mystic buddha

My old office has become a Thai spa/beauty salon called "Mystic Buddha."

All I can think is that Buddhists must have some equivalent to the Native American sweet grass ceremony or the Catholic Church's exorcism rite, because there would have been some crazy spirits to evict from that place before anyone could start relaxing and rejuvenating. I imagine people going in for a massage and coming out screaming, like me going to lunch in the old days. (below right: me, in the old days.)

The bosses - a husband and wife team I always thought of as Boris and Natasha - once sent around a list of office regulations. A coworker and I spent a happy hour scoffing (scoffing was a regular pastime at my old office) and rewriting the list to include the regulations they would have added had they any idea what went on the office while they were off in Beijing "not seeing any dissidents" or even sitting in their windowed office (affectionately known as the terrarium):

1. Don't drink vodka out of teacups at your desks during working hours.
2. Don't use the office as a coat check when planning to spend the night at the dance club down the street.
3. Don't have sex on the couch in the waiting area. (Actually, I didn't know this had happened, but my coworker assured me it had and she was from Nova Scotia so I believe her.)
4. Don't root through the CFO's garbage to find out how much certain of your coworkers are paid.
5. Don't tell everyone in the office how much certain of your coworkers are paid and you know it's true because you found it written on a piece of paper in the CFO's garbage.
6. Don't knock over the office Christmas tree during an after-hours chair race.
7. Don't make a bong out of a plastic, two-liter Pepsi bottle for in-office use and store it in the kitchen cupboard next to the herbal teas.
8. Don't scratch "NAZIS" into the metal security door installed (rumor had it) to protect the owners from Hungarian loan sharks.
9. Don't continue to check your email on an office computer for two years after you've been fired.
10. Don't sleep under your desk.

I may have to book a massage, just to see if I come out feeling like a new me or like me circa 1998.