They walk amongst us

Some people have heard this story but it is one of those moments in my life where I laughed so hard I wished I had paid those post-partum pelvic floor exercises a little more attention.

I used to have an assistant.  Let’s call her Barbie for the sake of this exercise (names have been changed to protect the stupid).  She was beautiful to look at but if someone had given her half a brain, it would have been lonely.

She has been the source of many of those moments that render you speechless because nobody can be that stupid. Can they? 

You know those moments.  Silence descends and it is almost like you can hear the sound of crickets chirping, you blink a few times as if trying to decide if you have entered an alternate reality and then you double over laughing, tears streaming down your cheeks, your stomach and face ache and you simply cannot articulate anything that sounds even vaguely like English.

This one however was my absolute favourite.

Barbie:     I will be late in to work tomorrow I need to take my car to Mazda.

Me:           What’s wrong with it?

Barbie:     My tyres need air

Me:           Excuse me, what did you say? (I must have misheard, surely)

Barbie:     Need air in my tyres

Me:           How much do they charge for that at Mazda? (Can you imagine how much those mechanics laugh when she leaves?)

Barbie:     It’s really cheap, only $40

Me:           Ten bucks a tyre!!! (In hindsight, I should have offered to do it for her for $30).  You know you can do it yourself right?

Barbie:     OMG can you! How? Where?

Me:        *Blink, Blink*  At the service station. 

I then made the very grave mistake of trying to explain the process to her.  My frustration levels are skyrocketing and I am trying so very hard to stifle the urge to pick up the nearest chair and slap her with it.

Barbie:     Huh? I don’t get it? (x 10)

Me:           Grab your keys; we’re going for a drive.

So off we go up the road to the service station (gas station for those playing overseas), I drove because I really didn’t want to try and explain to her what the air pump looked like and we only had 15 minutes left of our lunch break.  I park, take off those itty bitty black screw caps from one of the tyre valves push on the nozzle and away she rips.  Meanwhile Barbie is looking so amazed you’d think she just discovered a cache of diamonds hidden down the back of my shirt.

Me:           OK now you do the others.

25 minutes later (did I mention we only had 15 minutes of our lunch break left at the start of this exercise?) she finishes and starts to head towards the doors to the service station with her handbag (and yes it really was a Prada).

Me:           Where are you going? We need to get back to the office.

Barbie:     I’m going to pay

Me:           What for?

Barbie:     The air

Cue the crickets again. 

*blink*

*blink* *blinkety blink blink*

I had to restrain myself so I didn’t slap her in the back of the head (NCIS Gibbs-style). Then -bwahhaaaahaaaahaaaa.  I had to hold myself up with her car because I was struggling to stand straight from laughing.  I could not move and was unable to get in the car.  We simply had to wait for me to compose myself.

We ended up having a 2 hour lunch break that day.