if office life was a disaster movie...

Power went out today at work - utterly debilitating, by the way. But as we're sitting around making awkward "hey, can we go home now!" banter (lots of needless jokes about doing work "the old-fashioned way"), someone says, "Sorta feels like we should be hiding under our desks or something, like it's a drill."

What prompted that, I dunno....BUT, in the spirit of Finding Creatively Inspiring Situations in Everyday Life, I had this absolutely fantastic idea:

If this WERE a disaster epic and we were the cast of characters, who would I be? Or the rest of the office for that matter...So I came up with the sort of standard "distaster movie" stereotype characters and tried to determine who fell into what role...

Since it's my disaster epic fantasy, I get to be the Surviving Damsel. Yep, the one that looks great in wet/scorched/maimed or otherwise clingy and partially obliterated clothing...I'm the one with the hair that looks fantastic even when wet and plastered to my face. I can be broken, bruised, battered and bleeding and the hunky hero guy still wants to plant a wet one on me as the credits roll. I have a high-pitched, blood-curdling scream that I use liberally...I'm not expected to come up with the means of survival, I'm just expected to be a "team player," swim when everyone else swims, climb when they climb, run when they run and cling to hero's arm for dear life, trailing just far enough behind to make him look manly and...heroic.

We'd need a standard Kurt Russell/Bruce Willis/Russell Crowe-esque leading man. These are in naturally short supply in the standard suburban office environment staffed mostly by middle-aged working stiffs, all of whom look about as dashing and heroic as my KitchenAid stand mixer. There's the ex-Army Colonel that may have been tough once, but now he's just a tall, thin man with a bald spot and well-shined loafers.

There's a young, broad-shouldered, tight polo shirt-addicted ivy-league type down the hall that might look the part, but he's lacking that certain rough-around-the-edges ruggedness that makes him believable in a save-the-world-from-certain-demise role...his skin is a little too fair (too many hours at the gym, too little time outside, I guess?)...if he got slashed by a falling tree while saving the damsel or punched by the villain during a narrow escape...it would ruin the whole look. Not to mention I think he'd cry.

MrCompanyOwner is also out...he seems camera-friendly, he's got a certain outdoorsy vibe that suggests he might be able to run faster than a tidal wave or hold his breath for 20 or 25 minutes while doing some under-water-welding to free trapped innocents gasping their last few breaths. Trouble is...he's about 5'5, 150 if he's lucky. A little too slight, perhaps to save the world. And he's a very picky eater. That doesn't bode well for his survival if he needs to stop mid-disaster and order up a steaming plate of edamame while everyone else is raiding the last vending machine on earth for Snickers bars and Doritos...

Basically, it doesn't look all that great for planet earth if it's left up to this particular group of working stiffs...maybe I should suggest we add a line to our employment application:

"Please list two qualities that would enable you to save the world in the event of an epic disaster."