Spring is the time to wake up from your winter slumber, to deal with your holiday weight (like you really were gonna drag your ass to the gym when the outside world is covered in icy slush?) and to get moving on projects you said that you’d deal with in January…then Feburary. Now March is almost over with and soon it’ll be April, and if things aren’t done your significant other MAY put a boot in your backside. I’m no different, so now that the risk of snow is gone (it had better be gone!), it’s time to wake up the lawn and garden equipment so I can mow the onion field that I call a lawn. At least, with the onions down, the dandelions will pop out and for a moment, the yard will look prettier.

I’ve been in and out of the old stomping grounds lately. The store has had a full 100% turnover since I left and everyone I worked with quit at some point or another, but a couple have come back and make my visits entertaining. There’s also some new folks, including one guy who is so perpetually cheerful that I wonder if his breakfast cereal contains 100% daily allowance of illicit substances and a young buck who is learning the ropes. And it must be said that returning to work for the other two hasn’t been easy…you can see that they are only there because they needed the income, so I do my best to liven the mood up while I’m there. A joke here, a kind word there…something to make sure that even if the day as a whole was worth throwing into the garbage can, that they can say, “at least (UPCG) showed up. That was alright.”

As I’m getting my two-stroke oil, spark plug for the weed-eater, and some other selections I need around the garage, I notice that one of my two former associates looks like she’s been on the wrong end of a very solid night of drinking…or it’s the kind of day that will result in drinking. Rough is an understatement…this poor lady needed two beers and a twelve-hour nap. And I said as much when I finally brought my stuff to the counter:

“Dude…must’ve been a good night last night. Hangover?”
“Nah,” she replied. “I need sleep. Lots of sleep.” And with that, she gets called back to the backroom to help hunt a part down.

The new guy, who has been ringing my stuff up, decides now is the perfect time to join the conversation. “She really needs one of those spa days, y’know? Take a few days off, ditch the kids, and do the full treatment, man.”

She returns from the back just in time. “Yeah, that’s what I need! Can you see it now? Laying there in the sun, cucumber slices over my eyes…”

Me: “…sauna time…”

New guy: “…olive oil massage…”

Me, her, simultaneously: “what?”

Look, I’m not into kink-shaming whatsoever. Whatever does it for you, go on with your bad self. But olive oil? I know it’s got health properties and is essential to some excellent cuisine, but as a massage oil it isn’t exactly the first thing I’d think of at a spa day. I’d want to feel pampered and refreshed, and a smell that makes me think that now would be the perfect time for some bruschetta isn’t what I’d personally go for. But that’s not the major concern here. The concern is that New Guy’s first plan of attack for helping his obviously exhausted co-worker is to liberally apply olive oil until the Olive Garden threatens to make her an appetizer.

I’m of the age where in grade school, we had to sit through the lesson on sexual harassment and why it was a bad thing. Because adults could not act like adults, kids were taught that holding hands, stealing kisses and even cracking a joke could be punishable. Where do you think an olive oil massage fits into that lineup? I’m not saying that New Guy offered to be the masseuse, and I’ll promise you that he turned redder than marinara sauce before finishing up my transaction and diving out of sight, but if the wrong person was in the store and “mis-heard” any of that conversation…which had us all laughing…then who knows what H.R. would have to say about that.

Be careful with your words at work, people. That’s all I’m saying. Now, if you’ll excuse me…