Not All Fur Coats Are Created Equal

Greetings from beautiful downtown Cleveland. Yeah, I'm kidding. Not about the greetings part, but about the beautiful part. It's about 11pm, and I'm currently in my hotel room recovering from eating a piece of beef the size of a small child. I'm working on about 3 hours sleep, and I need to watch the inside of my eyelids for about a week.

Tonight at dinner, we got talking about ex-employees. "Janice" came up, and I instantly knew I had a post for today that would practically write itself.

So let me introduce you. Janice was someone who worked in our department about 5 or 6 years ago, and was the epitome of "dumb blonde." She was considered attractive, but I think this was mostly due to the fact that she was, as I said, blonde, which most guys like. In addition to that obvious advantage, she also she had very expensive, highly stylish clothes, and the body to wear them. She had a relatively pretty face, but it didn't really do much for me. Kinda cheek-bony, which isn't one of my favorite looks. She was a total princess from top to bottom, that's for sure. As Yort says, "you could tell she was high-maintenance just by looking at her."

She would always come to work dressed like there was at least a 60% chance that a famous celebrity would stop by, sweep her off her feet and fly her to Paris that very afternoon. In fact, she actually wore a real fur to work on a regular basis.

One day, Shamus and I needed to ask her a question, and her phone was busy. We decided to take a walk over to her desk. We had to do this because at the time we didn't have instant messaging, and if someone's phone was busy, you had two choices: Leave them a voicemail or actually go interact with them in person. (I know, it's unbelievable. The horror..)

So we walk up to her desk, and she's on the phone talking to a client. She's also reading a copy of Glamour magazine or some such. She was famous for that. You'd walk by, and she'd be chatting away, doing her nails or makeup.

As we're standing there waiting, Shamus reaches out and touches the fur coat, which was hanging on a hook attached to her cube wall. I'm not sure why he did it. Maybe to see if it was real, or maybe he just wanted to feel the texture, I don't know. I do know that Janice witnessed this, and felt compelled to give him more information.

She very carefully puts her hand over the mouthpiece on the receiver, looks directly at Shamus and whispers:

"Shaved Beaver."

Shamus blinks, obviously confused. "Huh?" he says.

She tries again.

"BEAVER. It's SHAVED."

I can't keep a straight face any longer, and when I start laughing, I turn and look at Shamus. He still has a dumbfounded expression on his face that says, "Did she say what I think she said?"

In the meantime Janice finishes up with the customer on the phone, and hangs up. She's a little miffed now, because she knows we're laughing at her, but she has no idea why, only that it has something to do with her and her coat.

She looks at Shamus and says in a snotty voice, "What? You guys have something against shaved beaver?"

Shamus manages to choke out a strangled "No, not at all" without completely losing it. We both turn around and head back to our desks, our question completely forgotten.

We had an answer we weren't sure what to do with, but that wasn't quite the same thing.

So anyway, a word of advice: If you're ever in the market for a fur coat -- or a high-maintenance blonde for that matter -- stay far, far away from the shaved beaver.

It's just a punchline waiting to happen.