First of all, someone found the blog this week by searching “uncensored steak boob slap.” Who are you people?

Second of all, Hottest Mortgage Banker in Texas Hayley hates pickles. How could you hate pickles? They’re so cute and innocent. So yielding. Like, Hey guys I know I was born a cucumber, but you can turn me into something else; it’s fine. Last week Hayley asked me to draw something on her back with my finger and she’d guess what it was. I agreed and squiggled out a quick sketch.

“A heart?” she guessed. Nope. I drew again.

“A flower?” Nah ah. Again, I drew.

“Do you give up? It’s a pickle!” I proudly exclaimed, at which point Hayley began gagging. How can you not like pickles?

Third of all, I just got back from Zihuatanejo. It was my wedding anniversary – numero 11 – and to celebrate, my husband and I lounged on a Mexican hammock and ate shrimp tacos for a week.

Fourth of all, my husband is now trying to learn Spanish. He found an app for it, so lately instead of reading wine-making forums on his phone before he goes to sleep at night, he’s all “Los ninos comen pescado!” beside me in bed. It’s so relaxing. No it isn’t.

Fifth of all, Hipster Andie bought a home! I am only including this indoor photo instead of an outside shot in order to thwart any crazy hippies from stalking her.

Sixth of all, they took my desk and turned it into a storage area.

I now sit beside Soon-to-be Senior Mortgage Banker Britt because we’re both interesting people:

Seventh of all, not only did they take my desk, but they owe me $300. Remember the healthy living competition we had going? The one where if you rack up the most points by exercising and drinking gallons of water you win the pot? The $300 pot? Well, after two and a half weeks of exercising 90 minutes a day (seriously) and tracking every last banana I ate, the Bosses called off the challenge. I had been in the lead. They now owe me $300.

Eighth of all, instead of making them pay me the 300 clams, I will subtract that amount from all the money I actually owe the branch due to squandering my time here and being of no use whatsoever for the past five years.

Nine. We never did find Online Dater Mortgage Banker Jason’s lost love. Jason seems to be recovering okay.

Ten. While walking my labradoodle through the forest last week (doesn’t that make me sound so earthy?), I came upon a family on a morning walk. I smiled and tried to steer my dog away from sniffing all their crotches and went on my way. (And by the way – how the heck do you break them from sniffing the privates?) Later that day I got an email from the lady I’d seen in the woods. She reads the blog and she recognized me! Well, actually she recognized my dog, but still. It was my first celebrity sighting in which I was the celebrity being sighted.

Okay okay, you all have a great week and I’m off to whip up another post concerning uncensored steak boob slaps, part two.

Some folks here at the office are about to carpool to Dallas for a conference. But here’s the thing. I’ve heard of this conference before, and y’all, I’m not kidding…

They yell at you.

I’ve never been to it because I’m not important enough to attend conferences, but I know someone who has, and the speaker is all, “You’re GARBAGE!” and stuff like that. I think Online Dater Jason will be able to handle it. And Soon-to-be Senior Mortgage Banker Britt should fare well, too. It’s the girls I’m worried about. (I know, I know, go ahead and sue me because I’m all sexist, but it’s totally true and I’ll say so in court.)

Seriously, Hottest Mortgage Banker in Texas Hayley and I made a pact a few years ago. If anyone in this office ever yells at us, we will promptly do two things: cry and quit. Done and done. I’m not sure how our pact will play out once she’s being yelled at by a conference speaker though. Can you quit a conference?

And how Hipster Andie is going to handle this is beyond me. I’m pretty sure hipsters never raise their voices unless they’re at speakeasies or beat poetry readings, so it’s going to come as a rude awakening when the speaker is all up in her face.

I asked Britt how he’ll handle being yelled at. Britt thought that was hysterical. “Har! I’m 46 years old. There’s nothing some jacka$$ can say that’ll rowl me up. Har har!”

Pro-Janean is going, too. “Janean,” I said, “what are you going to do when they yell at you? You know they’re going to yell at you, right?”

“I’m just trying to plan ahead,” she said. “P to the fifth: Prior planning prevents poor performance. That’s what I used to tell the kids I coached in golf.”

Mm hmm. I’ve got news for Janean. These folks don’t care about P to the 5^th. Hence, Janean will be destroyed.

V-Shaped Mortgage Banker Will is staying behind though because if anybody yells at him, he’ll beat the snot out of them (not really, but he could). It’s too much of a liability.

Straight-Shooter Shane is staying behind for similar reasons. Dude would flip if somebody yelled at him (really really). It’d be just like his fraternity days I bet. (And btw – he still won’t show me his frat handshake (lame)).

And I’m staying behind as well (you’re shocked, right?), but solely due to the fact that no amount of conferencing or training can increase my productivity whatsoever. The Bosses have kind of given up on that with me, and glance idly at me as they walk past my desk, nodding slightly to acknowledge that, yep, I’m still here.

Tell me, dear readers, have you ever gone to an awful conference or training? Please please tell me about it below!

I’ll let you know next week how everything went with our gang. Let’s hope they all come back with eardrums intact and stories to share. Now, I’m off to P to the fifth some magazine reading.

I kind of lied.

Here’s the thing. The ole Bosses bought the whole office these cool Just the Assistant t-shirts. A few weeks later we all wore them to a party (that you can read about here) and afterward, I posted the pictures to the blog. Well, the next day, a reader wrote me and asked how to get one. Did she need a mortgage? Nope. Does she live in Texas? Nuh uh. Is she really powerful and able to spread the word of my blog to millions? Not so much.

But here was this person that wanted a shirt with my blog scribbled across the boobs, and I had to make it happen. “Hey Bosses,” I wrote in an email. “A reader would like a JTA shirt. Would you guys pay for it?”

And they said yes! They’re so kind. “We can’t buy everyone a shirt, of course, but if the occasional reader asks for one, we’ll see what we can do,” they wrote.

Do you think it’s bad that I didn’t tell them “the reader” was my cousin? And that I didn’t tell them that “the reader” who is my cousin is also my BFF?

Is that a lie? It’s kind of a lie, right?

But wait! To make up for my dishonesty, my cousin did something amazing with the shirt. She got professional pictures made wearing it. I am so incredibly tempted to leave the story at that and have you think I have a nutcase for a cousin who’s all the time hiring photographers to follow her around. So…

The End.

Hee hee! I can’t do this to her. Here’s what happened. My cuz was having some pictures made of her with her daughter and called me to discuss wardrobe options. (We’re deep, my cousin and I.) Just as we were grappling through the issue of whether navy and yellow really “go” together (they do), I said, “Hey, I’ve got it. Just wear the JTA shirt! Hahahahahahaha!” We both had a good laugh at that.

Now, do you want to know how awesome my cousin is? This awesome:

Ain’t she a beaut!?

That girl wore my little blog’s shirt for the pictures! And she told the photographer all about me. (And seriously, the photographer was like, “It’s a blog about mortgages?” and totally thought my dear cousin was, in fact, a nutcase.)

Y’all I’ve got some crazy family members, but this gesture has renewed my faith in the whole lot of ’em many of them. Thank you, cousin!

Okay folks, you all enjoy your week and I’m off to Atlanta to meet the newest member of my crazy family (I have a new nephew – woop woop!) While there, I may or may not try to convince my brother to clothe the little one in JTA onesies.

I’ve been in Florida for the past week. That’s why I posted a rant last week instead of any juicy mortgage gossip. Before we move on to the enthralling world of this office, I need to share with you the near-death experience I endured while at the seashore.

It started twenty years ago. My family has been going to the same beach in Florida since 1987, and sometime in the early nineties I started noticing banana boat rides taking off from the beach. The crew set up a little stand right outside our condo and hour after hour, year after year I watched laughing beachgoers taking off, straddling the giant inflatable banana, pulled by a tanned jet ski driver.

Last week, I decided it was time. My husband and I, along with our friends Annie and Anthony, were lazing on the beach outside the same condo I grew up vacationing in, when I announced, “I really want to ride that banana boat.”

The others looked over and casually agreed. We trudged through the sand to the little stand and asked the lady holding a clipboard and with a banana tattooed onto her back (I’m not even kidding, y’all), where we sign up. After signing away our rights and paying lots of money, and after securing some rather flimsy life jacket-type things that were actually more like what I’d call “life scarves,” we were ready to go.

A man resembling Fabio pulled up to the shoreline with his jet ski. We passed him a tip and asked for a great ride. I think I may have even winked. Fabio told us, “I can’t hear you once we get going, so the only thing I understand is thumbs up to go faster or thumbs down to go slower.” With the tutorial over, the banana-tattooed lady shouted for us to “jump on the banana, quick!” And that’s the last thing I remember before being jolted into the raging sea. Y’all, I know this doesn’t say much, as I’ve lived a rather charmed life, but it was the most terrifying moment of my life. Suddenly I felt my breakfast travel from wherever it had been residing in my body to my sternum. Then I became petrified by the realization that I could either hold on to the dinky handles of the banana, or hold my nose, but I could not do both, which was problematic since I knew I was about to fall off into the Gulf of Mexico.

And that’s why I began screaming like a mad woman, no, like a child, “I’VE GOT TO GET OFF! I CAN’T DO THIS! STOOOOOOOP!” Benson and Annie began frantically waving thumbs down gestures to Fabio who had apparently gotten a bit carried away with that ten-dollar tip. Finally Fabio caught a glance of the signals and slowed down. Once he pulled the reins on the jet ski he heard my shrieks and pulled up to us. “Ma’am, I have a piece of paper in my backpack that proves I’m a certified rescuer. Nobody has ever gotten hurt on my ride.”

First of all, I don’t even know what a “certified rescuer” is. It actually made me more scared, because I was like, “Why would you need to rescue me?” And second of all, there’s a first time for everything and just because nobody else had died on the banana boat didn’t mean that I couldn’t. I mean, hey, we went to the moon for the first time, right?

“It’s nothing against you, sir. I’m just very, very scared,” I panted. “I’m really sorry. I know you’re good at what you do,” I continued, clutching my chest and heaving. “Could you just, go a bit slower?”

Fabio assured me he’d slow down, and for the next ten minutes we puttered along through the ocean. Then Fabio turned around and said we’d be picking up another passenger. “Oh God, please let it be a child,” I prayed, knowing that Fabio wouldn’t kill us with a child on board. Turns out, it was a child, a very brave child. By this point all I could do was hold on and keep my head down and try not to cry as we sped through the sea, salt water splashing my face and listening to the laughter of the eight-year-old we picked up.

My friends felt like this:

But I felt like this:

In the end, I lived. I’m still kind of in shock over the whole thing. It’s weird – I’ve been much closer to death before in my life (I’ve run from an avalanche (later to find out it was on a mountain beside the one I was hiking, but still), I’ve been in car crashes, and once thought a bear was charging me (turns out, someone was throwing rocks in the woods), but I’ve never been as terrified as my thirty-minute banana boat ride. I have to say, it’s good to be back on dry land.

Now that I’m back in the office, it’s time I properly introduce you all to our new guy, Britt. (I realize there’s no transition there, but I couldn’t think of a good one between “I almost died” and “meet our new guy.”) I’ll interview him tomorrow so that you can get to know him better, but for now here’s a taste: I have a business lunch tomorrow with an important world leader (not really but it’s someone more important than me, that’s for sure), and leaned over to tell Britt about it (I’ve been squatting in the cube next to his). But before I could tell him any details, he goes, “Need to know what to wear?”

“Huh?” I asked.

“You wanting to know what to wear?”

“Uh, no. I just wanted to tell you about my lunch tomorrow. But, uh, what should I wear?”

“Wear a skirt. Something like you have on now, and wear your hair up; you’ve got pretty wild hair.”

“Yeah, I do have wild hair. Uh, okay. Thanks?”

Okay, you all stayed tuned to find out why Britt cares so much about fashion and why he’s going to be a really great mortgage banker, and I’m off to sue that lady with the banana tattoo.

The Random News:

• Spanish-Speaking Nametag Wearing Richard has begun answering his phone with “Envoy Mortgage this is Richard” instead of his usual “Hello?” He claims it had nothing to do with me making fun of him about it. Mm hmm.
• Online Dater Jason has taken a break from online dating to focus on business. Says Jason: “With online dating you have to go home, check for comments, read bios, reply to emails, and I thought, I could be out providing mortgages during that time.” Dates: On hold.
• A blog reader called for a mortgage! The whole time Online Dater Jason (good thing he gave up dating so he had time to answer the call!) talked to the guy I punched the air behind him practicing my boxing moves and hissing “Yes!” Fly like a butterfly sting like a BEE!
• 
• It’s not going to surprise me when our new guy Britt completely snaps and beats the crap out of Online Dater Jason (or should I say “Former Online Dater”?) and Hottest Mortgage Banker in Texas Hayley. Jason and Hayley won’t even see it coming, either. It’ll be nasty, folks. Chairs thrown, desks overturned, Jason and Hayley running for their lives before the final blow. I can just see it: murder in the mortgage office. See, Britt is in the process of becoming a mortgage banker. In the meantime, he’s helping Jason and Hayley with all their work, which means he spends approximately six hours per workday receiving various insults from them. Jason and Hayley have been making signs for Britt. Sassy things like, “Shhhhhhhh” they hold up whenever Britt asks stupid questions like, “Would you like me to call this borrower for you and ease your workload dear, co-workers?” And they’re all RAHR! Hiss! Shut up, Britt!”

• Britt is going to lose it.

• Earlier Britt goes, “If you’re under forty, shut up!” Ha! I’m really going to like this guy.
• I sat down to interview my Boss James yesterday and this is how he looked when we finished:

•  My Boss James is overwhelmed by me.

The Gloomy News

I realize this is kind of hokey to put on a mortgage blog, but this isn’t really a normal mortgage blog, so here it goes: My sweet cat Thomas passed away last night. You might remember him from the time he brought a live bird into my house. He was small, orange and poofy, and I will miss him. Other than hunting, his favorite pastimes were snuggling against sweaty gym clothes, occupying boxes, having his head scratched, and sleeping on papers, usually important papers. Here are some pictures of him enjoying life…

I’ll miss you, Sir Thomas. I hope there are lots and lots of birds to catch, sweaty clothes to burrow in, boxes to fill and important papers to sleep upon in Heaven.