Here, Take This Cheap Crap With My Company's Name On It.

Why thank you.

They had an Employee Benefits Fair at work today. All the vendors who offer discounts through the employee network had tables set up, as well as the healthcare plan providers, etc. They lured us there with the promise of food and the chance to win a flatscreen tv. I muscled my way through crowds of other employees, carefully avoiding contact with any of the vendors. With just the slightest hint of interest, they were in irreversible schmoozing mode. The kind of intense, hunker-down-to-eye-level kind of sales pitching that I am hard-wired to avoid like the plague. If you want me to buy your stuff, let me look at it and ask you questions. Don't give me the uber-intense staredown, shove pamphlet after pamphlet into my arms, and talk a mile a minute about your epoxy flooring. I live in an apartment. Installing my own commercial-grade epoxy flooring is frowned upon.

Of course, the one thing I went there for--the list of this year's network-approved physicians--was at the very last table in the hallway. In spite of my attempts to look nowhere but the floor, I came away from the brouhaha with these items:

A heart-shaped rubber lid-gripper thingie.
A granola bar.
A giant magnetized plastic clip.
A cup of popcorn.
An eyeglass repair kit, complete with teeny tiny magnifying glass.
A bottle of water.
A blue sparkly toothbrush.
A chip clip.
A brownie.
A coupon for a lake riverboat cruise. (That doesn't make sense to me, either. A lady in a giant hat covered with fake flowers gave it to me. I think she was with the benefits fair.)

The only things I actually wanted were the bottle of water and the brownie. Yum. Brownies.