giggle highs are the best!

Sal, who's being a lot nicer to me this morning than I am to him (I'm snappish in a pms-y sort of way) offered to be an errand boy and fetch me anything I needed. "Coffee? Tea?" he suggested.

I perked up at the mention of coffee; I'd just been thinking I needed to chill out with a hot cup of caffeine in my hands, ironic as that may sound. Sal saw my reaction and asked, "Can I get you some coffee? Sugar? Cream? That little something special...?" He pauses for what he believes is maximum comedic effect then adds, "Like my thumb."

Oh ha ha ha not that funny any more. Sal has brought me coffee before. And when he hands it to me, or sets it on my desk, he usually makes some reference to his thumb being down in the coffee due to the way he was carrying the cup. One time he'd made it really sweet and/or put some sort of funky foreign creamer in it, and I said, 'yum, this tastes good'. His reply: "I added my secret ingredient." Then he smiles like a mischievous eight year old boy and says, "like my thumb." It made me giggle the first time he said it, which he took as a sign that it should be repeated. Frequently. It's made me roll my eyes ever since but the eye rolling, and even the flat out 'the-thumb-in-my-coffee-bit-is-not-funny-anymore' glare has yet to deter him.

I thought it was just my grandpa who told the same one-liners over and over and over again. But no, Sal does it too. He can be funny as all get out, don't get me wrong, but sometimes Sal's humor just falls as flat as a cat's ass.

Have you ever seen a chubby cat ass? I think not.

One day, during our weekly group meeting, Sal delivered the same one-liner I (along with everyone else) had heard about a million times and I finally called him on it. As the others were chuckling politely I slammed my hand down on the table and said, quite loudly, "Oh. My. Gawd! That was funny about... oh... maybe the first hundred times you said it!" Everyone chuckled harder, which means they were all thinking the same damn thing but weren't quite ready to rally the intervention troops.

Intervention Mediator: Dude, you gotta stop repeating the same tired joke everyone's heard a million times before.
One-Liner Recycler: But I can't stop! It's just too hard!
Intervention Mediator: You know, you can come up with new material.

So anyways... I thanked Sal for his offer, but declined it. I wanted/needed the break from the computer so I went and got my own coffee. As I walk up to the coffee area I see Sal fill his coffee cup half way with coffee, then the rest of the way with hot water. Eew. I voiced my concerns for his choice of coffee flavoring:

"Eew!"

I don't know why this grossed me out - its just water for fatootin's sake - but it did. Sal said he added the water because the coffee was too black. To each his own I guess. So while I'm pouring a FULL cup of BLACK coffee, Sal mumbles something that sounds like, "The coffee's as black as Carl's bad cavern."

Uh... what???? I stop pouring before I mess myself (I'm wearing a white shirt today which means stain disasters are imminent) and ask ever eloquently, "Huh?"

He repeats himself and it still sounds like he's saying "Carl's bad cavern." Now, we work with a guy named Carl. And Sal likes to tease him often. So I figured that Sal was trying to be funny. Only I didn't get the joke. I tried to think of what 'bad cavern' could possibly be referencing, but I quickly realized that I really didn't want to know.

I chuckled and said, "I don't think I want to know what you're talking about."

Sal looked at me strangely. "About what?"

"About Carl's bad cavern."

A powerful laugh bubble bursts out of Sal, then he explains that he said Carlsbad cavern.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh. That makes a lot more sense.

"Where in the world is your mind this morning?" Sal wondered.

Uh... in Carl's bad cavern, obviously. Eew.

Of course, Sal couldn't let this one go. We were back at our cubicles for only a minute when he leans over the wall and starts talking about this 'doctors visit' where Carl got 'checked out'. He says he has a picture of it, then hands me his camera phone. For some odd reason he had a picture of a big metal drain spout with a couple of medium sized rocks sitting at the bottom of the opening. "This," he explains, "is Carl's bad cavern."

This made me giggle. I really didn't want to giggle - because it's just oh so wrong - which of course made the giggling worse. Which made Sal giggle. And the two of us have been giggling on and off for the last two hours. We just look at each other and we break out in a fit of the Silent Giggles, the kind where you make no sound but your whole upper body shakes with amusement.

Sal suggested we take a picture of a 'Carlsbad cavern' and his picture of 'Carl's bad cavern' and throw them on an email, along with the appropriate label tags, and circle it around the office. I'm sure in an hour or so when I'm not drunk on this giggle high I'll correctly realize that this would be a Very Bad Thing to do. But right now it sounds like a lot of fun.