Advertising lies

As any parent will tell you, when your four year old says, "Don't worry, I've got it all under control." You better worry. Especially when they tell this to you in your place of employment.

And now I'm going to leave you in suspense for a few paragraphs while I back up to the beginning of the story.

Despite their lack of understanding of my job, my kids love coming to my office and visiting with my "friends". Last week (I'm now only a week behind in my stories, but after this one I'll be caught up. Yikes! That means I better start paying attention to what my kids are doing so I've got more blog material. Of course, had I been paying better attention to my kids last week, this story wouldn't have happened. And the plant in my office would be okay. And I wouldn't know where the office vacuum cleaner was stored.) But I digress...

Last week, the kids got a chance to play in my office for a while after Jeff dropped them off with me on his way to work.

I had a few things I needed to finish up, and so I brought them into the conference room where we have a DVD player. I opened the DVD case Jeff had brought for them and found it was empty. Let me just note this is the SECOND TIME he has done this to me.

As luck would have it, there was leftover birthday cake in the kitchen, so that, along with a can of pop I gave them to share, kept the kids busy long enough for me to brainstorm some headlines for a billboard. But there was also a print ad to write. And I was having... oh what should we call it... um, creative differences with the creative director, and so it was taking longer than it should have.

I left the kids alone with my phone (for AJ) and some paper and highlighters (for Sydney) and went upstairs to present the sixteenth version (I might be exaggerating just a little.) As I was coming back down, Sydney met me at the top of the stairs.

"Something terrible happened!"

"You spilled your pop. Didn't you?"

"No. Come and see!"

Into my office we ran, with me, of course, fearing I was about to see a horribly messy disaster.

It wasn't quite that bad.

The once lovely ivy plant that cascades down the side of my short filing cabinet, was now cascading all over the floor. Sydney had bumped it while trying to set the pop can on top of the cabinet. I say the plant was "once lovely", not because the fall wrecked it, but because our office manager, who used to take care of it for me is no longer with us, and it's clear the plant is suffering as a result.

On the plus side, the dirt that spilled out of the pot was very dry, making it easy to clean up.

Of course, when Sydney saw me pull out the carpet sweeper, she immediately wanted to take over. I figured there was no harm in that and resumed my work. As I headed back upstairs to argue for version 17, I heard Sydney call out, "Don't worry, I've got it all under control."

Uh huh.

By the time I returned to my office, the plant had taken another tumble and even more dirt had spilled. Sydney had caught one of the dangling shoots in the sweeper and pulled the whole thing down.

Of course, the batteries on the carpet sweeper chose that moment to die, and so we set out in search of the big vacuum cleaner.

Sydney wanted to help again, but as I could, I told her there was absolutely no possible way. I did however, let her have a go at in the hallway, where there was nothing to destroy.

She was happy. The plant has survived. The print ad got written. (And then changed three more times, but that's another story.)

If Jeff ever shows up with an empty DVD case again...