The Perils of Wearing Earbuds at Work

It's a known and begrudged fact that the post-lunch hours of desk work servitude are long and oft smothered in a repressive haze of exhaustion. 

Basically, we're all tired and our bellies are full and we want a nap. Because we're grown-up adulty human beings. And filing seemingly meaningless paperwork is just not harnessing the attentions like it should. So sometimes (read: most times, like every day times) I'll pull out my phone and listen to pandora. Like, a really upbeat station. Like Shakira or something to get my toes tappin' and the blood flowin'. 

And today, I was engaging in such activities BUT I'm a smart human and I know that I already have selective hearing problems so I only ever put one earbud in at a time so I can still hear if somebody screams says my name. But I tend to kind of, y'know, tune out the conversations, some of the time, occasionally.

And every great once in awhile, hilarity ensues.

Today, I forgot that I had uncovered a hidden green apple laffy taffy that had fallen under my desk and had been saving it for after lunch. So when I finally remembered I excitedly pulled it out of my purse (by the way, it's a big deal because there are only like, four icky cherry laffy taffy's left in the whole office so like, SCORE, amiright?) and proceeded to check the jokes in hopes that one would perchance incite a rueful chuckle. 

One was completely dumb and not worth the time to type it out. The other said this:

     "Why did the little mouse run away from home?"

[pause for effect]

     "Because his father was a rat."

Now, I don't know about you but I'm not too sure about like, domestic abuse insinuations as jokes on candy wrappers so my jaw dropped and I laughed nervously and turned to share the joke with my coworkers. We all had a community "wtf" moment and the day should've continued as normal but one coworker commented,

"I'm a Rat."

I, totally missing his meaning, just turned around with a chuckle and left it alone.

Moments later, I realized my other coworker was asking me something.

I turned back around, "what?"

"Are you a Dragon?"

I assumed I misheard, "sorry, what?"

"Are you a Dragon??"

I literally had no idea how to respond. I just said no and hoped that I was in the realm of appropriate responses to whatever was happening. But a multitude of eyes were staring at me as if this was a normal conversation and my panic quickly escalated. And so I addressed the situation myself,

"I have no clue what's happening right now, why...what?"

And I finally pulled my headphone out.

"I feel like I ate that laffy taffy and it was laced with acid or something, what is even going on? What are we talking about?? I found it hiding under my desk so who even knows what happened to it..."

In the interim between when I recited the punchline of the joke and after my coworker initially revealed that he was, in fact, "a Rat" the others went on to reveal their CHINESE ANIMAL YEAR DESIGNATIONS and my coworker was actually just asking if I was a Dragon, or in other words, born in a preset sequence of years.

That is all. Thankfully I'm still clean and my laffy taffy was not tainted. Whew!

And for the record, I'm a frickin' Horse and it's awesome.