The day started off like it usually does -- I got in a few minutes earlier than most of my coworkers, sat at my computer doing things completely unrelated to work, and sipped coffee. The morning coffee is just about the highlight of everyday for me. A buck and a quarter for a huge cup of steaming heaven from a little cart right out on the street. It's a daily happening and a damn good one. I sipped and sipped, happy as anyone who just got into work could reasonably be. When the day officially began, I walked over to a colleague's desk to discuss a project.
That's when it happened. As I was pleading my case, I noticed that she wasn't exactly "hearing" me. Finally, I paused and gave her the "WHAT" look. She pointed at my shirt, and my day was ruined.
Yep, the ol' sneaky coffee spill trick. Tough to see in the picture, but somehow, enough coffee dripped from my cup to leave my bright gray sweatshirt with an even brighter yellow stain somewhere in the realm of half an inch thick and eight inches long. Our office sweats under fluorescent white lights. There was no hiding this. It was there, and despite my feeble attempts to drown it out with water (leading to the need to sit still at my desk for a full thirty minutes, because on top of the coffee stain, now half my shirt was drenched), it was going to stay there, all day long.
My office is very large, filled with many people that I don't work with on a daily basis, if even ever at all. But most of the workers are really polite, and it's not uncommon to hi/bye someone that you've never actually spoken to before. I hi/byed at least a dozen veritable strangers today, and every single one of them couldn't take their eyes off this stain. Whenever I rode the elevator down for a smoke, all eyes were on that stain. Everywhere I went, eyes drooped down. It's amazing how a half a second's worth of a coffee mishap can cause eight hours of unflinching torture, but that's the way the world works, and tomorrow, I'm bringing a spare shirt into the office...just in case.
Posted by Matt on 11/15/2006. E-mail me!
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Dude. ShoutWipes. Keep a case of them in your desk. As a person who’s boobs seem to have a gravitational pull of their own that attracts my morning coffee, my breakfast, my lunch and occasionally OTHER people’s coffee, Shout Wipes are the only thing that keep me from looking like a very tall blonde real-life version of pigpen on a daily basis. And they WILL take out coffee reasonably well, though big stains MAY take two.