Ooh, Baby Baby...

Last winter, my team was set to have an in-person meeting on Mardi Gras.  And being the celebratory kind of woman that I am, I made plans to bring in a King Cake, or maybe cupcakes.  But I also made an purchase on Amazon:

A package of 72 plastic babies. And because inclusion matters, I went for a mixed color package.  Anyway, we moved the meeting to a time nowhere near Mardi Gras, and I wasn't going to go through the hassle of returning $7 worth of plastic babies.  

So they have been languishing in my desk drawer for about a year.

Until this week.

As I have mentioned, we're getting out of the office at some point in the near to mid-near future.   And for me, that means I need to start the purge.  I am, by nature, a pack rat.  I'm also a nester.  Anywhere you give me space, I will fill it with items that give me comfort.  Or make me laugh.  Or both.

But the question becomes, once I leave this office, will I have any use for seventy-two multi-culti plastic babies.  The answer is, regrettably, no.

More to the point, is there a function for these babies somewhere in our office?  Well, function oversells it a little, but the answer is yes.

And so, I have been placing babies in hiding places throughout the office.  I'm doing it slowly and with some intention.  The primary function it serves is my amusement.  I like the thought of someone discovering a baby and either leaving it where they found it, or taking it for their collection.   It's also sort of a non-destructive way of making my mark.  "Allison was here, baby-finders!"

They are not so concealed that none will ever be found.  The intention is for them to be hiding in plain sight.  And occasionally, with some humor.  In fact, so far, I know one was found.  I placed it in the metal first aid cabinet in our break room.  It's a decent repository for medications, band-aids, and so on.  I figured nobody would get into that cabinet forever.  I tore open a packet of low-dose aspirin, laid the little baby's head on it, like a pillow, and used the empty packet as a sleeping bag.

And then yesterday, the guy who services the first aid cabinet came to pull out expired meds and replace them.  When he left, the baby was left on a breakroom table and its bedding had been discarded.  I re-hid the baby in a new location.  I may go back and put another, different baby in a different place in the cabinet.  I am considering placing at least one or two of them with a note - like #17 of ???, etc.

I haven't hidden more than 10 at this point. I will have them all hidden before we leave for good.  Well, maybe 71 of them, and I take one home with me to remember the prank.  

At our last building, we left several pictures of our colleague, Ben.  We put him in a variety of hats, printed them out, cut out the heads, and placed the pictures all over the place.  Not all of them got found, and one we placed in the subflooring, where perhaps it will forever remain.

Look, it's better than writing on walls, isn't it?  

In High School, I learned that grafitti had been preserved on the walls at Pompeii.  And some of it is quite funny and has modern day parallels.

Pompeii: Celadus the Thracian Gladiator is the delight of all the girls.

Today:  For a good time, call Celadus the Thracian Gladiator

I could go on - but if you're interested, there are examples-a-plenty in the interwebs.

My whole point here is just make a mark.  Any kind of mark that seems important to you.  I remember in college,  I signed my name on the underside of a shelf in my closet.  They pained over it, but it was there, and it still is, probably.

So that archeologists in the year 2195 can look at the ancient Milledge Avenue ruins and realize that sorority girls from the 1990s were self-obsessed.

"Restitua, take off your tunic and show us your hairy privates!"

That one is all Pompeii, folks.

ae