Thursday, June 26, 2003

Training in Gomorrah - Part III

I’ve fallen behind on updating you about my adventures. The blame here lies squarely at the figurative feet of Lowenbrau and, as you may have surmised, my singular dancing ability. These have been long days and nights of debauchery, and I’ve been stumbling back in with scarcely enough time to bathe in time for class. You should have seen me getting my freak on at Walgreen’s earlier tonight. (I don’t really know what that means. I’m just reporting to you what I was told by some other people.)

There isn’t too much to say about the actual training sessions. They’ve all been great. The only thing worth noting is some of the names I’ve been called. These include but are not limited to serial killer, idiot, geek, sociopath, and weirdo.

Perhaps you’ve noticed that I’ve left the names of other people out of my adventures. This is an intentional effort to protect the reputations of the people who have been sympathetic enough to be seen with me in public. Let me break from tradition to call out a certain auditor from Region IX. So as not to be fired or sued, I’ll just call him "Glennis" from the "Mystery" field office. Many of you know that I don’t usually curse, but I don’t have the words at my disposal to write what I mean without resorting to cussing. "Glennis" is a horse’s ass. After certain training modules we transition into a round of Audit Process Jeopardy. I know what I’m about to tell you on account of having connections that report back to me about stuff. Reader, it seems that "Glennis" has been telling all of the other people that any amount of success I have in these games is a result of studying the course materials in lieu of going on breaks or eating lunch. Perhaps "Glennis'" audit manager would be interested to know how little regard "Glennis" has for The Audit Process (TAP). Should I be made to feel guilty and the butt of all audit jokes just because I think auditing is fun? Wait until later when you find out what fate befell "Glennis". I have a plan, but I need to run through some simulations before carrying it through.

Back to the evening of June 24. Some of the people plus me decided to go over to watch the Devil Rays play the Yankees at Tropicana Field. It is a weird looking stadium that appears to be sinking on one side. I nearly got our two car convoy killed a couple of times on the way to the game. Then we got lost trying to find our seats (poor signage). Then we got lost trying to find refreshments (I had pizza! – pepperoni). When we left the game we couldn’t find our cars. The game was good. It was highlighted by a Marlon Anderson grand slam that put the Devil Rays ahead 9-6, and lowlighted by a ninth inning Yankee comeback and victory. I should warn you about something in case you ever are thinking about going to Tropicana Field. They advertise a certain refreshment as their “best value”. What this is your carbonated beverage of choice in a very large plastic cup for $5. The cup engineer who designed the best value cup did not seem to consider A) the weight and distribution of the beverage relative to the shape of the cup, or B) the size of the cup relative to the size of normal human hands. One of the smaller members of our group had a difficult time handling her beverage. When she tried to poor some of the drink into her self, the cup practically took up her whole face. I even had a difficult time manipulating Tropicana Field’s best value – and I am humongous.

We got back to the motel with no problems. Everyone went to sleep – except for me! I went down to the Ramada for a contest I knew they were having that night. It was a Men’s Break Dancin’ and Butter Contest – which I won. Unfortunately none of my colleagues were there to witness my victory, and there is some speculation that I could have made the whole thing up.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home