Wow, is it beautiful outside. It’s supposed to be 85 degrees this weekend. The sky is so blue and the mountains so crisp, it’s almost like someone put a cardboard cutout of mountains against blue construction paper. The Bank of No Forks frowned when we asked if we could move our desks out to the shady courtyard so we could more readily enjoy spring. You know what the problem with big corporations is? They’re no fun. Unless you work at Google where you get haircuts and massages and nap pods. Nap pods! Doesn’t that sound like the height of pampering? You get a glorious massage and then roll into a nap pod. Zzzzzzzzzzz. We’ll be dreaming about these things…

1. Research. On the surface, that doesn’t sound like the most exciting thing, but it totally is. How anyone wrote a book that required research prior to the internet is beyond us. A good Googling session yields no small amount of amazing factoids. Of course, that will eventually lead us to a book store where we torture the employees with weird requests while maintaining a straight face. We are unsure of anything more fun than loitering around a Barnes & Noble with a nice latte, asking off the wall questions in rapid fire succession, and then wandering away, leaving stunned and confused clerks in our wake. We’re fairly certain the entire staff of the local B&N quit yesterday.
   

   Look away! Look away!

2. Yoda.We are going to include a picture of this fellow, however, we suggest that you don’t look directly at it. Glance to the left, then dart your eyes away. Or perhaps look straight ahead and check it out with your peripheral vision like you would a comet. Yoda was the title holder of the Ugliest Dog. We can’t imagine there was any real competition. We’re sure Yoda was a perfectly nice doggie. Call us shallow, it won’t be the first time, but we don’t think we could be his mommy. Maybe if he came with a panda bear, but even then…. We’re sorry to see you go, Yoda, if even because now they’ll have to resurrect that damn competition and no one needs to see that.
   

   Look at me instead

3. Ryan Bowden. Mr. Bowden was “discovered” while we were conducting “research”. Back in the day when we were all in sales, when we said we were off to “go marketing” everyone knew it was a euphemism for screwing around. It was fairly obvious when we always returned with new shoes. Or going to the movies and we’d return with popcorn breath. Doing “research” is much the same – especially if it’s on the internet. Mr. Bowden happened along and then all good intentions flew out the window. Now if Ryan here came with #3, then we’d be the proud owners of an inconceivably ugly dog and a cute little boy we could teach to kill the icky bugs and not to speak. Sigh. That sounds like the perfect use of a nap pod.
4. Exotics. We’re in very serious trouble. A website has come to our attention and nothing good can come from it. Knowing our proclivities, why would the Boy Who Lives at Ava’s House bring this site to our attention? It reeks of a set up, like someone wants us to get into trouble. You know those studies where they put a person in a room with a hidden camera and a bunch of cookies and tell them NOT TO EAT ANY? Those people always eat some cookies. You can hardly expect us to control ourselves now that we know of a website that sells both leopard cats and prehensile tailed porcupines. That site led to another and we found a baby camel and a baby giraffe for sale. Who would have ever thought you could be on a website and push “Add to Cart” and a baby leopard would be waiting for you to enter your credit card number.  We promise you people, this will end badly.
5. Nada. When it comes right down to it, we got nothin’. Really. We searched high and low and we could not come up with a fifth thing. How depressing is that? Not too depressing because that alone made us laugh. Next week we’ll shoot for six things but don’t get your hopes all up or anything.