Misunderstood

Jared and I started reading a book together yesterday. It's called The Omen Machine by Terry Goodkind. So far the book has talked a lot about prophecy and how, in the setting of the book, you know something is prophecy when it presents itself more than once. So for example, a fortune teller on the street told one of the main characters that the roof was going to fall in. Then later that day, the same character read that same line in an old prophecy book. At first it was just a blind fortune teller saying something non-nonsensical. But when the same phrase presented itself again in a different time and place, it became prophecy. 

Jared is a fan of the author and we needed something to help pass the time as we drove to Cody, so we brought it along and I read it out loud while Jared drove. This arrangement works out well since I don't like to drive on snowy roads that have the constant threat of deer jumping out at you when you least (or most) expect it. And listening to someone else (i.e. Jared) read brings out the attention deficit disorder I sometimes suffer from. My mind wanders. And I miss paragraphs or pages at a time before I even realize that I'm no longer paying attention.Things go much better when I'm the one reading the words on the page. 

I'm blame my occasional disorder on working in an office the last eight years. When you have deadlines to meet and heavy analysis to do, you learn how to tune your co-workers' voices out no matter how interesting (or uninteresting) their topic of discussion is. My first "real" job out of college was in major cubicle land. I didn't mind it cause I didn't really know any better. But then I went to work for the hospital and was given my own office. Score!! I thought I was definitely moving up in the world to have my very own office....with a window! The only downside was that my boss' office was right next door. That alone kind of stinks, but when you combine the poor logistics with being afraid of your boss....well, that was an adjustment.

But, then times changed. My boss was no longer scary and our department grew to the point where we had to relocate AND have two analysts per office. I was NOT happy about that. At all. My unhappiness was short-lived, though, cause my new office mate, Amy, was a riot. It's common knowledge among those who know me best that I much prefer working with men than women. Women are catty and bring all sorts of unnecessary drama to the office. Thankfully, Amy wasn't like that. And we got along really well.

My last office-mate was Geoff. Geoff was....well....let's just say that the maturity level in our office when the two of us were together was....ummm.....not really all that impressive. My favorite memory of Geoff was in a team meeting on story telling that our director put together. She had two of the guys who worked on the story board for Napoleon Dynamite come and give us their two cents. (Well, one of the guys worked on the story board. The other guy played the principal in the movie.) The purpose was to teach us how to tell a story about the information we were analyzing rather than just present trend lines and outliers. We were each given a story board type note book and were told to draw a story that represented one of the projects or challenges we were currently working on.

 

My one-word description of that little task? L.a.m.e. 

With a capital L. 

After my last blog, it may come as a surprise to you that while I am a professional stick figure drawererer, I generally don't like to draw. I'm not good at it and I don't have the patience or creativity for it. So, I kinda maybe sorta didn't participate in the storyboard drawing activity. Geoff sure did though. He started drawing right away. Here's what he came up with:

Take away the smoker at the water cooler and the guy dressed as a Boise State cheerleader, and you have...

 Geoff and yours truly.

Apparently Geoff's "challenge" that he felt the need to draw out was my attempt to kill him with an ax while he slept on the job. I thought the picture was hilarious, and when he went to throw it away I grabbed it from him and asked if I could keep it. I ended up hanging it up in our office the last few months I was there. 

That's not weird at all, is it?

But anyways, like I said...I thought the picture was hilarious. And obviously quite harmless. 

Until this morning.

When Jared's nephew drew this. Out of no where. At church. During Sacrament meeting. Aisle seat. Second to last pew.

I guess sometimes I just feel a little misunderstood. 

And I wonder if the idea of something presenting itself in two different times and two different places really does mean it's some type of prophecy. 

I suppose we'll find out sooner or later. And with a horrible little contraption otherwise known as the xbox, I'm inclined to lean slightly more towards sooner than later.

But we shall see.