As I tore back the corner of my small manila envelope, a white powdery substance poofed everywhere. (I know that ‘poofed’ isn’t really a word – but imagine what happened to powdered sugar when you breathe on it.) Working in D.C., my mind immediately jumps to anthrax but I assume I am just a victim of an over-active imagination. I may be 26 and pay my own bills, but in a stressful situation I still need to find an “adult” or parent-type figure. I know that several people fitting this description are in the kitchen (which is next door to the mailroom) so I gingerly carry the envelope into the kitchen and ask what I should do. They decided that we needed to put the envelope in a Ziploc bag and consider calling the authorities. Now, calling the authorities didn’t really sound like fun to me – what happens when the come down to our office and decide that I over-reacted? I wind up looking like an idiot. So to cover our bases, we checked our database for the name and return address and after coming up empty-handed we googled the address. I know you are going to die of not surprise, but the address was fake.

This started a chain of events that included: putting me in isolation (because I had touched the substance), turning of the ventilation for our building, a call to the USDA (which makes sense because of where I work), a call to 911, and blocking off the mailroom/kitchen area of our office. Things were starting to get a little out of control. The fire department showed up first, and they made everyone leave our main office suite except me, the “adult” who helped me (he touched the substance as well) and a co-worker who was in the room when I opened the envelope. This started to freak me out a little, but it was probably a hoax or I over-reacted – so no big deal, right?

Then the cops showed up. But here’s where I started to get a little more freaked out – they wouldn’t enter our office without their HazMat suits, so they questioned me by phone. Yeah, they were standing outside asking me questions about the envelope: Did it have suspicious writing on it? Was it over-postaged? Was their anything suspicious about the envelope? (Um…white powder came out of the freakin’ envelope – is that suspicious enough?)

Outbreak

As I’m having this lovely conversation with the authorities, these guys in HazMat suits enter the office suite. I’m talking, straight out of the movie Outbreak HazMat suits. By now, they have shut down our entire block in downtown DC – which is no easy feat. There are at least 4 fire trucks, several ambulances, HazMat trucks, police cars, FBI cars, special investigators for other agencies – it’s a circus outside of our office building. And all because I opened my mail – this was turning out to be the best Tuesday ever.

The firemen tried to keep me calm as they explained to me the decontamination protocol (they would take my clothes, I would change into a sterile suit thing, I would do an initial decontamination downstairs before they released me to go to the hospital for further testing and decontamination). I know they were trying really hard, but that’s not news one takes calmly…all I could think was, “But I really like this outfit.”

The lock-down started around 10 am, so it was getting to be lunchtime and no one could get in or out of our building. Everyone was getting antsy because we were all hungry. I knew a coworker had some snacks and a bottle of Crown Royal under his desk, so if all else failed – I’d be fine. Once the had finished the initial testing and were pretty sure it was a hoax, they let someone order pizza – but the police had to escort someone to go get the pizza because the pizza delivery guy wasn’t even allowed on our block. I have never been more excited for pizza in my life.

After four and a half hours in lock-down, questioning by the DC police, the DC fire department, and a couple of special investigators, and countless chemical tests, they determined that there was no serious threat and we were free to go. We still don’t know what the substance was, what the letter in the envelope said or why someone would send that. We have our theories about the motive – but no one knows for sure. Hopefully, they will find out who did this and prosecute them or something. I don’t really care about being inconvenienced – I found the emergency response to go rather smoothly and I don’t have anthrax, so no biggie – but the whole situation created a huge waste of DC resources.

Needless to say, I am very thankful that today has been an extremely uneventful Wednesday.

h/t Holy Taco

In my infinite roto-wisdom, I had taken Mr. Thomas Edward Brady, Jr. in the first round. Like all things that come back to bite you in the arse, it seemed like a good idea at the time. And it was a good idea, until Bernard Pollard decided to over-achieve with 7:38 into Week 1 of the NFL season.

As the Patriots were announcing that Mr. Brady’s injury was season ending, I had been in panic mode for almost a day trying to plug the gaping hole in my team. The effects of my panic induced roster bingo were about as effective as trying to plug the hole in the Titanic with bubble gum.

So here I sit, having my first losing fantasy season ever and I’m pissed off.

I know it’s not Tom Brady’s fault…but who else am I going to blame? I can’t blame the rain, because that shtick is played out.

So I’ve devised a scheme to help me recover from this devastating loss – I’m going to try and recoup my entry fee by selling slightly inappropriate Tom Brady t-shirts. (Really, I just wanted a shirt – and if I’m going to the effort to make them, I might as well see if anyone else wants one.)

They are available here: http://www.cafepress.com/espngirl

1) Rock your NKOTB t-shirt from 15 years ago. (Which begs the larger question of ‘How the hell are these women wearing something they could fit into 15 years ago, and why do they still have it’).

2) Make or buy new NKOTB t-shirts. (This option seems a little more sane, but does anyone really need a shirt that says ‘The Block is Back’?)

3) Pretend it’s the 80′s and wear neon colors (hypercolor is preferred, but really hard to find), scrunched socks, side ponytails, and some form of shirt that refused to make contact with one or both shoulders.

There was a girl in front of us who decided that one of the above options was not enough. She wore a new t-shirt, made a sign (see below) and brought her NKOTB sheets from when she was little. It was a whole bunch of crazy.

Overachieving NKOTB fan

Besides the people watching, the concert was unintentionally hilarious. These guys are 40 and doing the same dance moves they did in 1989. I’m not going to lie, it made me feel like a kid again – but they looked kind of stupid.

The entire experience left me with a couple of observations about the timelessness of NKOTB:

1) I still can’t tell you which one is Danny and which one is Jonathan. (We actually had to wikipedia it at the concert to come up with the names of the ones who aren’t Joey, Jordan and Donnie).

2) I still prefer Marky Mark (sans Funky Bunch) over Donnie. Which kind of makes me feel bad. Donnie Wahlberg is like Alfred Einstein or Tito and Jermaine Jackson. No matter how good he is, he’ll never live up to the awesomeness that is his brother.

3) The Right Stuff dance is still fun…or at least for me.

It was nice to get to feel like a little kid again, even though I was surrounded by a bunch of older women screaming like a 7 year old at a Hannah Montana/Jonas Brothers concert.

Here’s a little video we took from our seats, so you can all feel like a preteen again too.

This story came up at work today while we were discussing how people voted on the bailout. You see, as a general rule, I don’t like Bob Corker because he beat Harold Ford, Jr., whom I love, so I’m always interested to see how he votes on things. Which means that I am often looking at a breakdown of how the Senators voted, and I always start humming when I see Lincoln’s name…which prompted the story.

Without further ado, I would like to introduce you all to my friend, Lambert the Sheepish Lion.

This is one of my favorite shows, and I’m really sad the season is almost over. I wish that Will hadn’t gone home last week, but I’m glad that Twitch and Joshua are still in the game. There have been a lot of great dances this season, but Katee and Joshua’s dance from the first week is still my favorite.

(Preface: Without getting into too much detail, I haven’t talked to my middle brother since Dec. 2004.)

My middle brother’s birthday was on Monday of last week, and I decided it was high time I call him. So I asked around trying to get his new phone number. Alas, no one had it. So I resorted to stalking my middle brother on the Internet, trying to guess as to where he is living now in a futile attempt to narrow down the multitudes of people who share his name to a manageable few. This task was made slightly more difficult by the fact that my 30 year old brother is a fabled creature that should be studied by crypto-zoologists everywhere. It appears that my brother has yet to plug into the World Wide Web. I know that you are all thinking that such people don’t exist, that believe in such nonsense would be like saying that Big Foot and Nessie are real. Well friends, you should believe…it’s a strange world out there. But I digress.

Needless to say I was having some difficulty tracking down a number for said brother. And then it hit me…I’m friends with his ex-wife on MySpace. They have a kid together, so they have to have some sort of contact, right? This revelation let me to awkward encounter #1 of this story. I MySpaced his ex-wife, made a little small talk, and then asked her “So, I’m about to ask you the most awkward question ever, but I was wondering if you had [my brother]’s phone number.” My ex-sister-in-law is a doll, and replied, “I don’t have his number, but I do have his new wife’s. It’s 555-555-5555.”

So, if you look at that sentence above, you will notice that the new wife’s name isn’t mentioned. And that isn’t because I’m choosing to leave it out for privacy reasons. She didn’t give it to me. And this situation is already so awkward that I can’t write back and be like, “Do happen to know the new wife’s name?” It’s a little sad that I don’t know it already. So, I call my sister to see if she knows my brother’s new wife’s name. No dice…which leads to awkward encounter #2.

So I was bracing myself for having to call a woman I don’t know, whose name I don’t know, and have an extremely awkward conversation. Luckily for me, she didn’t answer and I got to leave a message. The following is the message I left. (I should mention that her voicemail intro was some kids screaming. There was no “This is Barbie and I’m not available, leave a message”, because that would be too easy. That would tell me her name before I had to leave a message, and we all know that takes all of the fun out of these situations.)

“Hi. Ummm…this is Jessica, I’m [brother]’s little sister. I got your number from [your husband’s ex-wife]. I’ve been trying to get in touch with him to wish him a happy birthday, but I’m not having much luck. So if you could tell him to call me that would be great. My number is 555-555-5555. Thanks!”

Hi Jessica,

I noticed your resume and thought you might make a good candidate for us, but we are a traditional church of Christ and therefore would not be interested in a female minister. I just thought I’d ask if you were, indeed, female?

It even feels rude making the inquiry, but we feel the scripture is clear in this matter.

God bless,

What I want to know is how many boys you know named Jessica? I know boys named Jess and Jesse, but no Jessica.

I appreciate a thinly veiled attempt at telling them that you think they are wrong in the eyes of God as much as the next person, but if you think it might be rude to ask – it probably is.

It’s not a huge secret that I work for the meat industry. And sometimes we get some crazy calls and emails. We got casting calls for the upcoming CW show “Farmer Wants A Wife”, I’ve been asked to secure the proper posters for a butcher shop by a Hollywood set designer, and I’ve been called (and serenaded) by the cowboy poet. But the video from today takes the cake – I have watched it at least five times (and I still laugh).

For more information on the contest visit www.raisingthesteaks.com