson. SPF, always. With that, I welcome all insights on text tales from the cube, and hopefuly an explanation from the offender himself should he read this post while in the cube today, assuming he has the balls to walk into the office looking like cyclops.