I swear I'm not making this shit up
-- Scene 3 --
The setting: The same boring office conference room.
The scene: Picking over "cuisine types" for a new piece of website functionality. ("Functionality" isn't even a frickin' word, and I use it all the time now. Kill me.)
Dramatis Personae
Sneaky Manipulative VP
Nice Product Person
Nice but Cocky Product VP
Chris the Bitter Engineer
Smiling Assassin QA Manager
Yours Truly
Yours Truly: "Hey, L***** -- I just have one or two niggly little QA things to talk to you about these cuisine types before we start."
Nice Product Person: "Shoot."
YT: "OK, well you have 'Low Country' listed here in 'Southern/Cajun'..."
NPP: "That's not Southern?"
YT: "No... the Low Countries are the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium. Probably some sort of 'European' food. Take a look at the restaurants in the group and see what kinds of things they serve."
NPP: "Great!"
YT: "There was another thing... 'Tea Service' sounds like it belongs in the 'Asian' category rather than 'European'..."
NPP: "Actually, it is European -- it's more of an English tea breakfast and some of the hotels around here include it in their menus."
YT: "Oh, sorry -- I was thinking like a Japanese tea ceremony..."
NPP (laughing): "No, no geishas."
Sneaky Manipulative VP (with a sudden, weird interruption): "No, not that kind of tea service. Although I was hosted by geishas one time. It was quite nice."
A stunned silence washes over the room.
Yours Truly, to NPP: "Oh, you mean the Las Vegas Tea Service."
Boisterous laughter from everyone in the room, although Yours Truly breathes a sigh of relief at opening his wiseass mouth and not suffering consequences for it. Yet.
Sometimes I have the goddamnedest job in the universe.