Page 90 - Free the Idea Monkey
P. 90

• constantly jingled the keys, candy, coins and toys in each of
         his pockets. Occasionally he’d take an item out, give a curious
         “Hmpphh?” and then keep talking.

     • put hard candy in his mouth and slur his speech.
     • passed out plastic rulers, scissors, tape, etc., that had

         “Property of Sacred Heart Catholic School” written on each
         item ... then forget why he passed out the items.

     John basically made absolutely no sense — with heartfelt
conviction—for the better part of an hour. He laughed, he cried and
he looked confused. And so did every person at Maddock Douglas.
All the while, Wes Douglas and I looked nervously at each other,
playing along.

     After we had suffered enough, John led us down to the park-
ing lot for a “team-building” exercise. There, the ruse ended and we
asked everyone to jump into buses waiting to take us all to an amuse-
ment park for the day. Thank you, John. You were spectacular!

The Silly Olympics
     June is time for the annual company picnic. As you might imag-

ine, we try to make every picnic a bit different. My favorite one
included the Silly Olympics. Teams competed for gold in events they
designed. Some of my favorites:

     • Who Cut the Cheese? A relay race in which teams raced to
         a chair, sat on a whoopie cushion, ate a piece of cheese, then
         ran back, spraying air freshener.

     • Blindfolded Oven Mitt Card Grab. 60 seconds to grab as
         many playing cards as you can wearing oven mitts.

     • Olive Oil Egg Toss. Man those things are slippery!

                                            75C H A P T E R 5
   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95