I apologize in advance, and retroactively. All three are tragically true stories:
3) As tweeted, yesterday I helped a friend pick up and move an Ikea desk. Let us just say that once I started making “your Malm” jokes I COULD NOT STOP.
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2) At a previous job, the team I worked on had daily stand-up meetings to update each other about what we were doing. The purpose of standing up during these meetings was to ensure they were brief.
One of our number had an achy back, and thus would sometimes crouch or lean to alleviate it. More than anyone else’s, his posture was often targeted for mostly-joking criticism. Finally, during one meeting someone addressed him directly: “You can’t lean against the wall during a stand-up meeting!”
At that moment I myself was committing the same crime. And I said, “Come on. I lean!”
This comment went unacknowledged, but I believe it defused the situation on a subconscious level.
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3) In a design studio, I played a mix CD a friend had given me. It included Doris Day’s version of “Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps.” If you are familiar with this song, you know it mentions the title line A LOT.
Toward the end of the song, someone asked, “Hey — what’s the name of this song?”
And I said, without really being aware of what I was doing until halfway through: “Once, Twice, Three Times a Maybe.”
TRUE STORY.
