Why it is best to only keep one window open at a time

"Go check your hotmail account," the email read, "I sent a photo to it. It is of (insert name here of mutual acquaintance here). I'm so disgusted I might throw up. And I wasn't even married to the man."

It was morning and I was at work. I try to avoid checking my personal email when at work, unless I have a specific reason to check it, because I like to pretend to be professional like that.

I did not know exactly what the photo would show, but I knew that it was likely something that I did not want to see and that I would never be able to unsee it.

"Yuck," I typed in response, "I do not want to look at that picture. Especially not at work." And then I hit "send" and went about my business.

For about thirty seconds.

Which is when I noticed that there was still a message window open on my desktop. A "reply" message window. A "reply" message window that was replying to the email that I had just been reading.

"Uh oh," I said aloud. Because if the reply message window to my friend's email was still open.. that would mean that I had just replied to an email from someone else..

I immediately went to my "sent messages" folder, found out who I had sent the message to and began damage control.

"Oops, sorry about that. That email was not meant to go to you. But what you had sent me was great! Let's go with that. Thanks for everything you are doing and keep up the good work!"

You see, when sending a damage control email out, it is important to acknowledge your mistake and then entirely change the subject of the message in order to make it seem like your faux-pas was not the primary motivation for sending another email.

I also made a ball out of rubber bands

She may be 75, but I do not care; I will crush her.

At work, we are having a pedometer challenge. I am currently sitting comfortably in second place, behind one of our volunteers.

I would be number one still had I not gotten sick and then essentially been immobile for two weeks in India. But I did get sick, and I was stuck in a hotel room for the better part of two weeks. And now, I am 200,000 steps behind the 75-year-old stepping wonder.

"I will crush your spirits like the bones of an elderly woman suffering from osteoporosis," I tell her each time I see her. It's cool to say these kinds of things to her because we both know that, even though she is 49 years older than me, she could easily take me in a knife fight - and I would fight her with knife. I'd need it if I wanted to win.

One of my favourite parts of my job is the interaction I have with coworkers and volunteers. I am in charge of communications, so, in theory, socializing while at work actually falls under my job description.

Other things I have done at work (both on and off the clock):

• Played Hide-and-go-Seek with small children
• Plastic wrapped a vehicle
• Weeded
• Moved furniture
• Baked cookies
• Shoveled snow
• Transported myself from one end of the building to the other by doing walking lunges (multiple times)
• Tied ribbon around plants
• Created memos that read "You smell," and signed them using an electronic copy of my boss's signature
• Playfully threatened the elderly
• Started a fight club (so far, I am the only one in the fight because the first rule of fight club is don't talk about fight club and this kind of makes a membership drive tough)

Soon I will be able to add "made cotton candy" to that list. Yeah... That's right, I'm going to make cotton candy. You should be jealous of me for everything job related except how much I am actually paid.

Cake Farts

"You know what I like the best?" the video starts. No, strange, pant-less woman on my computer screen, I do not know what you like the best. However, based on the name of your website, I feel comfortable guessing that it involves cakes and flatulence.

Why was I on a website that had anything to do with cake farts? Well, a coworker told me to go there and I am just very obedient... or stupid.

I could not watch the whole video, even though it was only one minute and fifteen seconds long. After all, the woman had no pants (or underwear!) on and was about to climb aboard a kitchen counter along side a cake. I had a sick feeling in my stomach regarding what would happen next.

I do not care how funny it may be, I do not want to see anyone farting on cakes. Cakes are made to be eaten, not farted on. In fact, I would argue that very few things are meant to be farted on - but cakes are, like, way, way up there on that list.

Bicycle Room

I no longer have a bicycle room in my apartment.

Wait, what? I never told you about my bicycle room? Oh.

Well, I used to have a room in my apartment that contained just my bicycle and exercise bike. I called this room the bicycle room.

Why did I store nothing but bicycles (stationary and mobile) in this room? The answer is pretty simple: I just do not have that much stuff.

And so, I kept my bicycles in that room and, when bored, I would ride my bicycle around the room. It was an exceptionally short loop, but it helped pass the time. Eventually, I decided against indoor bicycling because the sound of tires on hardwood is kind of annoying.

Midnight Runs

I grimaced as I felt the crunch beneath my shoe.

A snail.

A casualty of my late night jog.

The sidewalk glistened under the streetlights, still wet from the rain that had poured down upon them from morning until early evening.

I remember when I was much younger, after the rain, the smell of the juniper bushes in my grandparents' front yard. My grandfather would take great pride in stepping on the snails as they tried to escape the wetness all around them.

I do not enjoy crushing snails. In fact, the rest of my jog, I am especially mindful of where I step in an attempt to prolong the lives of many snails and worms who are out of their homes and sharing this evening with me.