Hero of the Day, Vol. 1

This weekend, I pretended like I wasn’t allergic to milk and now I’m paying the price. And paying. And paying. Yuk.
I didn’t want to use the bathroom in the HR department (it’s really close quarters) so I headed up to the 2nd floor, to Compensation & Benefits, where I actually used to work.

That’s where I saw Marilee.

Now, a little background. First of all, I’m well aware that my blog has sucked lately. The reason is, nobody at my new job is insane. Seriously. Go through my old entries—they are all about 1) drinking or 2) my ridiculous coworkers. I can only be so funny on my own. And that’s not very funny at all.

Thus, I’m beginning a new element to my blog: Hero of the Day. I’ll write these when I can’t think of anything better to say. If you’d like to nominate yourself or someone else, email me (There’s a link at the bottom of each post. Yeah, the envelope. Clever!)

So let me tell you about Marilee. She is my favorite coworker to date (except, of course, for Liz Flot) because she was batshit crazy. I sort of hated her at the time because she annoyed the hell out of me, but in retrospect, I couldn’t have asked for a better officemate.

The thing about Marilee was that she was vocal about her craziness. For example: she was really into German Shepherds. I mean, really really into German Shepherds. She had a tear-off-a-day calendar with nothing but German Shepherds. Every morning, when I sat down at my desk (15 minutes late, no doubt), Marilee would bound over in her stunning suit-jacket-over-a-Harley-Davidson-tshirt combo with picture in hand and tell me about the dog o’the day. “This is Bosco. He is all black.”
Neat.
Mondays were the best days for German Shepherds, Marilee told me, because on Mondays, we get to look at Saturday’s and Sunday’s dogs as well.
Hallelujah.

Marilee also really hated Asian people. She always talked about how they were taking all our jobs because they were more professional than “us kind.” I didn’t point out that her standard work ensemble (see above) was a little less than executive material. That crazy Marilee!

She wouldn’t drink coffee because it was a “dietic” (diuretic?). She set her cell phone at the highest-pitched, most ear-splitting, nerve-rattling ring tone because it “reminded her of the beach.” She thought that Regis Philbin was the most handsome man in America.

I never asked any of this. Just like I never asked to see picture after picture of her weird-looking kids. Or German Shepherds. She just offered. That’s what made Marilee so great. A combination of craziness and a willingness to share all.

So today, I salute you, Marilee. Keep on keeping on.