My thanks to Douglas Adams for the line...

... and to all the great comics of the seventies who taught me the importance of timing (especially the immortal Tim Conway, who could stretch the anticipation of a punch line forever) for what I did to my coworkers this morning.

We all show up around 0530, and what following is 10-15 minutes of routing. The five of us work at a couple of long counters, checking our invoices and putting them in order. Usually, there's a little light conversation, but mostly you hear muttered comments like "aw, hell no", "son of a bitch", "this guy ordered 2,000 feet of strut and doesn't have a forklift" along with assorted profanity.

This morning, as I was finishing up, I commented "Y'know, at times like this I really wish I had listened to what my father told me." Someone took the bait and asked what dear old dad told me.

As I was walking off to check my truck, I fired over my shoulder: "How should I know? I wasn't listening!"

I about killed Victor and Giorgio. Everyone else was laughing.

Almost as good as the time we were discussing golf, and I said "I love golf... but that damn windmill gets me every time."