Since my life has lately been completely and totally usurped and controlled by the Den of Iniquity (note my wife’s recent post about this extremely upsetting development), what would be more fitting than a few anecdotes from out of the Den?!

Lately I’ve been yelling a lot. It’s fun and relieves stress. “LINE ROLL!!!!” “Need a FLOOR!!!” “OVER!!!” And so on. It’s most fun though when me and my buddy Mark yell at each other. I’ll scream “WATER PUMP!!!!” And he’ll holler back “IT’S RIGHT HERE TOM!!!!!!” Yesterday we were yelling at each other and suddenly he laughed and said, you should have seen Beth’s face! She thought we were really mad at each other!

But today was John Denver Day for me and Mark. We sang “Leaving on a Jet Plane” (or two lines from it) over and over and over. Bill was almost beside himself.

And we did it in several parts, like they did in the movie “Armageddon.” I’d sing the melody and Mark would float the high descant, “Ah ah AH ah ah ah!” It was really something. You should’ve been there.

At breaktime I was kidding my buddy Juan about eating all his lunch so early in the day. Then he mentioned that he wanted to gain weight.

“Oh,” I said patting my substantial midsection, “like me?”

“No,” he replied without even thinking, “I mean in a good way!”

A few days ago Juan was working near me again. We were combining efforts on something and he mentioned a spacer he had cut for a particular task.

“Smart man,” I said.

“I may speak with an accent,” he replied, “but I don’t think with one!”