The Bugman Cometh

I love my son and I thank God every day for making him as adorable as he is. The reason I thank God for this is because if my son was not so cute 97.4% of the time, I would be tempted to exterminate him the other 2.6%.

Last night was not a good night for Carol or myself and it was all because of The Boy. According to Carol, he was a sweetheart all day and they had a great time on her day off. Around 10 to 15 minutes before I got home, however, he somehow morphed from cute Ben to Demon Child and did not morph back for the rest of the night. With the exception of a few bright spots, his vocabulary for the evening consisted of three basic phrases: 1) No, 2) I don’t want to, and 3) I want Bugman.

For those of you outside of my household who don’t know, Bugman is Ben’s name for a character in Toy Story 3. Ben already has numerous Woody’s, Buzz’s, a Bullseye, and countless other Toy Story toys that fill his room and the floors of every other room in our house. Yesterday at Target, however, he and Carol saw an action figure of this “Bugman” and since then, The Boy won’t shut up about it. It got to the point where Carol and I were half-jokingly plotting evil things we could do to Bugman if and when we bought it in order to emotionally scar our young child. That, combined with the fits of crying, screaming, and overall temper tantrums from his being tired was enough to wear us out and make us both crabby for the rest of the night.

After some time to cool down, however, I wondered why he was able to get us so worked up. Was it his disobedience? Was it our inability to get through to him? Or, was it just his complete ignorance of anything we had to say? I decided that today I would try to see what would happen to an adult if I were to act like him while I was at work. Needless to say, my day has not gone very well.

As I walked into the office the first person I saw was my director. She greeted me as she does every day with a courteous “Good morning.” My first reaction was to return the greeting, but I reminded myself of my experiment for the day and responded with “I want Bugman.”

She looked at me kind of funny and asked what I said and I repeated under my breath “I want Bugman.” Being very aware of how I am at times, she laughed it off and prior to entering her office said “you so crazy.”

Hmmm. This could get interesting.

My next actions were to drop my bag off at my desk, turn on my computer, and go to the kitchen area to get my milk so that I could have my morning bowl of cereal. Once I got to the kitchen there were a few people already in there so I figured I’d have to wait my turn. In typical 3 year old fashion though, I decided to just barge my way in there and not stop until I got where I was going. There was a lady bending over to get into the refrigerator but I knocked her out of my way to reach in and grab my half gallon of 2%.

“Excuse me” she said with a tone of snootiness in her voice.

I responded with “I don’t want to.”

“What?” she asked with both surprise and a hint of being offended.

“I. Don’t. Want. To” was my straight-faced response.

At that point I turned around and elbowed two other people on my way out of the small room and back to my desk.

When I got back to my desk my computer was awaiting my login so I entered my login name and password and went through my morning ritual of eating cereal and checking my emails. Just as I put the huge first bite of Rice Squares in my mouth my phone rang and, without even bothering to finish chewing, I answered the phone.

Me: (with a mouthful of food) Credit, this is Scott

Voice on phone: Yes Ken, is Scott there?

Me: (swallowing food) This is Scott

VOP: Sorry, it was a little mumbled. Scott, this is Ria from (company name withheld) and I was wondering…

Me: No

VOP: I’m sorry?

Me: I don’t want to.

VOP: Scott, as a member of (group name withheld) you are required to provide me with…

Me: I want Bugman

VOP: Excuse me?

Me: I want Bugman. It’s at Target.

VOP: Scott, is this some kind of a prank?

Me: No

VOP: Well, I’m sorry but can I talk to your manager?

Me: No

VOP: And why not?

Me: I don’t want to.

VOP: Scott, this is…

Me: I want Bugman.

*Click*


I was beginning to think that this 3 year old mentality had its merits. I could be as rude as I wanted to be and get the added benefit of avoiding a lot of work. There was also the chance that maybe, just maybe, someone would get the hint and go out on their lunch hour to get me a Bugman. I wasn’t putting too much faith in that though.

After working uninterrupted for about 45 minutes, my director came to my desk and asked if I would come into her office for a few minutes. Without looking away from the YouTube video that I was watching because I wanted to, I gave her my response:

Me: No

Director: What?

Me: I don’t want to.

Director: (with a tone of don’t-f*ck-with-me) Well, when you get done watching your video I want you to come into my office whether you want to or not.

Me: I want Bugman

Director: Scott, so help me God, if you don’t knock this shit off – I heard about your actions in the kitchen and I got a phone call from Ria stating that you were being ignorant – don’t think I won’t fire your ass.

There was a slight pause here as I went over my options. I knew she was serious as she had brought out her “So help me God” so continuing with this experiment could have very bad consequences. At the same time, I couldn’t cancel the experiment one hour into my day as it wouldn’t be fair to science. Millions of people were counting on the results of this experiment and I was not going to let them down. As a result, I responded.

Me: (under my breath) I want Bugman

Needless to say, this did not please her and she stormed from my desk directly into her office. Due to the fact that her office is directly across from my cubicle and she didn’t even bother to shut her door, I heard her pick up her phone and call down to HR. The basic gist of the conversation was that I was causing problem and she wondered if I was “high on some drugs” or something. Seeing as I wasn’t going to leave my cubicle, she wanted them to come upstairs and meet with me right away.

Now, in typical 3 year old fashion, I decided to switch my mood on a dime and casually got out of my chair and went into her office to apologize.

Director: Now what in the hell is your deal today

Me: I don’t know

Director: you’re acting really strange

Me: Strange?

Director: Yes

Me: I’m sorry

At this point I walked over to give her a hug, as 3 year olds do, but she backed away as if she thought I was going to hit her

Director: What are you doing?

Me; I don’t know

Director: I think it’s best that you go back to your desk. HR will be up here in a minute.

Me: I don’t want to

Director: I don’t care. Get your ass out of my office.

Me: I don’t want to.

Director: Scott, get out!

Me: I. Want. Bugman.

Director: What in the hell?

Me: I! WANT! BUGMAN!

At this point, the HR representative got to my Director’s office at the same time as building security. Apparently, people were growing concerned about my behavior so someone decided to call building security to have them observe me.

As if that was going to happen.

As I casually stood there, both the HR representative and the three members of building security were asking my Director a bunch of questions about my behavior and if I had threatened her in any way. She mentioned that I had approached her but she didn’t know why. I thought my attempts at a hug were pretty obvious, but if she didn’t understand my actions, then she didn’t deserve that hug.

This went on for about 3 to 4 minutes with the five of them talking around me but not directly to me. I quickly got bored due to the lack of attention being paid to me and decided to climb up onto one of the available chairs and started jumping up and down. The first bounce caught them off guard and I let out a shrill laugh to show my utter enjoyment at what I was doing.

After my second bounce, however, one member of building security overreacted, grabbed his stun gun, and fired 600,000 volts into my abdomen. That was not as fun. Let’s just say that after a little twitching and a round of vomiting up my Rice Squares from earlier, I was soon subdued.

As I sat in the building’s security headquarters, I was staring at a team comprised of my Director, my manager, 4 members of building security, my companies HR Director, his assistant, and the little Indian man from the convenience store in the buildings’ lobby (he’s had it in for me ever since I bought a .75 pack of gum with my debit card). I began pleading my case that I was just trying an experiment and I was sorry that it had gotten so out of control. I mentioned that I had gotten the answers I wanted and I apologized again for everything I had done.

This temporary moment of clarity seemed to satisfy their questions as to whether I was a security risk or not as they dismissed three of the security guards and the little Indian man (who never took his eyes off of me. Not even once.) I then proceeded to answer every question they asked of me as if I were an adult and they began to deliberate amongst themselves as to what to do with me.

I couldn’t hear everything they were saying, but I could make out terms like “no past history” and “always been a little strange.” I wasn’t quite sure what my fate was going to be, but I knew it probably wouldn’t be any less that a few days off of work with no pay and maybe some counseling. I began to feel really stupid about what I’d done and wondered why I even thought this would be a good idea. Not only was I going to get reprimanded, but everyone in the office was now going to have proof that I was mentally unstable. And for what, so I could amuse myself? Was it really worth it? Did I actually get that much of a kick out of it to make all of this trouble worthwhile? What in the hell was wrong with me?

At this point, I began to get a little upset at myself and couldn’t help but tear up a little. I was ashamed of my actions and was embarrassed that I had acted in such a stupid way and wasted all of these people’s time. As the tears started rolling down my cheeks, my director looked at me and her motherly instincts took over. She immediately came over to me and asked me what was wrong.

Me: I don’t know.

Director: Are you ashamed of what you did? A grown man doesn’t act like that Scott, no matter what scientific test you’re running or how funny you think it might be to mess with people. Now, as a result of your actions all of these people had to take time out of their days to deal with some stupid little prank that only you thought was funny. Only you, Scott. Now, we’ve come to a decision on your punishment but we want to know if you have anything to say for yourself that may make us want to forget this ever happened. We know you’re not a safety risk and we value you as an employee, but this has got to stop. It’s all up to you Scott. What do you have to say for yourself?








Me: I want Bugman.

……………………………

So, while my job lasted almost two years, my joke barely made it through the morning. The good news is that I’ll be able to write a ton more blogs as I will now have a lot of free time on my hands while I’m attending the therapy sessions that were deemed necessary if I ever wanted to return to my now former employer. The bad news is that due to my income being slashed from the household budget, Ben will never get his toy. As a result, for the next 4 months (or however long this therapy lasts) I’ll be hearing the same phrase day after day: I want Bugman.

It kind of gets annoying after awhile.

I have to go back to timeout now.

Thanks for reading