Do you ever wonder about “brilliant ideas”?

Don’t think of “wonderful inventions” or “life-saving devices” or even “I don’t know how we lived without that!” Think “brilliant idea” in that “dripping with sarcasm” voice -

- like when your sister decided that it was a “brilliant idea” to give your son one of those books with the buttons on the side that make noises for certain words? And a drum. And a toy ambulance that makes “REALISTIC SOUNDS!”

- like when your 16-year-old brother discovered the joy of “vodka watermelon - prepared by boring a hole into a watermelon, pouring a bottle of vodka into the hole, refrigerating to an icy-cold freshness, and then enjoyed on a hot, humid day sitting in the sun on Belle Isle.

- like when you signed up for the Firecracker Mile which started at 8 oh-shit-it’s-early the morning after the “Best Next Door Neighbors in the World” had their annual 4th of July drunk-fest party. (Hey, I medaled. Mr. Hot, though, was trying to determine whether to just puke in the street or pretend he pulled a hammie about 1/4 mile in.)

- like when your 48-year-old husband decided he, too, could go down the ramp at the skate park with the neighborhood kids. Y’know - the big ramp. The one that even an 11-year-old that has been inline skating since his 4th birthday pauses at the top of? Yea, that one.*

Then there are the work-related “brilliant ideas”. Those things that make no sense to anyone at all. In fact, you’d have to try hard to even come up with something so asinine. Like today’s fun.

I received an email notifying me that our Accounts Payable department was missing one of the forms needed to process a $39.99 invoice that had been submitted for a partial month of DSL service for an ex-employee.

I picked up the phone and called the number at the bottom of the email. (The email which said, very clearly, “Do NOT reply to this email address” on it.)

Hi! This is the Hotfessional. I received an email regarding invoice #29853-42A for $39.99. It said you never received the SWTF form you need to process the invoice. I can send you an electronic copy of it - what’s the email address?

We don’t accept email copies of that form.

Oh, well, okay, I’ll fax it to you. What’s the fax #?

We don’t accept faxes either.

But I don’t have the original. It was sent to you and apparently got lost. I only have an electronic copy. The person that had the original is no longer with the company.

You can send what you have through Interoffice mail. We don’t need the original.

Wait. You don’t need the original? And you can send emails, but you can’t receive emails? You have a fax machine for expense reports, but I can’t fax you the SWTF form for a vendor invoice? You can accept a copy of a copy of a faxed copy, but only if you open an interoffice email envelope to get it. Which means I have to drive over to an office and ask someone to put it into Interoffice Mail. Then, after I get to create an expense account entry for the use of my personal vehicle, I have to fax you the expense report form to get reimbursed the mileage?

Yes ma’am.

And you don’t see anything strange about this?

No ma’am. That’s the way our process works.

That, my friends, is a brilliant idea, that process. Abso-fuckin-lutely brilliant.

So, I hopped in the car, headed over to an office nearby, and asked someone to stick the envelope into outgoing interoffice mail. Then I hopped back into my car and drove on home. Y’know, my HOME office, where they don’t come pick up interoffice mail?

Speaking of which, oh mah holy hell, y’all, I am writing a weekly column about working from home over at Blissfully Domestic - the online magazine devoted to, oh, everything. Come see my first article, look around at the other wonderful people who play there, and find some new friends.

—- *In order to provide proof that this really did happen, I am willing to show my husband’s thigh on the web. —-