Our colleague Jim Dennison–not only one of the most astute collectors of Beatles memorabilia but the owner of a terrific Peter Fonda circa Easy Rider mustache–got married recently.
So we threw him a little breakfast party in the staff lunch room. The surprise guest was his bride.
We didn’t just throw a party. We threw handfuls of confetti, which came in little bags like the one you see here. We felt we were doing our bit to stimulate the economy by squandering all this Made in USA commercial paper, though not the kind the banks were sitting on at the time.
But no sooner had we scattered clouds of confetti all over Jim, his bride, ourselves (I got compliments on the way the random spattering of colored dots looked on my black sweater) and the floor, than a few of us went Oops!
You see, Jim keeps our building alive and well. Any problems with mail, heat, lighting, A/C, the phones and other systems we editorial types seem genetically incapable of (or indisposed to) mastering, you call Jim. And Jim makes the problem go away.
Confetti seems a fitting tribute to such an invaluable guy under such happy circumstances.
But what would you do if it suddenly occurred to you that the very fellow you were showering with pesky little paper dots was the same one who would later have to sweep it all up?
Well, you feel terribly thoughtless and stop in mid-throw to apologize to Jim for the indignity to come.
At which point, Jim says, "Hey, I don’t care. I don’t have to clean it up."
Oh, right. How long have I been working here? Two years this week. Suddenly it dawned on me that Jim doesn’t do the sweeping and vaccuming. That’s Julian’s job. He’s our cleaning contractor. An extremely nice fellow who has been married a long time already. And is still a nice fellow.
Best of all, by the time Julian showed up that night everyone would be long gone. Confetti deniability.
You may be wondering who owns that well-manicured hand in the picture. The answer is our editor, Ken Schlager, always steady under pressure, whether wielding his red pen or graciously posing for Plain Sight.