Day 50
Listening to: Meditative wind chimes/birds/water
Thought for the day: As God as my witness, I will never karate chop another pile of crackers again.

Meet Randy the Mechanic (coworker extraordinaire). Randy the Mechanic is an electrician at DuPont. Being an electrician means he knows how to stick his finger in an electrical outlet without getting electrocuted or hair-on-end-a-fied. Last week, Randy walked up to me and said, “Why do you only write about Cliff the Mechanic, Kevin the Mechanic, and David the Mechanic in your 365 blog?” I said, “Your day is coming Randy.” This is Randy’s day.

I have a story about Randy that is legendary among The Mechanics. Mind you, Randy is a very nice and likable guy 99% of the time. I managed to find the 1%. I accomplished something not many have accomplished. I made Randy lose his temper………….and boy did he lose it.

Occasionally, I eat lunch with The Mechanics. Several years ago, on one of these occasions, I was sitting next to Randy. He was eating a salad and had a pile of crackers stacked neatly next to his plate. For some strange reason, the Jersey Devil took a hold of my mentality and I karate chopped the crackers. Crumbs flew EVERYWHERE. Randy looked at me. His brow furrowed. And then he unleashed the wrath of Randyzilla on me. Fire came out of his mouth. I was SCORCHED. It was reminiscent of when Ralphie in “A Christmas Story” loses it on the school-yard bully and beats the crap out of him. All of the other Mechanics’ jaws fell to the ground for a brief pause…………… then the laughter erupted. We STILL laugh about it. This, my friends, is how I earned the nickname of “The Cracker Whacker.”

Randy has long since forgiven me and I haven’t touched another Mechanic’s food since. Lesson learned.