Elsie W: Dangerous at any speed.

Good evening my friends!

For those of you who follow me on Facebook...and seriously, why AREN'T you friending me on Facebook...you have been waiting since about noon for this blog.

Aren't you kicking yourselves now that I made that silly resolution to hit Gold's 2-3 times per week?

Okay, as promised, here is what happened at Dunder Mifflin, today.

Let me set the scene:

NBM is meeting with The Big Boss  (forever now known as TBB) in Florida.  Which means PM is in charge.  Well, PM already has a full time job being, you know, PM.  He has little or no time to babysit the ladies in the office.  Unfortunately for him, the minute NBM leaves the office, he, PM, is next in line for Elsie's whining.

I'm getting off topic.

Knowing that NBM isn't in house, and therefore not watching the time clock  (We don't have a time clock) Elsie generally takes the opportunity to be...let's say...MORE LATE than normal.  So when she wasn't in the parking lot at her usual 10:59AM, I was not concerned.  I was more interested in the mini van full of old people that pulled in.

Elsie refuses to be late for work.

But just as I was ready to get up and open the door for the old lady just dismounting from her lovely mini van, a rocket of a red Buick shot through the parking lot...I'm not kidding you...at about 40 MPH.

The parking lot is about 100ft long at best.  I had to admire Elsie's braking skills getting that beast of a vehicle to stop before plowing into the dumpster corral.  I was also very thankful she didn't flatten the old lady who was dismounting ever so lady like from her mini van.

And then another mini van came into our parking lot.

Friends, we don't get many visitors here at Dunder Mifflin.  While it is a showroom, it's not easy to find and most of our customers have no idea we even have an office.  So for two carloads of potential shoppers to arrive at the same time Elsie was doing her best drag race impersonation...well, that was some unfortunate timing.

But wait, this is where it gets good.  (And yes...city names have been changed to protect me.)

Yes, this is the face we show to
potential customers who
dare to enter our parking lot.

As the old lady from the blue mini van enters the showroom and I greet her pleasantly, I see, out of the corner of my eye, Elsie bounding out of her car, stomping to the gold mini van, and start to screech at the driver.

We here at Dunder Mifflin typically do NOT screech at our customers.

While I extolled the glories of our product to the lovely old lady, PM strolled out to watch the daily arrival of Elsie.  (PM enjoys race driving, like most of us, for the crashes.  I think he and the install guys have a wager on when...not if...Elsie will actually destroy the concrete dumpster corral.)

Elsie then stomps into the showroom, has a quiet word with PM, and stomps back out.  I'm trying to focus on the old lady, but find it impossible when


TWO POLICE SQUADS PULL INTO THE PARKING LOT.

Oh yes.  Whatever it is that Elsie done did, she done brought the heat to Dunder Mifflin.

Fortunately for me, the old lady didn't need a lot of detail.  She made an appointment for an estimate and went back to her mini van, where she sat, waiting for the cop car to move so she could back out.

That left PM and me free to enjoy the drama unfolding.  Now we didn't have sound, but from what we saw, Elsie and the driver of the gold mini van made statements to the cops.  One cop and the gold mini van left...followed by a very relieved blue mini van.

Elsie stayed outside for another fifteen minutes, waving her arms and getting all up in the duo of police officers' faces.  PM shared this with me.

Apparently, the driver of the gold van thought Elsie was driving erratically...and followed her from her home to the office (25 miles)  all the while having 911 on the phone.  He followed her to the office where the squads met up with them.

This lead me to the question:  Just how bad of a driver is she?  Someone was willing not only to call for help, but to follow her, on a weekday, through traffic for 25 miles.

PM snapped some pics and sent them to NBM's phone.  Not sure it will do much other than give NBM and TBB some entertainment...but we'll see.

Well, Elsie is still sort of mad at me for the conversation we had the night before.  (She said NBM was a cheap...you fill in the blank.  I said just because she didn't get a raise after 6 months of working in the place, that didn't mean he was cheap.  Meant he was smart.  There, I said it.)  So it took her until I was nine minutes from leaving to tell me her side of the story.

"This idiot followed me all the way from my house to work.  I pulled off into a parking lot and he tried to park me in, but I quick drove around him and drove here as fast as I could."

Images of Elsie doing her best "Dukes of Hazzard" driving sprang to my brain.

"He told the police I ran two red lights.  I only went through one as it was changing."

Yeah...and you only get 60 minutes for lunch.  Your internal sense of timing might not be the defense you want to stand on.

"He said he drives these streets with kids and doesn't want someone like me being a menace."

Well said Gold Mini Van!

"He said he had pictures of me swerving in and out of traffic."

Hmmmm, I'm hoping Gold Mini van had a co pilot.

"The cops said he was very convincing."

The cops probably saw you attempt to run over that old lady in the parking lot.

"They asked me if I was late for work."

You're ALWAYS LATE FOR WORK.

"I said, 'well, I never want to be late for work, so if I see I'm getting close, then sure, I drive a little faster and go around slower drivers."

Hey, any of you lawyers in the greater Milwaukee area?  You may want to NOT send any letters to this woman.  Her defense isn't exactly air tight.  Oh, and she's a nit wit.

"They said if I had been in West town while I was driving they would have giving me a ticket, but since I was in East town, they couldn't."

I thought grocery divider sticks were the source of power in the universe.
I was wrong.  It's road paint.  No police officer can cross it.
Not even to protect and serve those of us on the wrong side who
are terrified to step foot in our own parking lots.

So since she was going north on the street, she was in East town...and therefore the West town cops couldn't help out the defenseless drivers in her path?  That was the difference?  The four inch wide paint strip between the north and south bound lanes?  I'm a huge fan of the police.  Love their work.  But you're telling me there was nothing they could do?  She was standing in West Town when they finally caught up to her.  She had a lot...and an office...full of witnesses.  We could have gotten her off the road!  Think of the CHILDREN AND OLD PEOPLE AND GEESE we could save if this woman wasn't wielding that deadly weapon of a Buick!

Yeah, she's a maniac driver, and I'd shoot out her tires...but dadgumit...she's
on the Northbound side of the road!

So there you have it, my friends.  And Gold Mini van, where ever you are, if you truly have that video, I'm begging you to PLEASE send it to me!  I will make you a STAR!  (Or I'll at least post it here and you'll get a mention in the second Elsie Book.)