It was park inspections at work last week. I was up in the main office and so I got to meet all these state-executive types from Harrisburg, the career state workers who actually hold rank in various parts of the bureaucracy that runs the PA State Park system.
I was given the task of keeping track of who came, and so had to meet everybody personally. As I was meeting these people and learning their names, it felt like I was taking some sort of standardized test, with names diverse in their almost artful political correctness. So I decided to make up some names of my own.
What followed was a short list of names of ficticious people that I imagine to hold state civil service jobs somewhere in Pennsylvania.
Read over them and if nobody is around, say them aloud. The cadence of the names is what makes them funny.
Greaver Landsdowne
Wendel Cupsmarth
Landie Funboard
Gross Veloit
Dunderbachs Alcko
Elizabeth Handers
Esqualez Detorinio
Delequate GeRouts
Orville DeGrouts
Hunter Dolmeigh
Corbel Hedonrichter
Gloria Whore
Tucker Flambesten
Jables Durkdetturk
Viacci Elbania De Los Volcatos
Vimted Hungrentenstensson
Rourek Himples
Damal Rappaport
Bethany Ruthers
Jumpok Tokbok
Yolanda Burth
Marv Blamecheck
Fenton Basek Datorque
Ulag Veevil
Horst Bettaglinus
Hollidai Thrush-Andrews
Imagine these as the names of those classic office personalities.
Greaver Landsdowne, for example, is not particularly apt at anything. He fancies himself a woodsman, but he would be unable to take care of himself in the wild. He decorates his home with things he finds in the woods behind his house, and wood-working tools that he never uses out of fear of injury.
Dunderbachs Alcko is currently working in a secretarial capacity since being fired from a respectable long-term position at a sea-salt processing facility. He's vaguely bitter and difficult to embrace as a friend; he is impersonal and choses to lose himself in whatever menial task he's involved in.
Landie Funboard is lank, weak, balding, and has a noticably pointy head. He is enthusiastic about telling bad jokes and is known around his office for unusually ripe body odor. He has a heart of gold, but he's a person of no remarkable traits.
Delequate GeRouts is an office assistant. She hates her grandchildren because she disapproves of the the wife her only son took. She has been known throughout her life as a snitch and a spoil-sport and refuses to ever eat Tiramisu for the fact that it is her favorite food in the world.
Orville DeGrouts works in the same office as Delequate and constantly makes jokes and rhymes about the similarity of their surnames. A charming older man, he is living out the last part of his life simply, and contentedly.
Hunter Dolmeigh is 18 years old, frighteningly obese, and even more frighteningly short-tempered. On more than one occasion, he open-hand slapped the person he was talking to out of unrestrainable frustration. He broke the jaws of three different people this way. Hunter also has an insufferable crush on Wendel Cupsmarth's wife, and expresses it with awkward, often crude quips.
Wendel Cupsmarth is a small, unassuming man in his mid-fifties. He couldn't say exactly why he chose to work for the state; he would seem to fit much more behind the counter of a general store renting out oars in some charming little hamlet in northern California. His wife is, and has been beautiful her whole life, the kind of enchanting, true beauty that leaves you glowing after you talk with her. She is undyingly faithful to Wendel, who goes to sleep each night thankful that he is with her.
Hollidai Thrush-Andrews is the office harlot. Without shame, she flaunts her last remaining beauty to anybody who will take the bait, and infuriates her coworkers by never actually doing any work. If a handsome man happens to come to the office, she forces herself upon him and demands a monopoly over his attention. Unfortunately, she is at once only vaguely pretty and terribly unhelpful. She should have been fired long ago, but all of her superiors, older neglected males, are much too fond of the coquettish attention.
Gloria Whore was recently awarded her masters in child psychology. She is a stocky but spry young woman. In spite of being noticably overweight, she is still considered by most to be very attractive and charismatic, commanding essentially universal respect from her peers. She's famous for coming up with unlikely and delicious dishes when she has company.
Posted by Alchemae at June 29, 2005 11:12 AM