The day has been hectic from start to now…we haven’t finished yet!

After work I plan on getting some coffee with Miss Insley and THEN going to hit the midnight showing of the “GRINDHOUSE” at Graumann’s.

Tomorrow Tommy is coming up and we plan on making a day of being strange (as per usual).

Now onto the lessons of the day…

So at work, there are these meetings that I have to set called “upfronts”. These meetings are where every television station ( I mean from the Food Channel to the Hotel Channel) comes in and tells us what they are going to be showing on their stations and why WE need to advertise on them. Accordingly, they bring food, and oftentimes they bring alot of gifts (swag) for the people in the meeting, to help coerce them of their greatness.

Now, I always get the food, or the swag by virtue of being the guy that sets up the meeting and getting things prepared, but today…
Today the meeting was a particularily difficult one. The caterers arrived an hour and half early, I had to lug 6 or 7 boxes of swag up to the conference room and set them out, and the people that put on the meeting came in far too late.

The swag, I saw, consisted of some earphones, usb ports, a bag that you can plug your Ipod into and it had speakers on it that would play out loud. A TON of stuff, it was pretty cool. My beady eyes looked on in joy at the new presents I’d be able to take home.

Now before I take anything I generally get the nod from the reps,” Jeremy, here you should take one of these for all your help!”

But these reps were not giving me the nod. I dropped subtle hints like “alright….I guess I’m done putting out these cool gifts…is there ANYTHING else you need before I go back to my desk”

“No, thanks”.

“Are you Surrreee??”

*salivate over gifts*

I sat outside looking at these gifts. I should just grab a couple I thought. I’m sure it’s okay. I’m sure I’d be fine. I mean there are more than enough for those people inside, and besides, that IS the custom.

So…I grabbed a gift and went to my desk, quickly lest I was caught…you know, for grabbing a gift I supposedly was okay to have.

GUILT is a funny thing. I’m sitting there at my desk looking at these objects thinking that I should NOT be taking these, and then arguing with myself about how of course I should and they’d give it to me if I asked, blah blah blah. It was Jimminey (sp?) Cricket on my shoulder badgering me with some song about theft and being a better person. I killed the bug and tried to push any thoughts other than those that get me to be okay with my new acquisition. But God hardly lets such needling thoughts be brushed away easily. Almost audibly this phrase popped into my brain,”what would you tell El Penguino (clap clap) to do?”

&*%$@!

I’ve been riding Kevin about responsibility and integrity and honor and a bunch of other hullabaloo that one espouses when helping to rear a child.

the hard truth of it is that probably no one cared if I took some crappy pieces of swag from upstairs, noone probably noticed. But the big guy upstairs obviously did, so did my subconscious.

“What would I tell El?”

I try to be intellectually honest with myself at all times (I try) and honestly I’d tell him that if you take something without the permission of the owner, it’s stealing…pure and simple.

So, swallowing my selfish desire for free crap I ran upstairs and put the stuff back in the boxes they came from, my conscious assuaged..for now.

I write this here because, well, some of you might think it’s interesting, humorous, or stupid, but more to remind me in later years of the words I profess to live by “Est Sularus Oth Mithas”. That wonderful phrase from a fantasy novel that shaped my young life. “My honor is my life”.

Needless to say, after dropping the bags off it felt like boulders of weight dropped from my shoulders with them.

thus ends the thursday lesson