If you've read my blog before, this is hardly news to you, but to anyone who might have happened to stumble into here for the first time, I have an insanely annoying coworker. The only way we maintain sanity is to vent at each other via email. Fortunately, we have a relatively good sense of the absurd, and my other colleagues can be quite hilarious. Here's an example of some of vents that are just too funny not to share. If you can use them at your workplace, be my guest, steal our snarks:

First, a rant of mine. I titled the note "I Must Document This Process:"

The way that she is eating whatever foodstuff is on her desk sounds like this: Imagine people were bobbing for apples, except that they were supposed to suck them up out of the water rather than biting at them. There would be some really intense air intake and schlurping. Then there would be a lot of coughing due to the schlurped water, and nose blowing due to the schlurping and coughing. Now, imagine that they were bobbing for caramel apples, and once an apple was snagged, the caramel became stuck to their tongue and the roof of their mouth. Lots of smacking. To get relief from their intense effort, they'd take a huge swig of a tasty beverage, make that weird little gluggy noise that happens when there's too much liquid heading down the gullet, slam down the glass and exclaim: "AHHHHHHH!"

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Me: Sometimes, I swear, I listen to her and think of Louis Armstrong.

Coworker: I see skies of blue and clouds of white

The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night

And I think to myself, what a wonderful world why do I have to sit here and listen to her.

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Annoying person is on a low carb diet, and announces it frequently:

Me: I am going to sit back here and munch my ass off on my carb-laden crackers.

Coworker: When she gets on that kick (OK, every day of her life!!) it just makes me want to sit there and eat an entire loaf of bread.

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Me: Here's my horoscope for today. Good grief!

Daily Overview for September 08, 2006

Provided by Astrology.com

Quickie:

Extend a kind hand to the people in your life who use anger to hide their sadness.

Overview:

An extra dash of sensitivity will help your day run much more smoothly, especially when it comes to some bossy or moody types in your immediate vicinity. They may even return the favor in the near future.

Coworker: Haven't your heard???? The horoscopes have been all screwed up since the damned astronomers decided to boot Pluto from the planetary alignment. Don't MESS with mother nature!!!!! I rechecked Yahoo for your Pluto-adjusted horoscope. It reads:

Quickie:

Extend a kind hand to Wield a meat clever against the people in your life who use anger to hide their sadness.

Overview:

An extra dash of sensitivity cutlery will help your day run much more smoothly, especially when it comes to some bossy or moody types in your immediate vicinity. They may even return the favor remain quietly in their cubicle in the near future.

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Me: Isn't she a delicate thing?

Coworker: ----------------delicate…….like a thorn in your retina.

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In addition to being on a low-carb diet, the annoying one has a Labrador Retriever that is the most of whatever you're talking about -- bigger, smarter, horribly-behaved, best-behaved, toughest, wimpiest... it doesn't matter, because as one of the guys in the office wrote:

My dog's bigger than your dog,

My dog's bigger than yours,

My dog's bigger than your dog,

Because he's been on this low carb diet to try to lose some weight, don't you know, but it's just so hard, it's just---so---hard…..and he just can't seem to stick with it…..he likes the cottage cheese, but all that other low carb yucky stuff he just spits out and runs off to eat a bag of chips or a bowl of popcorn or a loaf of Wonder Bread or an entire angel food cake or a pie (he just loves pie) with lots of high carb sugar in it; he won't even eat meat loaf unless it has Grape Nuts or oatmeal filler in it; sometimes he'll eat some of that low carb yicky stuff, but then it just goes all to hell because he'll just run off to his dog house (he has a really cool dog house, you know) and drink a bunch of beer and eat a couple of bags of Cheetos and a big pile of French fries smothered with a huge mountain of mashed potatoes and then he gets all depressed and refuses to go to obedience class and just lays around thinking about carbs; it's hard, it's just--so--hard, it's just--so--very--very--hard; but,

My dog's bigger than your dog,

My dog's bigger than yours,

My dog's bigger than your dog,

So to hell with everybody in South Beach!