Yesterday was one of those crazy days, when everyone in the office suddenly turned bi-polar. We were either barking like crabs with PMS, or we were wiping tears away from laughter. What was so funny? Oh who knows. If I say "belly button" to you, will you laugh hysterically, like can't-breathe-snorting-red-faced-ugly laughter? No? See, I knew there was a bi-polar bug floating around. We were just stinking weird yesterday.
It started when one of my colleagues, let's call her Jezebel because she threatened to kill me dead if I used her real name, didn't get enough sleep the night before and thus was prone to catching the crazy bug that was obviously in the air. She was so funny that my boss chatted me this gem: "Say belly button to her," he wrote.
"Hey Jezebel," sez I, the Queen of Shit Disturbing. "Belly button."
Jez looked at me blankly. (Blank is not an attractive look, jest saying. It's that slack mouth and empty eye thing that's a little disconcerting.)
"Huh?" she said. "What are you TALKING about?"
"Boss said to say 'belly button' to you."
More blank look. Then it dawned on her – I can totally see where the expression 'dawned on someone' comes from. Recognition spread across Jez's face like a Dominican rum-splashed sunrise. Then she started laughing.
"Oh god," she said, chortling.
"What?"
"Nothing," she said. Snorting.
"WHAT? It must be SOMETHING."
So she caves because I have mad interrogation skillz, and starts telling me about this one day at work when crazy was in the air and they were having one of those meaning-of-life conversations and Jez asked Boss, who wasn't such a big boss back then, if he'd ever smelled his belly button.
I let that sentence sink in for about 10 WTF seconds, then bent my neck to see if I get my nose within sniffing distance.
This is not easy to do. Go ahead. Try it. Right now... no, I don't care who's looking. Just try!
SEE? Impossible.
"How in the HELL did you smell your own belly button?" But she's laughing too hard to answer because everyone in the office is now crooking their necks at unnatural angles trying to get a whiff of their belly buttons.
"And what the HELL do belly buttons smell like?"
Jez is peeing herself over there. (Cleaner is going to have a FIT.) "It smells," she said, through wheezes, "like JAM."
Jam? Like, raspberry jam? Grape jelly? Marmalade?
"No." Wheezing. Snorting. Tears running down face. "Like TOE jam."
I don't mean to keep writing about gross things. I don't. This morning I thought desperately for something to write about besides Belly Button Jam but honestly? Nothing else seemed as appropriate. Or inappropriate. Or something.
And in case you're wondering, it's practically impossible to smell your own belly button without using a Q-tip. That's Jez's advice, not mine.
Now don't be telling me this whole A to Z thing hasn't been an education...
