A Good One

I'm still relatively new to the blogging world, a little over a month, and I'm still getting my sea legs about me.  I've been told by veteran bloggers that it's a good idea to vary the length of your blogs, and my guess is that my average effort to date has been on the long side.  Now I'll start taking that advice.

I've also been advised that I should pick a topic for my blog and focus on that in order to attract readers.  I'd say that my focus is just "humor."  I enjoy the freedom of posting on whatever strikes my fancy.  Hopefully you like that too. 

Here's a short excerpt from my book, "Claims Made & Reported," about the professional lines insurance industry.  I haven't plugged this yet on my blog, something that many find hard to believe, I'm sure.  It's available at http://www.sixthandspringbooks.com/ under New Releases. 

This is from the book's chapter on practical jokes in the insurance industry.  You may not believe it, but this story is 100% true. 
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One of the industry's best practical jokes ever occurred at CNA in the late 1990s. My friend Paul had just recently joined the company as a fidelity underwriter and was out of the office on a business trip on October 30th. He called in to see if anything was happening in the office.  His colleague Melissa answered the phone. He asked what was going on and she said "Oh nothing, just the usual, everyone is getting their costumes ready."

"What costumes?" Paul asked.

"You know, for the Halloween party tomorrow. Every year at CNA we hold a big Halloween party in the office, it's a longstanding tradition." She then went on to describe a number of people's intended costumes in excruciating detail, right down to the shoes they'd be wearing and where they had bought them.

Not wanting to be the odd man out, especially as a new employee, Paul showed up at the office the next day in a full Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle costume.

Nobody else was wearing a costume. 

All he saw around him was the usual business attire.

Melissa had gotten him, but good.

"They nicknamed me 'Ninja' around the office for the rest of the time that I worked at CNA," Paul recalls, with a smile.