T-Bone

“T-Bone.”

Years ago when I worked at the Mighty Mezz, there was a girl there I nicknamed “man-hating string-bean.”
I never called her that to her face. We got along pretty well, but it seemed she hated men.
Every day her mother called, and they badmouthed men. This despite a picture of her husband in her cubicle. She was in her 30s and extremely thin.
She was a “Postie,” from Post Newspapers, which the Messenger purchased shortly before their CEO-founder died.
Posties could be elitists compared to we down-to-earth Messenger mockers. My guess is that was Post management style. Build up the employees so they could be paid peanuts.
“Man-hating string-bean” and I worked in adjacent cubicle rows. She was maybe 15-20 feet away across an aisle.
One day my friend Marcy, who worked in the cubicle next to mine, sneezed.
It was the exact moment I fired up a picture of a hotrod Model T Ford in my iMac, so I shouted “T-Bone.”
“T-Bone” is old hotrod lingo. Model T Fords were “T-Bones;” Model-A Fords were “A-Bones.”
Marcy was flummoxed. Why had I shouted “T-Bone” instead of “gesundheit?”
From then on any time anyone sneezed at the Mighty Mezz, someone uttered “T-Bone.”
One time man-hating string-bean sneezed, so I called her up from my cubicle 15-20 feet away.
“T-Bone,” I said quietly.
She laughed.
No fair! I made her laugh, and men were disgusting scoundrels.

• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over 11 years ago. Best job I ever had — I worked there almost 10 years (over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern [I had a stroke October 26th, 1993, from which I recovered fairly well]).
• “Marcy” is my number-one Ne’er-do-Well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-do-Wells. She has since married.