Son of Nutbucket

I'm sitting at my desk at work last week when one of the guys from accounting comes over and says "I just heard...

Wait. Maybe I should start at the beginning of the story instead of the middle, or at least get the facts down so it makes sense. I swear my brain is like a giant boggle game some days. Little dancing, lettered dice just throwing out whatever they feel like.

So, let’s start again. Remember that small(ish) software company I work for? Well, I don't really directly work for them any more (sorta). The company I work for was bought by a huge multinational conglomerate. I'm not going to name drop, but lets say that the company who bought our little company would be known in any household you dropped the name in, and the new parent company has they're hand in a little bit of everything. From apples to nuts, this company has a piece of it. I guess that's a good thing for corporate discounts, let’s hope they have something to do with Line 6 so I can get a good price on a new guitar. Back to the story.

I'm sitting at my desk at work last week when one of the guys from accounting comes over and says "I just heard what is in the little gift box that COMPANY DELETED is giving out, and you thought the nutbucket was bad. I can't wait to read what you are going to be writing about this."

My first thought was "Cool, we are getting gift boxes." followed by, "Worse than the Nutbucket? I highly doubt it."

Let me explain the use of the nutbucket in the Moloquin house. Out of all the nuts in the bucket, I eat one, maybe 2 packs. I give the chocolate covered stuff away to friends. Usually I can give away another pack to someone in the office. Then there are always a bunch of packs of nuts that no one wants, sitting there like the last dozen cornflakes in the two cereal boxes in your cupboard. You don't want to throw them out, but you know damn well you are never going to eat them. Eventually I crack open one of the packs so I can throw nuts at people around the office, which is just annoying enough that I enjoy doing it. Next step is to dump all the nuts out of the bucket (and just in case you don't believe me, I can see one of the past years empty buckets sitting beside me as I write this...with numerous little dents all over it and holding DVD's), take the newly emptied bucket and proceed to use it as either a hat, which is not very annoying, or as a drum which is unbelievably annoying and therefore unbelievably fun for me, but not for anyone else near my cube farm. I think everyone really regrets the year they gave us the bucket that was made out of metal. That's the one in the picture. You see, the wood ones would eventually break and then end up in the garbage (along with the last few packs of nuts that I hadn't thrown away yet), but the metal ones last forever...

After a bunch of orientation meetings we were given our small red gift boxes. Now, patience is not one of my strong points, so I immediately proceeded to tear that sucker open and see what was inside.

Inside was a vast collection of stuff. Stuff is about the only word I can use for it. There were bandages, cleaning supplies, glue sticks, office supplies, etc. etc. Various little neat things.

There is at least one valid reason why this gift box is better than the nutbucket. The primary reason being I can actually use 90% of this stuff. It is actually useable, unlike a bunch of nuts (other than the afore mentioned, albeit valid but useless uses).

Let me explain something to everyone out there about bachelor life. Those of you who fall into this category should understand exactly what I am talking about, and those who aren't might get some good christmas gift ideas.

When I'm out shopping (as rare as it is) the last thing I am looking at is the sponge section in the supermarket. I really don't know or care what has come about in the rapidly developing field of sponge engineering. I never even glance at that area. When it comes down to a choice of food or some new fangled magic sponge thing, food always wins, and why not save the extra five bucks for coffee? That is actually being facetious. I would never even look at the sponges, or even consider buying them anyways. The cleaning rag I use now seems to be doing exactly what it is supposed to be doing, so why change it. Now, someone gives me the aforementioned new fangled magic sponge with sub-atomic, particle collapsing cleaning ability, I'll use it. Why wouldn't I? It's in my house, let’s clean with it. You know what? It's a pretty good invention. There I am, at 10:30pm on a Thursday night, cleaning my bathroom with stuff from the amazing red gift box, and the best part is, everything in the box is like this. Stuff I would never, ever buy, but if it's given to me, hell yeah, I'm going to use it.

Long live the undisputed King of Suck...The Glorious ruler...The Nutbucket.