One of my employees is getting a new computer, because her old one stopped playing nicely with others. Since I know how to plug the damn thing into the wall, I get to to be the one to deal with our IT people. This requires an advanced degree all on its own.

Step 1: File a request with IT:  "I have a brand-spanking shiny new computer - still in the box! - that needs to be hooked up to the network. The employee is at work stoppage due to broken and exploded old PC that has gone to a better place. Please help."*

Step 2: Negotiate
Email from IT: Can you give me the computer's MAC address?

My reply: Sorry, it doesn't have one because it's brand new and has never been on the network.

Email from IT: Can you give me the computer name?

My reply: Sorry, it doesn't have one because it's brand new and has never been on the network.

Email from IT: It should be on the paper attached to the front of the machine from the last workstation that had it installed.

Me: It's never been installed at another work station. It's brand new. I still have the box. Will that help?

Email from IT: the address and name would be helpful.
 
My (Silent) Brain: IT DOESN'T HAVE ANYTHING BECAUSE IT IS BRAND NEW AND YOU ARE INCOMPETENT AND WE WILL JUST DO WITHOUT COMPUTERS FOR EVER AND EVER AND MY BRAIN IS LEAKING OUT OF MY EARS.

Right now, the employee is computer-less. I don't know if IT wants me to break out a Ouija Board to divine the address and name for this machine, or if they have a method that will involve me being allowed to turn the damn thing on at some point in the future. They've stopped communicating.  Honestly, it's a lot more calm in my brain now that I'm not retyping the same information over and over. Hey, did I mention that this is a brand new computer? Could you tell my IT people?

*The original request may have been more formal, but it was certainly clear that it was a BRAND. NEW. COMPUTER.

Unleashed

I've started having waking nightmares - or maybe they're fantasies - that my tongue is going to completely break free of the leash my brain has on that keeps me from saying exactly what I want at completely inappropriate times. I can't tell if I'm horrified at the thought or unbelievably tempted.

I'm never one to tell you that I like your skirt if I don't (do you like it? that's what matters, not my inadequate opinions! Why are you crying because I don't like green tweed???), or pretend for very long that I like a person that I'd rather never set eyes on again (I'm pretty good at leaving rooms just as certain other people enter, as I inevitably must leave to look at that invoice I need check on or that wine glass I need to fill. Sometimes both things may happen at once).

 But somehow even thinking about telling a lady in a wheelchair to mind her own business just seems over the line. Even if she was being an interfering busybody in the first place, even if she followed me through 3 different aisles in Publix telling me that I was carrying my purse wrong, my hair was "cheaply dyed" and god knows what else... Still, it felt like yelling "How much I spend on wine is none of your damn business!" in the middle of the grocery store would be a tad harsh. She probably would've run me over with her Rascal, too, which would not have made the hair situation any better.

Yet still, my brain introduces the image and I'm immediately scared that my tongue will be lured into action, jumping into the fray with no helmet to protect itself from the wrath that will surely follow. One day that leash is going to snap and God, I hope it's worth it. Will someone remember to sneak some contraband rum into whichever asylum I end up?