Chirky

As a "thank you for leaving work and playing and sleeping all day at this year's legal services meeting" I received a gift from my company. I inwardly groaned because to date, gifts from my employer have been an odd variety of corporate promotional products, except the Unfortunate Turkey Incident of 2005, which did NOT have a logo, and which if it did, it would have found itself snuggled between shredded paper and mildewed lettuce in dumpster number 236839:

• a white polo-type shirt with a red and black houndstooth collar and our company logo, which shirt has never been removed from its original packaging;


• a pen that didn't work and that was promptly returned to the giver with the "thanks for trying" monologue;


• a magnet for my home refrigerator that sported the company logo, which magnet mysteriously disappeared between my hand and my trash can; and


• a giant turkey that consumed every inch of my freezer until a month ago when Roger thawed it out, and even then, it was only because I needed the freezer space for something else.

This is where the chorus of "Faith! I'm gonna live forever ... I'm gonna learn how to fly ..." popped into my head, even though the song says "Fame!" and not "Faith!", and even though the song really has nothing to do with faith, nor did the gift have anything to do with living forever.

I pried the lid open a tiny bit, only enough to see: a silver-ish pen! With a company logo! I almost laughed out loud, and then decided that maybe this one will actually work! Before I could swivel the ballpoint into position, other items inside the box caught my attention. Like, instructions. For a pen?

Words jumped at me from the instructions: "Since a laser beam can be harmful to the eyes, DO NOT STARE OR LOOK DIRECTLY INTO THE LASER BEAM OUTPUT APERTURE during operation." Suh-weet! My employer is offering laser radiation! If I hold this close enough to my legs, will my leg hair start to fall out? I'll let you know.

I screwed in the batteries and immediately started pressing buttons on the pen to find the laser. When I found it, I looked directly at it to see just how laser-y it was. It is VERY laser-y. I am still seeing white spots after I blink, which is kind of fun because it's almost like I'm about to pass out, but without the part wherein I begin to worry whether I'll fall and hit something, and without me wondering whether vomiting will be involved.

ADDITIONALLY, I can screw off the center section and my pen morphs into a USB storage device. I think this will come in handy when I'm trying to download an encrypted database without government officials knowing. On the back of the laser instructions is a guide related to usage of the USB. It clearly states that if I am caught with said pen, IT WILL BE IMMEDIATELY CONFISCATED and I will be interrogated by those secret-spy types, who will only use dental instruments when they "talk" to me.

So! I better be careful. The best part about the pen is not the laser and is not the USB - it's the OTHER hidden feature. If I turn the pen top to the left, the ballpoint emerges. But if I turn it to the right, a lipgloss swab pops up. This is totally cool because a) it is in my favorite shade "Oh Baby" by MAC, b) it is sparkly and c) it has specially formulated molecules that can be used in connection with a satellite to track me - up to 50 yards accuracy WITH audio. My daughter is TOTALLY wearing this when she goes on dates.

Incidentally, my employer just redeemed itself from the Turkey Incident.