Bench Vise and Blow Torch

Everyone at my office can send email to the whole office just as easily as anyone else. While you might think that this would be used primarily for business purposes, I don't think I can remember the last time it was. Mostly, people forward around things that are usually not as funny or interesting as they think they are, and usually have little to do with our actual business.

For lack of anything interesting to write about from the weekend I thought I would share one that I got today which is a pretty good one. At the risk of the actual author of this email reading my blog, I am going to publicly mock it here.

From:   xxxxxxx xxxxxxx  
Sent:  Monday, March 24, 2008 1:24 PM
To:  Silver Spring
Subject: bench vice and blow torch?

Hi all,

My most recent bicycle acquisition is in dire need of a little surgery.  
Does anyone have a firmly mounted bench vice that I might use?  I'm also
in need of a blow torch for this task.  If you have both, that is most 
optimal.

Thanks,
xxxxxxxxx

A few things come to mind.

1) It took 60 people in the office 30 seconds each to read and delete this email. At least 10 people wrote back and forth several times to laugh at it, and at least one person (yours truly) then took 5 minutes to blog about it. That's almost an hour of man-time. Therefore, you have just wasted approximately $125 in taxpayer dollars that our government clients paid us for that time.

2) There are probably three people in the office with even a remote chance of owning such equipment. Everyone can probably guess who they might be. Ironically, I am one of them.

3) Author of email can't possibly think the best way to find such esoteric items is by emailing everyone in our office, versus, say, asking those key people, or inquiring at Bedrock Billiards, or going to a bike shop or hardware store. Author is an idiot.

4) Alternative, far more likely explanation: Carefully planned subterfuge by male author of email to impress one or more young single female members of the staff. This is better than a resume: Athletic, handy, smart, and not afraid to use a blowtorch. Mmmmm, sexxxxyy....

Hmm... maybe he's onto something...