how do you spell that?

i have written in the past about an individual spelling out words and/or names using other words (a as in ant, b as in boy, c as in cat, and so on), and how i find it annoying. never before did i actually believe it could be thought as borderline offensive.

that is, until monday night.

now, admittedly, i started writing this post before christmas. i can now officially say that i have no idea on what actual date this happened. apparently it was a monday, but that's all i've got. however, the point behind this particular disclaimer is that i still remember with alarming vividness exactly what i was referring to many moons ago.

to make an annoyingly long story short(er), the governor's best friend at the university is a man who we'll call bob (namely because, uhh, that's his name). bob has a dear friend from england who intended to spend the winter in the florida keys, but upon applying for a visa for his extended stay, found out that there was something trivial on his criminal record that made it impossible. suffice it to say one teeny, tiny mistake made on a (drunken?) night in vegas about 40 years ago has come back to haunt him and somehow made him seem like someone not terribly appealing to let back into the country. who knew underage gambling was akin to terrorism?

the governor offered his services to help bob's friend, and this included calling every member of the state superior court until he could get one on the phone. being a man of such incredible importance (...?), he couldn't be bothered to explain the situation and instead informed the man he got in touch with that his friend bob would be calling him back the following day.

what followed this were several phone calls and long and angry (and LONG) messages on bob's various answering machines, until he finally answered at home. based on the fact that no one who knows the guy the governor was referring to is probably ever going to read this...but also being a product of the Google revolution, i won't say what the court member's name was, but i will tell you it was difficult to understand (i know i wouldn't have been able to guess how to spell it), and bob asked to have it spelled out. this annoyed the governor, and he explained it as such:

"it's S as in SHIT. H as in HELL. E as in...whatever E stands for. K as in KISS, A as in ASS, R as in...REAR...C as in" --i would like to interject here, dear reader, that i do not use the word "C" stood for, but i'm sure you, being of sound mind, could probably guess (and if you cannot, i would like to first of all commend your charming naiveness, and second of all hint that it is a fairly vulgar word for a part of the female anatomy)-- "H as in HARD ON, and I as in INTERCOURSE."

angrily, the phone is hung up.

i am looking around, trying to find something to end my life. could i just crawl under the desk and hide until he leaves? maybe if i throw the stapler at him, it'll jog something in his brain that will keep things like that from ever happening again.

"wow," says my 87 year old boss. "i never knew joe had such a sexy last name!"