You got an irish guy and an italian guy sitting at the bar. After a few drinks, a predictable argument occurs. “You’re so stupid.” “No, you’re so stupid,” ” No, you’re so stupid, I bet you probably don’t know when Easter is.” Money get placed on the bar, bartender comes over and the pressure is on. Gent steadies himself, stands up, takes a swig, clears his throat and announces “Easter! is when Jesus Christ, rises from the dead…..rolls away the stone….and, if he sees his shadow….”

Never have I had a monday like I had this past monday. For a couple of years, a colleague of mine and I have had this mostly joking list of the stuff they don't teach you in Marketing/Public Relations/Journalism school.

Gorillagate makes it on to the list.

In case you were under a rock, the male gorilla got out of his cage on Monday. He never strayed more than a few feet away from there, but it was my first instance of being truly scared at work.

One of my reoccuring nightmares here is if an animal got out, then what and since Monday, my mental remote control has being going pretty much nonstop.

As soon as it was clear what was going on, we were dispatched to move people, zoo guests, away and in my place, be the police contact guy. So, I was just outside the gorilla house, keeping anybody who wasn't armed from going in and watching the doors.

Let me tell you, when the ruff lemurs are perturbed, they make a helluva noise, scared the shit out of me. I turned away for a second and they did it again, which caused a coworker to run back to our building. Afraid of what I didn't see, I did too. (Somewhere, there is footage of that embarrassment.)

Thankfully, it ended about as well as something like that could have, and I can remember the inanities of doing laps in my car around Delaware Park driving my boss so she could do live tv with each of the tv stations with a laugh, but it's not everyday Swat comes to call.

It's okay to be a little scared at work, just never thought I actually would be.

I found myself in a ready to smack people mood lately. My lovely eldest daughter has managed to own this year so far and it is really great. One of the jobs she has secured is at Vasillis Express across from Mr. Pizza. She has a couple of crappy shifts and one of those ended at midnight last week. I came over to give her a ride home, but didn't go in, to not get in the way.

Didn't stop four knuckleheads from getting in the way though. In previous weeks, she has come out in tears because the boss had a fit over them turning the open light off at before his perception of midnight had arrived. We've all had nuts supervisors so all I can or should do is listen. But I sat in my car in quiet amazement as these four jamokes were oblivious to the line cook and my daughter sweeping up, closing down stoves, taking in signs, shutting display case lights off. One actually left and returned??

After a long day of fun, the fact that it was 12:25 when they finally stood up quelled the urge to go in smack all four of them upside the head.

I stayed put and listened as my child came out a few minutes later weaving a rather impressive tapestry of obscenities. As she doesn't have the deepest of voices, I couldn't help it, a dumb smirk was sneaking across my face.

It is possible to laugh at !2:45 on a Thursday morning.

Off and on for the past few years, I’ve subjected myself to the hot box of fitness that is Bikram Yoga. After a breather, I pushed myself to three classes last week. The truly scholarly refer to it as “your practice.” I practice Bikram, much in the way an elephant “practices” tight rope walking. Sadly the resemblances don’t end there, but thankfully, that isn’t the point.

It’s all about doing the best you can. When you are as athletically gifted as I (and when I say gifted…), that is a good thing. There are no false expectations, competitions, just a gentle guiding toward better health, actual feeling good and sometimes more.

Every class is taught like it is happening to you for the first time. This makes it good and bad, as your muscles do indeed have memories, and apparently potty mouths.

Once you set yourself past the fact that it is both 105 in the room and somebody else’s heating bill, you can start to slip into the familiar, 26 poses that well, beat you up productively. A friend worried about the heat. I don’t think much about it as, it doesn’t take long for the desert like perspiration to start setting in. The first foreword bend sets off a series of snap, crackles and pops that rivals the freshest breakfast cereal. A series of exercises stressing balance reminds me that I don’t have any. The stretches that follow start to make my lungs hurt as this is where first few classes have thrown me a little, but I persevere, hanging in there. All hope might not be lost as I am able to even assume the tree pose with minimal resemblance to a weeble.

The second half of the class is down on the mats and one pose does have you laying on your stomach, trying to lift everything you can off the ground. Everytime an instructor says to “imagine yourself a bird,” my thoughts tend to go penguins as like them I apparently am not made to fly.

But after 90 melting minutes, I got through it and will head back for more later this week. It’s a bit torturous, and like that commercial with Charles Barkley, I’m not there for the higher consciousness, I’m there because a beer tonight would taste really good.

And it does seem to allow that.

For the unitiated, I do extra work at the First Niagara Center for events as an usher. All about not working terribly hard is me. For the Sabres/Stars game, I got the fuzzy end of the lollipop of assignments. It was nice to get the call as it had been a few weeks, but I was given a door to watch over, near restrooms in a little alcove. The door behaved itself. I couldn’t help but wonder if I was getting punished, but they were filling in the blanks. The usual doormeister was gone so I got the call. It is mostly boring, you can’t see the game very well, so you people watch and that is a festival as you might expect but you feel a little weird as half your sightline is folks entering the bathrooms. Had an awkward reunion with a guy I never really got along with in jr. high. That was weird and sort of set the tone for the night. He relayed to his date that he gave me a hard time and said he was surprised I never beat him up. I allowed how there was still time.

I was occasionally sneaking game glances but you did have to watch out for interlopers sneaking up the stairwell. The middle level of the place is restricted during the game to the folks who pay for the privilege, but that doesn’t stop some smoothies from taking a shot at getting in. I had a guy whose invisible wife was killing him to get a handcarved roast turkey sandwich (yeah, sure), a few other ner do wells, but my favorite was the guy who tried to talk his way up to see Sabres Broadcaster Kevin Sylvester, while Mr. Sylvester was speaking….on television. Something tells me that isn’t the best time for company to drop by, especially when they don’t seem to grasp the nature of your job. That same something told me that the gentleman in front of me knew Mr. Sylvester, from watching him on television like the rest of us.

The Sabres won in a shootout, so I’m thinking all the people who left early trying to “Beat the traffic” are feeling a little foolish, but I showed that door who was boss.