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The boss’s son got a Mohawk haircut yesterday. After inspecting the results, I decided to google some background information. Turns out, the origins of this popular hairstyle are not nearly as clear cut as you might suppose.

The earliest known Mohawk was found on the headbone of an iron-age Irish “bog body” known as the Clonycavan Man. Modern paleontologists were very lucky to discover this well-preserved haircut. I mean, what were the odds that an ancient Irishman would go down to his local pub-henge for a pint and then fall into a body-preserving peat bog on his way home?

Okay, maybe luck wasn’t a factor.

An interesting aside here: scientists examining Clonycavan Man found French plant oil and pine resin in his hair. As you undoubtedly know, these are the two primary ingredients in a modern hair-care product called Aqua Net®.

After the Iron Age, the Mohawk moved to colonial America. It did not, however, become a member of Mohawk nation. Early French explorers who reported seeing Mohawks wearing Mohawks probably saw Wyandots wearing Mohawks. This is an understandable mistake. Today, French explorers searching for Celine Dion and Michael Bublé concerts often mistake the Mohegan Sun Casino for the Foxwoods Casino.

In the modern era, the Mohawk has been worn by many celebrities, including the boss’s son. Mr. T wore it in all three of his popular roles — Clubber Lang in Rocky III, B.A. Baracus in The A-Team, and Fortinbras, Prince of Norway, in Hamlet. All members of the seminal punk band The Plasmatics wore the Mohawk. None of them ever fell into a bog, either, although Wendy O Williams did fall into the mosh pit.

Boss walked into the office this morning and said, “Better watch out, it’s the year of the Fire Pig. I’m just tellin’ ya.”

Yesterday afternoon, a guy on the radio told us all about the Chinese New Year. Guy said it would be a year of high highs and low lows. (PowerPoint nerds in the audience should picture a graph shaped like the back of the Fire Dragon.) Guy-on-Radio also said it wouldn’t be a easy year for the faint of heart. Especially during the month of the Fire Horse, there will be “daring accomplishments and serious calamities.” Don’t be afraid. Guy also said the Fire Pig represents the end of a 12-year cycle and that means it’s party time. He said conditions are favorable for sitting in hot tubs, sipping champagne, and mounting fine ladies Fire-Doggie style. I’m down with that.

My boss says the year will be easy for her because she’s a water rabbit. Co-worker Barb’s man-friend George is a Wood Sheep. He’s gonna hear some serious trash talk about that, I promise you.

My sign is the Rat. My element is metal. I’m a Metal Rat, and I like it. Metal Rat sounds like the name of a Hawaii Five-O villain. “Dan-O, put out an APB on Wo Fat and Metal Rat. Find ‘em and book ‘em.” Guy-on-Radio says it will be a hectic year for Metal Rat but a great time to take chances in the hot tub. He says Metal Rat is a charming quick thinker who has a knack for irritating co-workers. Boss says Guy is a genius.

I work with two humans and two dogs. I can’t remember what the humans look like, but the dogs are bright orange. Orange Maggie is a Golden Retriever and Orange Pokie is a Beagle.

Oop, hang on. Did I just tell you that Pokie is a Beagle? She began life as a Beagle — that’s true — but years of lustful eating have transformed her into something completely different. Today’s Pokie is a large orange bratwurst mounted on four sturdy ball-and-claw bath tub legs. There’s a wet nose on one end of the bratwurst, and a looped tail on the other end. Although hugeness becomes her, becoming huge wasn’t easy for Orange Pokie. She is courageous enough to corner a wounded coyote, but she is afraid to be alone with her food bowl.

Both orange dogs drink water from a large metal bowl. Maggie makes a racket. Each time her tongue slaps the water, her dog-tags hit the rim of the bowl. Maggie drinking water sounds like this: ding, ding ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, slurp, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, splash, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, slurp, ding, ding, splash, ding, ding, slurp, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding-a-ling, ding, dong, ding!

Not that that bothers me.

Dog breeders call Maggie a “Golden” Retriever, but any fool can see that she’s road-cone orange. On top of that, she doesn’t know jack about retrieving. (See post #533 for more on Maggie’s unfortunate retrieving problem.) Don’t believe what her papers say — Maggie the dog is an Bright Orange Leaver.

The two things modern corporate executives fear most are sock puppets and dissent. This is obvious, so let’s discuss how you, John and Jane Q. Workerbee, can turn the boss’s fears to your advantage.

First you must understand what you’re up against. The corporate bigwig’s brain works differently from the normal human brain. Thanks to Mr. Charles Darwin, the typical human skull has separate cubbyholes for dissimilar ideas. Executive skulls have no cubbyholes. They had cubbyholes, of course, but these were removed by stern schoolmarms in exclusive business schools. In the cubbyhole-free brain, contradictory ideas are free to arrange themselves into exceedingly complex systems of illogical and self-serving lunacy called “theoretical models.” I know what you’re thinking. Common sense tells you that theoretical models have to be complex if they are to accurately predict the behavior of complex systems — like the stock market, or the widget industry, or the blackjack table. Do not be fooled. The boss’s theoretical models are bewilderingly complex for one reason only — so that you will not waste time trying to understand them. If you did try to understand them, then you might discover that they do not accurately predict the behavior of any bewilderingly complex system (this sentence, for example). The act of detecting that the big boss is wasting company time is called dissent, and the boss fears it for obvious reasons.

So how can you defend yourself in such a hostile work environment? Here’s one thing you might try. Sneak a sock puppet into the Boardroom and use it to talk smack to your boss. Rest assured, no one on the Board of Directors has constructed a theoretical model that reliably predicts the behavior of sock puppets. If you speak through the puppet, no one will hold you responsible.

Maggie the Dog claims to be a Golden Retriever, but she isn’t. I throw the ball. She gets the ball. But does she bring the ball back to me? No, she does not. If Maggie says she is a Retriever, then that is a lie. Maggie the Dog is a Golden Deceiver.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm welcome to LL Bean J, the Down East Rapper, who will taunt Maggie in rhyme. Take it away, LL.

She’s not a Retriever
She’s a Golden Deceiver
She’s an underachiever
You can’t believe her
She looks like Ward Cleaver
She’s got dengue fever
And a tail like a beaver . . .

Eh, thanks LL. That’ll be enough taunting for now. Everyone back to work.

I spent a lot of time in the office this weekend, and every so often, as I paced to and fro, I made eye contact with a portrait of Bob Oldcountry, the company’s founder.

Bob’s portrait is a photograph retouched with charcoal. Actually, “retouched” is an understatement. Bob has a photo-head, but his jacket, bow tie and handlebar mustache are rendered in charcoal. You may wonder, as I did, if this mixed-media technique was commonly used by the portrait artists of Bob’s day. If not, how did Bob Oldcountry acquire his charcoal jacket?

Many of us have heard family stories about Great Grandpa Hoozamagiggy, who came to America with nothing in his pocket but a lump of coal. Bob Oldcountry was not that lucky. Bob was so poor he couldn’t afford a pocket for his coal. For years, he carried his coal between coal-stained fingers or above a coal-stained ear. And then Bob had a brilliant idea. Just before his transatlantic crossing, Bob Oldcountry sharpened his lump of coal and drew himself a nice warm jacket (with matching trousers, bow tie and mustache). While he was at it, he drew a big trouser pocket to hold his lump. Bob was wearing that charcoal suit when he sat for the portrait that currently hangs at company headquarters. (Incidentally, the lump in his pocket is a charcoal lump, not a “glad to see America” lump. Kripes, you people are such perverts.)

Co-worker Barb knows a guy who collects cast iron Griswold frying pans. Barb was talking about the pan collector this morning while I was sipping coffee and pretending to work. As you all know, pretending to work requires intense concentration. External stimuli such as co-workers’ voices, dogs begging to go outside, ringing telephones and police sirens are often “tuned out.” So, when Barb said “cast iron pans,” I thought she said “cast iron pants.” My friends, this is how great ideas are born. Poor hearing and limited attentions spans are the mothers and fathers of invention.

What? Eh, hang on a second. . . .

Alrighty, my research assistant tells me that The Mother’s of Invention are the late Frank Zappa’s former band mates, so let’s just say that poor hearing and short attention spans are the fathers and mistresses of invention and let it go at that.

The point is, I would never have dreamed up the cast iron pants concept had I not been half-listening to my co-worker while trying to look busy. This would have been a great loss. Iron has been known and used since prehistoric times, yet not once in all of prehistoric time — or historic time, for that matter — has anyone thought to fashion this versatile and wrinkle-free material into pants. Until this morning, that is.

As always, the consequence of serendipity is brilliant discovery. Co-worker Barb and Pan-Collecting Acquaintance, pants wearers worldwide owe you a debt of gratitude!

Yesterday, the boss tried to fix our old laser printer with a frosting knife. Today, FedEx brought us a new laser printer. The new printer looks exactly like the old printer, but without the protruding knife handle.

The old laser printer worked perfectly until the boss put the evil, leering, wall-mounted trout directly behind it. A few days after that, the duplexer quit, and then a piece of rubber peeled off of a roller and fell onto the very hot nameless part which adheres toner to paper. When the rubber bit adhered to the hot nameless part, strange skid marks began to appear on all our printed material. Clients didn’t dig the new look. That’s when the boss jammed a frosting knife in the rear paper-jam access door. No jury would send her away for this crime. It was a crime of passion.

This morning, as I tried to attach the new duplexer to the new 500-sheet feeder (adjustable for Letter, Legal, Executive, 11×17, A3, A4, A5, B4, B5, and custom paper sizes), I leaned too far forward and bumped heads with the evil trout. I pulled back suddenly, and as I did, my forehead brushed against the fish’s serrated lower jaw. That’s how the trout drew first blood. If co-worker Barb hadn’t been there to hold me back, that trout would be “sleepin’ wid da fishes” right now.

And no jury would send me away for it, either. The fish is asking for it.

We had a little kitchen in the old work building. One day, a little miracle happened in the little kitchen — I remembered to do the dishes. I washed the coffee pot and the cups and a dish and some spoons. I made sure I did it before Co-worker Barb or the boss could say, “It’s your turn to do the dishes, guy. Why do we have to remind you to do the dishes? You’re such a guy.”

I finished up and ran out to my car for a minute, and when I returned, the boss was waiting in the doorway. She said, “You did a guy thing.”

I said, “No, no, not me. I did the dishes. I didn’t do a guy thing. It must have been some other guy who did the guy thing.”

The boss said, “The sponge is still in the sink. And it’s upside down. You’re such a guy.” Having said her piece, she turned on a heel and went inside.

So maybe I am a guy, but I’m not a total savage. I’ve just got a few things to work on. Sponge placement, for example.

This afternoon, as I removed a food unit from the microwave, a blob of molten cheese dripped on my index finger. It hurt like hell. Back at the workplace, I told boss-person that I couldn’t possibly use my keyboard and that I needed time to lie under my desk and moan piteously. Boss-person raised one eyebrow and several objections. I was forced to soldier on.

I am a victim of the cheese, my friends. There is nothing you can do for me, but there is something I can do for you. I can raise awareness of this insidious menace. Too few of you consider flying bits of molten cheese when making your daily risk/benefit calculations. This must change. Start today.

Remember, it’s better to freeze than to mess with hot cheese. Or something like that.

When I heard the squeals of delight, I rolled my chair backward and looked out the window. The boss’s nanny was in the yard with the kids. They were playing together on a giant inflatable Banzai Water Slide from Target. Boss’s nanny looks great in a bikini. I try not to notice this because noticing causes extreme discomfort. Sometimes she catches me off guard, though. Summer is the dangerous season.

“Whoa!” I said. I clutched my chest, fell over and rolled around on the floor. “Quick, call 911.”

Co-worker Barb did not call 911, but she did come over to see what was happening. “Sweet Jesus,” she said. “Look at that!”

“I know, I know,” I said. “She’s a beauty, isn’t she?”

“Wouldn’t you like to have one of those in your back yard?”

“You bet I would, Babs. You bet I would.”

“Kay-rist, that’s the biggest freakin’ water slide I’ve ever seen!”

“Water slide?” I said. “What water slide?”

Maggie retrieved an envelope from the wastebasket and brought it to me. It was an introductory offer from the Great Expectations Dating Service. “Oh, hey, thanks a million,” I said. “Nice of you to notice, Mag.”

I don’t know if Maggie was having a laugh at my expense, or if she was just trying to be helpful. I mean, she isn’t a concerned friend, family member or coworker. Maggie is a golden retriever.

While cleaning the office one day, the boss found an old Mood Ring. I played with it for a while and then said, “This thing is busted. It isn’t even trying to keep up with my numerous and ever-shifting moods. It’s always dark green.”

The boss said, “It’s always dark green because you’re always in the same mood — a bad mood.”

“Oh,” I said. “That’s right. I forgot.” I tried to work up a big, irresistible mood swing just to prove the boss wrong, but the ring wouldn’t budge. I tried happy, sad, angry, ashamed, bashful, befuddled, bipolar . . . nothing. Then I gave up on myself and decided to change the boss’s mood instead. I presented my hand to her and said, “You may kiss my ring.”

“And you may kiss my ass,” she said. “Who do you think you are, Pope Johnny?”

“Yes, my child” I said. “You and Co-worker Barb are my flock.”

The boss said, “You remember what happened to the last Pope Johnny, right? Now think this over carefully. Are you sure you want to be the Pope?”

I looked down at the ring. It was still dark green. “Damn, still nothing,” I said. “Soooo, where is Barb?”

To boost employee morale, my former employer built a kitchenette in the workplace and installed a National 623 Hot Beverage Vending Machine. The reliable and durable National 623 dispensed freshly brewed tea, hot chocolate and soup-like product. It also dispensed freeze-dried coffee, with or without a mysterious additive called “whitener.”

You may ask, as I did, what is “whitener”? What is this substance that changes the color but not the taste of my coffee? If non-dairy creamer is the artificial substitute for cream, then is whitener the artificial substitute for the artificial substitute for cream? Is whitener further down the food chain than non-dairy creamer? Is that even possible? The truth is stranger than you suspect, my friends. Whitener isn’t even on the food chain; it’s on the color wheel.

Whitener is the first edible color since the orange.

Here’s what happens when you rip a page out of the boss’s copy of The Bridges of Madison County, cut the page apart line by line, and then hapzardly paste it together again. I encourage you all to try this at home.

Page 77

He spent the rest of the day at the local newspaper office looking through old editions. It was the standard procedure in small towns. Someone stopped in and asked directions to all the hippies in Italy, Marge. I have been there for spinach salad, corn bread, and an apple sauce souffle, sheeplike in the service of European designers. But breasts were exposed, and cheese, and chopped parsley. Then came simple courting rites from an old zoology text. As he moved over her, he alternately kissed her lips or ears or the refrigerator.

She hurried to shorten her dress to knee length, not sure what a hippie looked like. This fellow was polite. He only stayed a minute or two and ran his tongue along her neck, licking her as some half-something-else creature. She wondered about him and his endurance, and he told her that he could reach those places in his mind as well as in her kitchen.

He was an animal. A graceful, hard, male animal who did nothing overtly to dominate her yet dominated her completely. She wanted him in the exact same way she wanted the Des Moines Register.

It’s 3:57 p.m.

I just noticed the giant stuffed trout mounted on the wall beside my desk. It wasn’t there when I left work on Friday afternoon. I don’t like this new fish. It stares at me. It stares at me like I’m the guy who dragged its slimy ass to the taxidermist. I am not that guy. Back off, fish. Back off.

I’m guessing that the boss put the fish on my wall, but I can’t prove it, and I can’t ask questions without first admitting that I have noticed the fish and that it’s staring unnerves me.

Maybe it will go away. Maybe I can trick it. Hey, fishy, I hear there’s some hot spawning going on upstairs. Go see. What’s the matter, aren’t you fish enough. You’re nothing but a trophy fish. I mock you.

Nothing. Dammit. I may have to quit. I may have to arrange “an accident.”

According to co-worker Barb, there used to be birds called “Passenger Pigeons.” Those birds must have been huge. Unfortunately, Passenger Pigeons have been extinct since 1914, so you will all have to find other birds to ride.

This morning, my boss had the Teletubies theme song stuck in her head. I tried to get it out of there by jumping up and down like a maniac, but I accidentally hit my head on the ceiling. Now I have the Teletubies theme song stuck in my head, too.

Teletubies . . . la la, Po

A damaged or conflicting system extension can cause QuarkXPress to unexpectedly quit. A damaged font, or a problem item in the application folder can cause QuarkXPress to take an unusually long coffee break.

Shall I continue?

Moments ago, while I was pretending to sleep, the ladies in the office had the following conversation. (And they say I’m a caveman.)

B: I don’t like beans in my chili.

S: No beans. Meat!

B: And no chicken, either.

S: Chicken? What’s the point?

B: Meat, but not hamburger.

S: No hamburger. Chuck!

B: Yeah, chuck!

S: Chuck!

B: But no beans.

S: Hot, liquid chuck!

B: That’s what I’m talkin’ about. That’s chili.