Tammi's World

Another Walk Down Memory Lane

Blogbro Jeff has a post up for swapping West Virginia jokes. My good friend Jovi happens to be from WV and gave him a good run for his money. It all reminded me of a story.

Back in the mid 80's I was working at an Insurance company as an Audit Rater. Mindless work, but it paid pretty well and I really made some great lifelong friends. One was Deb. Deb was this tall, beautiful blonde born in West Virginia. Here parents were polish, so we had lots to tease her about. And trust me - I took advantage of every opportunity.

I loved to make her blush. And it was sinfully easy. One day - she was going on her first "real" vacation - to Cancun. So.....I stage a little party for her at work to celebrate the day before she left. While she was at lunch, I went to the car and got my supplies. I covered her desk in black plastic tarps and dumped a couple bags of sand on it. In the sand I stuck little presents. A plastic bucket and shovel, little drink umbrellas - you know cute stuff. Then I hid the real present in with that. Really good suntan oil, new sunglasses I knew she wanted, a really cool beach bag and one of those really powerful squirt guns. Then I passed out cheesey sunglasses to everyone in the department and we just sat at our desks waiting for her to get back.

Damn, I still have to chuckle when I think about it. The look on her face - and she was so fair that she blushed purple. She didn't know how to react. It was hysterical. Then, when she finished looking at all her goodies she held up the squirt gun and asked me what the hell that was for. I just scowled and told her that she couldn't expect me to come and rescue her while she was being held by sex starved idiots in Cancun. I may be Tambo, but I couldn't fix everything. She still calls me Tambo.

On her 29th birthday I just about killed her. I used to pick her up for work of the morning. So that particular morning I left the house extra early to get all my "stuff" in order. Picked her up at the regular time and bought her coffee to "start her special day off" right. Then we started the drive to work. All along the main drag into town I had posted big ass signs that announced that Today Was Deb ****'s 29th Birthday, along with several other tidbits. I had drapped her desk in black crepe paper. Everyone in the office dressed in black. At noon I had a funeral spray delivered with a balloon that said "We Mourn the Passing of Your Youth". The next year she threatened to take that entire week off unless I promised on all things holy to not pull another stunt like that. I agreed. Instead - when she got to the office I had a vase with 30 red roses and 1 white on sitting on her desk. A simple card that just said Happy Birthday - Tammi. (See I can be nice.)

A few years later, she was promoted and became my boss. It was great because we could easily seperate business from friendship. She was tough but fair. Then...she put in for a transfer. You knew I couldn't let that go without something. So....we had accidently bought the same dress one time. Mine was Blue, her's was black but it was the same dress. I called her boyfriend and told him I didn't care what he had to do, but she had to wear that dress on that particular day. I called and told her I couldn't drive her that day as I had a doctors appointment in the morning and I'd be on the later shift. So....about 9:15 that morning I came strolling in wearing the same dress and a curly blonde wig. Her initals were DAH so I had a name tag printed up that said DUH. Yeah - it was flippin hysterical.

Damn, those were some fun times. I had so much fun. Life was pretty simple then and I'll treasure my memories of my polish blonde friend from WV always.

Posted by Tammi at October 11, 2004 07:20 AM