You Can Leave Your Hat On

Here's why I don't socialize much at work.

I'm making chitchat with one of my colleagues, and I ask about his kids, 'cause that's what you do. He tells me about watching them this weekend while his wife went to a bridal shower, so that's pretty innocuous.

"And next week I'll have them again, because she's going to the bachelorette party up in Maine," he adds. "It's going to be a kind of house party weekend."

Because when I think of bachelorette parties, I think of Maine, naturally.

"Probably not a lot of male strippers in Maine," I say with a combination of funny and reassurance.

"I bet they can find one," he says, and laughs.

And there it is.

My whole afternoon ruined because now I've got this image in my head of a male stripper from Maine. I'm picturing someone who looks kind of like Quint (Robert Shaw) from Jaws, but wearing the full yellow slicker outfit, including bright yellow waders with Velcro inseams. Sort of like if the Gorton's Fisherman meets Chippendale's.

The alternative is some kind of amalgam of the Brawny Paper Towel Guy and Paul Bunyan, but we all know what lumberjacks wear under the flannel.