winning the office Dork award

In truth, I'm a big dork and recently I reaffirmed my true ultradorkness beyond a doubt.

You know that instance in bad commercials or movies where the pocket-protector wearing geek opens the printer toner and it explodes all over them in a big balloon of drifting blackpowder? And when their glasses, also covered in toner, are removed their eyes are big white raccoon eyes?

That would be me (minus the pocket protector. Please, I still have some dignity.). I had prepared a report for an afternoon meeting and when I went to grab said report from the machine, the screen indicated the toner needed to be reset. Being somewhat comfortable with machines, I opened the toner cartridge. Which exploded. All over me. Up my nose, over my face, my neck, my arms, in my cleavage. My jacket and shirt, which were light shades of blue when I put them on, were now covered in black toner, as were my grey pants. (There was still toner powder in my cleavage, as it seemed to want to stay firmly embedded in the minute pores of my skin, when I went to shower later that night.) The cutout pattern of my shoes left similar patterns on my feet there was so much of that shit on me.

Any other day and this event would have been a good reason to bail out of work for the remainder of the day, removing my superfantastic dorkness from further humiliation. But my meeting? The guy was coming in from Illinois and is a toner ink face bomb reason enough to send him packing?

I was able to get a co-worker to stand guard, chuckling all the while, at the restroom door as I peeled the beyond disgusting clothes off my body and cleaned the toner off of my face, neck and arms. The paper towel in office restrooms is not good for body washing, in case you ever need to know that. For a few panicky seconds it didn't look like it was going to come off at all. The same door guarding co-worker had rescued my gym bag from my office and I was able to slip into my workout gear. Then it was time to do a little quick replacement clothes shopping to be presentable for my afternoon meeting.

The linen jacket may be a total write off as the guy at the dry cleaner looked dubious and refused any guarantees.

Just call me Dorkness.