Things You Can't Say In Front of People

Today's post contains some mildly adult themes and content. It also contains the funniest/ weirdest story I've heard in months. Proceed with caution.

So here's a workplace scenario. I'd like to emphasize that this did not happen in my workplace, so this may lend us all a clue about how urban myths get started.

Employee A and Employee B, both female, don't know each other very well at all, except maybe in passing. At some point during the workday-- water cooler, copier, something like that-- Employee B walks up to Employee A and quietly says the following: "I can see your nipples."

Employee B then walks away from Employee A, leaving Employee A to think to herself, "The fuck?" and run to the ladies' room to inspect the quality and structural integrity of her brassiere.

Now, if I'm Employee A, my next stop is Human Resources to file a complaint against Employee B. But that's just me, and, as I said, I wasn't there, and I'm not going to sell out the people who were there or their workplace.

But as I also said, this is the weirdest story I've heard in months. It's like something that would happen on The Office if The Office aired on HBO.

Presumably this is less about harassment than some kind of misguided variation on "Your fly is down." The difference is people generally want to know when they're walking around with their flies down, but not so much a girl can do about room temperature if the thermostat is somewhere in the basement.

Just sayin'.

So when NayNay heard this story, it led us into a lengthy discussion of words that make us uncomfortable. Now, I like to think I work in profanity-- as Jean Shepherd put it in A Christmas Story-- the way other artists work in oils or clay. My internal monologue tends to contain more instances of the F word than an episode of Entourage-- speaking of late night on HBO.

The words that cause discomfort, as NayNay and I see them aren't the truly profane ones. And, again, anyone who has spent more than ten minutes with me behind the wheel of a motor vehicle can attest to my relative comfort with all kinds of four letter words. But an anatomical reference like "nipple" makes us nervous. NayNay also expressed distaste for "moist," "insert," "piggyback," and "buttocks."

I'm actually not crazy about "distaste."

I used to work with a woman who got the creeps anytime someone said "Marlboro." And that's what's so entertaining about language.