My mom's recent birthday was spent with all of us huddled over this book. It is about the funniest thing I've ever read. The author has chanelled his creative energies into a format of fictitious letter-writing to various organizations. And posting the responses.

I think Ted truly outdid himself with a letter he wrote to Hanes Underwear. He wrote to pitch a new invention: a pair of underwear you could wear for many days in a row! He had fashioned them to have three holes, when you'd worn them for a day, you could easily shift the undies to a new hole, and so on. We nearly hyperventilated, namely with the formal response from Hanes. Buy it. This man is brilliant.

At my last (MOST peculiar) job, I was new to Baltimore and felt totally stripped without my girlfriend possy. 6 pm pavlovian sensibilities would kick in-- and where to go? Who to meet up with to talk silly workday crap with?

Happily, a high-energy, sarcastic cat named Eddie was often also working late, circling the old building to corrale his favorites to a cozy Mt. Vernon venue. The new girl got invited. He & I became friends, several nights a week we'd catch up for a short happy hour, laughing over very animated work-stories. Of these were an endless supply, every day we were guaranteed at least one absolutely harrowing shakedown, landing us promptly at 6:30 on adjoining bar stools. I could be wrong, but I think Eddie may have found me a cool comrade.

What's funny is that now, with a new job, I am so not. I'll get an occasional IM from him. We were only work-buddies, really, so now I have nothing to say. I reply like a complete dork. Things like, "Sooooo, still going to the Dead End?" Today he didn't even bother to respond.

So funny to me. It just makes the work-friend thing so obvious. No common thing to complain about? Silence. A car honks. The brain scans. "Hey, um, remember that time.." Painful.