Fantoccini
The following story is true, although as usual the names have been changed:
I'm in the HR meeting a couple of days ago, and we're asked to introduce ourselves and provide a little known fact about ourselves. So Fred, who's an all around cool guy and a bit of a jokester, introduces himself and tells the assembled resources that a little known fact about himself is that he grew up in a family of travelling puppeteers. Hysterics ensue on my part. Explosive giggling. The entire geometry of my face is slightly distorted due to the pressure of these giggles, much the way that the earth slightly bulges around its equator. If you listen closely, you can hear the blood vessels in my eyes bursting. I'm thinking that this is one of the best meeting performances I've ever seen. We've always enjoyed messing with the HR folks, but Fred's really raised the bar with this.
Fred, while laughing a bit himself, says no, he's not kidding. He also mentions that these were Christian travelling puppeteers. Round 2. Teams of US Geological Engineers are puzzled by anomalous data on their seismographs. Small mammals for a 20 mile radius are acting nervous. My bicuspids are embedded in the the wall after being shot across the room at a sizeable fraction of the speed of sound by one particularly violent set of giggles. After what seems like a fortnight, I manage to compose myself. Mostly.
Later that day, Fred shows me his parent's web site. The following is a direct quote: "Together, Michael and Susan have over 20 years of experience in puppet ministry". Ooohoo ho ho hee hee ho ho. Why does this matter? "I'm sorry, we're really looking for someone who has had at least 3 years of experience with marionettes and Leviticus." Apparently Fred and family lived a semi-vagabond existence, like a rogue group of puppeteer outlaws, from which Fred escaped when he went off to college. It sounded a bit like "Turn the Page" crossed with Sesame Street. Oh boy. I don't want to put the link in here, because these are likely decent people and don't deserve a bunch of grief. But man, that was a meeting.
6:06:30 PM 
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