A few years ago I ran across a bunch of pictures that Derek had drawn when he was in junior high. I showed them to him, expecting hearty laughs at his creativity then. Instead he got depressed, saying he wasn't that creative anymore. I thought he was wrong then and I still think he's wrong... but I know how he feels.

When I was at the radio station, I worked for a while with my best friend Troy. He would come in at midnight and take over from me. I would always leave something in his mail box for him to discover later and laugh at. One night I copied a picture of Vixen, a female hair metal band, taped a balloon over the head of Shari, his favorite member, and wrote, "Can Troy come out to play?" He kept that on his mirror for years.

One night we noticed there were some killer dust bunnies on the speakers that hung from the ceiling of the studio. We cleaned them off before I went home. The next night he came in to find a threatening letter in his mailbox from Master Bunn, leader of The Dust Bunny Gang, threatening Troy with bodily harm for disposing of members of his gang. He loved that - Master Bunn ended up being an inside joke with us.

Now I can't remember if it was the Oklahoma City bombing or the first attempt on the World Trade Center but I know it was a bombing that had happened and numerous groups were taking responsibility for it. We were told to keep an eye on the AP wire for stories about it. What I did was I took an AP story and made my own, typing painstakingly to make it resemble an actual story. It started off quite professional, describing the bombing and stating that yet another group had claimed responsibility. At the end, though, I put that Master Bunn & his Dust Bunny Gang were the culprits. What was great was that I had done such a good job of faking the AP story that he almost went on air with it!! Thank goodness he read through it before he did.

But my point is that I haven't done anything like that in years. I've lost my creativity to do goofy things. Maybe it's my straight-laced work environment, I don't know. Maybe one day I'll find it again. Is there a Lost & Found department for these types of things??

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