BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

In the movie, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, the character who is the translator for the French scientist has himself a eureka moment, then says to everyone in the room, “Before I got paid to speak French, I was a cartographer…”

As many of you are probably well aware – and even if you are, I’m going to tell you again – I have a tendency to paraphrase that quote, saying, “Before I got paid to write books, I was a computer and printer technician…”

And, it’s true. I was. I never had occasion to uncover any salient points that would tell us where the Extraterrestrials were going to land, as did the French speaking cartographer, but I did happen to make a few folks lives a bit easier by fixing their computer equipment.

But, that really has nothing to do with hamsters now, does it? Keep reading. Eventually it will make sense. Convoluted in many ways, but sense nonetheless. During the 25+ year span of my Electronics Fix-It-Guy career, I spent a decade with a company called T&W Typewriter and Computer Repair. And, no… The W didn’t stand for “Womputer”. It was the owner’s name. But, moving right along… We had this receptionist, dispatcher, girl Friday – actually, she liked to be called Administrative Goddess. And, that was okay, because she really was. Phyllis was the glue that held the crew together, and she was a good buddy. You see, Phyllis had just as warped a sense of humor – if not more so – than me.

I know. Hard to believe, but it’s true. Anyway, Phyllis and I used to toss incredibly bizarre humor back and forth like snowballs. One liners. Clippings out of magazines. Fake ransom notes. Post its. And drawings. One of the things we had in the back of our shop was a dry erase board. We used it for things like parts order lists, reminders, etc. But, as the years wore on, it was replaced by fax order forms and the like. Not wanting to see it go to waste, I began drawing bizarre cartoons on it. Parodies of life around T&W, be it a weird service call or something that happened over the weekend.

Throughout the years there were things like a caricature of my buddy and fellow Tech, Chris, running bare-butted through the woods with a lantern – something we had convinced him (for a few minutes) that he had done while blind drunk on a company float trip the previous weekend. Or, caricatures of myself and another tech, Mike, portrayed as “Beavisish and Buttheadish” looking characters complaining about a PITA (pain in the ass) customer. However, among the longest running in the way of a “series” of toons and by far one of the most popular with our crew, were the ongoing adventures of “Merp The Tech Hamster”…

“Merp” was born of many things coming together in one place purely at random. Phyllis having a fascination with hamsters. A friend of mine calling me “Merp” all the time. My reputation for being able to MacGyver practically anything, as well as having all sorts of useless knowledge rolling around in my head that would often come out for no reason other than a mnemonic trigger. Back then they would sometimes call me “Cliff Clavin,” (Cheers) even though what I was spouting was truly factual. These days many of my friends call me “Ducky” (NCIS)… But, I digress…

“Merp The Tech Hamster” and his sidekick “Ex-Marine Biologist Turned Supermodel, Buffy Bighair” had a great run as a tongue-in-cheek cartoon adorning the dry erase board. Two to three times each week a new panel would go up, regaling the staff with their adventures battling their evil nemesis, “Doctor Shirley Knot” (aka Phyllis).

Then, one day, the hamster ran away… Wait… no… that was The Pretender… But seriously, then, one day, I left T&W for what were greener pastures, moneywise. Phyllis and I remained friends for a while, although we have lost touch over the years. But, at that point in time after spending a decade in one place, it was a fairly emotional exit. But, as happens with repair companies, I had occasion to call T&W on a regular basis to give them a referral for something the new outfit wasn’t authorized to work on, or to order a part, or to trade tech support. During one of those calls Phyllis mentioned that she and the others really missed the “Merp The Tech Hamster” cartoons.

And so, Sharpie in hand and FAX machine nearby, I set about tempering the loss with paper versions of the dry erase board saga. Recently, while going through some old files I happened upon a folder which contained 8 original “Merp The Tech Hamster” cartoons. While some of them contain inside jokes, I will attempt to explain them as best I can. However, with there being 8 official blogging days for Brainpan Leakage in the month of February – not to mention that I am in the middle of a deadline and could use some easy blogs for a few weeks – I thought I’d declare it Hamster Month.

While an untold number of these “toons” are lost due to the impermanence of dry erase boards, and my own neglect, these 8 still remain. I hope you enjoy them as much as Phyllis did…

Image Copyright © M. R. Sellars – As you can see, each of these is labeled “To Phyllis” since I was faxing them to her each week. The themes would vary, largely depending upon what was happening at the time. I cannot say for certain, but I think this is possibly one of the first – if not THE first – paper toon I faxed. There I – Merp the Tech Hamster – sit at my repair bench, working on a printer, soldering iron in one paw, screwdriver in the other, complete with my compTIA A+ certification certificate hanging on the wall.

More to come…

Murv

Someone is about to get a serious head stomping from The Evil Redhead, and for a change it’s not me.

Were I the impending “stompee” I’d be pretty concerned, because I’m willing to bet hard cash that no safe word known to man or E K will make her stop until she’s completely satisfied her blood lust.

But, allow me to back up just a second and explain…

You see, while her supreme evilness is perfectly willing to hand out a sound beating at the drop of a hat, there are certain times when she’s not just willing, she’s flat out chomping at the bit to hurt someone. Whenever this occurs it’s not just some random someone either. She usually has a target in mind. In point of fact, the target is always he who angered her to the point of the bloodlust in the first place. (I should point out that I said “he” because it always seems to be a male who pushes her over the edge.)

So, there we were the other day, getting ready to head out to the grocery store. It just so happened that it was a Friday. The O-spring was off from school due to teacher conferences so E K took one of her closely guarded and carefully doled out vacation days in order to spend time with family – that being the O-spring and me.

She had no more stuck her key into the ignition of the Evil Mobile than her cell phone began to chirp. She pulled it from her belt, perused the screen, then her face twisted into a perplexed mask. She flipped open the device and placed it against her ear.

“This is Kat,” she said.

After a brief pause she replied, “Oh, Hi Customer X, how are you?”

She listened for a moment and exchanged a few more pleasantries before getting down to business.

Now, I need to point out to you that E K takes her job as a Field Service Engineer very seriously. Her accounts and pet clients are extremely important to her and she is probably one of the most conscientious technicians out there, not to mention one of the best in the whole country, period. So, if anyone does anything to screw up one of her accounts, she turns into a redheaded Terminatrix.

I’ll be back… Faster pussycat, kill, kill! Hasta la vista, asshole… Yeah, the whole nine yards… Further proof that one should never piss off the E K unless a death wish is involved.

So, back to the story…

I watched her face as she listened to the customer on the other end of the line. With each passing second her expression became more and more drawn with a mix of incredulity and anger.

Finally she yelped, “He WHAT?”

Before I knew it she was snapping her fingers in front of my face and pointing to what she calls her “tin can” – a metal clipboard with a storage compartment for service tickets and the like.

Of course, not wanting to get beaten to death myself on this particular afternoon, I scrambled to hand it to her. She flipped it open, dug around, then provided the customer on the other end of the line with a phone number, all while apologizing profusely for someone else’s massive screwup. When all was done and she had bid the customer farewell, she sat in the driver’s seat with a frown on her face and fiery glare in her ice blue eyes.

Taking my life into my own hands I asked in a near whisper, “Something wrong?”

“When you pack my lunch on Monday morning,” she instructed with a hot grumble in her voice. “Make sure you also pack my black stiletto pumps – the really sharp ones. Also, a pair of vise grips, a baseball bat, a gag, a roll of duct tape, and a propane torch. Is that understood, lackey?”

“Yes ma’am,” I replied. “Mind if I ask why?”

Her anger seemed to be turning into a cold rage and I could see in her eyes that she was plotting someone’s demise.

My wife replied in a cold, even tone. “Apparently going-to-wish-he-were-dead-coworker gave one of my pet accounts a number for XYZ Printer Tech Support.”

“That’s a problem?” I asked sheepishly.

She growled. “It is when the number he gave them turns out to be a Phone Sex Service!“

All I could think of to say was, “Oh.”

She sat in silence for another minute, then started the Evil Mobile and backed out of the driveway. We were halfway to our intended destination when the Redhead turned to me and asked, “Lackey! Do you happen to know where the closest farm supply store is around here?”

“I think so, why?”

“Because I’ve decided the vise grips aren’t going to be quite enough for what I have planned. I’m going to need a sheep castrator too.”

Yep… Someone is gonna be havin’ a realllllly bad day, and it ain’t me… Just to make things easier for her, I think I’ll pack her stun gun too. And an extra roll of duct tape, just in case.

Oh, and if you are looking for a tech job, you might want to check the want ads the next day. E K is probably going to need a new co-worker…

A note of caution though – Make sure you don’t screw up, because she not only bought a sheep castrator at the farm supply, she also picked up the biggest damn cattle prod I’ve ever seen, and an entire case of batteries…

More to come…

Murv