"The collective call that I hear repeatedly these days is, 'yep, the 20's suck.'"

That quote is courtesy of my friend, the great Bradley Lansdell Craig.

I am in a good mood today. Why? If I knew, I would tell you. I lost at Scrabble last night, so it is not because of that. I did get free lunch today at work. We had sandwiches while the head of the department discussed staffing. Everyone was laughing and telling funny stories near the end, and it was such a pleasant situation that it made me wonder, "Is it my problem that I hate this job? Am I wrong and everyone else is right?" I let that sit for about two minutes and then returned to my senses.

Let's imagine what it would be like if I had a baby and insisted on bringing her to the office every day. She could play in a playpen while I did media monitoring, and then she would hopefully go down for a mid-morning nap around 10. I would use that time to quickly prioritize my day, respond to emails and get started on a project. I assume I would have to take a lunch break because she would need some fresh air, so we would head to Sutton Place, where the rest of the babies hang out. I would invest in an office-appropriate baby carrier (the kind that you strap to your chest), so that she could come to my meetings. I do hope she wouldn't cry during the conference calls, but if she did, I would just excuse myself and walk her around the hallways. I would have to put baby gates on the stairways leading down to computer services and up to marketing. For some reason, all of the cabinets in the kitchen are already baby-proofed, so I guess that was easy.

I think this hypothetical would be more fun if I was trying to keep my office baby a secret. There is an empty cubicle next to me, so her crib could go there. I could try to have all the team meetings in my cubicle so that I didn't have to leave her alone. There is just no way around it: I would have to get a secret office baby-sitter. I am deciding between Tim from computer services, Stacy from maintenance or Saundra, a great admin.

No Mom, I am not pregnant. I am just playing with hypotheticals! She is a hypothetical baby! I haven't even named her!