Where Oh Where Has My Little Tie Gone

Thing #120: It helps to be prepared, but if that fails, knowing someone who is more prepared works too.

I work at a job that requires a tie. I also work at a job that requires me to be out the door at 7:30ish. These facts when combined make for a situation in which I will once every month or two rush out the door sans tie. I am prepared.

I have a car tie. It's the tie that matches every shirt I own. It rides around in my car all day so when I forget I can slip it on and save face. No one likes to be the guy who forgot his tie. It worked well . . . until today. See, yesterday I forgot my tie. I also forgot to take my car tie off in the car. Then, I forgot my tie this morning.

I arrived at work at 7:50 with no tie. I also had no time to go back. I also had no iguanas in my car, but that doesn't really matter for this story. I had to think fast. Joe was in the car next to me. Joe is the newest tech we have, thus I felt it would be sensible to ask him if he had an extra tie. He did not. He did however mention that Jerry, our IT director might have one. So I went to Jerry's upstairs office.As soon as I walked in I knew I had hit the motherlode.

Each desk/table/computer in his office had a pile of ties the size of a large hill on it. I was stunned. So I asked him if he had a tie I could borrow. This is like asking Bill Gates if he had a couple of buck you could borrow. He said sure and I picked out a tie that would match my shirt. The moral of the story is never, ever bring your car tie in the house. An alternate moral would be it's good to know someone who keeps loads of ties on his person.

Kiwifruit

Old Fashioned Way

Thing #119 Film strips are still set up by hand

My husband and I have been frequenting the local drive in theatre. Last weekend was a great line-up of Wall-e and Get Smart. We talked about it all week and invited my sister to join us for the second movie. About ten minutes into the first feature I look and the picture is upside down and the audio is running backwards, it is starting to get annoying, I wonder is this pixars idea of a dream sequence? I think maybe it is just because he is upside down or something, I mean he is a robot and there is no diologue in this movie....eventually they stop the film and we wait while the projectionist fixes the reel. Yes, in this the digital age, there are still men who load the film. I know this because the elder projectionist stuck up a conversation with me about the new kid who put the film on for the first time while my sister was waiting for her mozzerella sticks to cook. He even gave me a piece of filmstrip to show me where the audio and picture are. Some things are still done the old fashioned way. 6 dollars a ticket and they don't charge an arm and a leg for popcorn either. You can bring your own even and sit in your lawnchair. That is why we love the drive in. I didn't know they still had to load the film, but I know that now.