I'm Getting Paid for This?

On Sunday my Uncle who lives in Logan called to wish me a happy graduation and also to ask me a vital question -- do I still not have a car? That's correct, I informed him, no car for me. Then, he told me something that made my jaw hit the floor: he and my aunt had decided to get a new car, and to get rid of their van, and if I happen to be interested in it, they would love to give it to me! Would I be interested in it? Do bears pee in the forest? Yeah. Totally interested, where do I sign?

Which leads me to Friday. I went into work early so I could take a long lunch because they were bringing the van down to me, and I needed to get it registered, etc. When they showed up at 11 I told them I was taking a long lunch so we could look after everything, and they invited me to lunch; which they then paid for! Hello! I love relatives! My planned two hour lunch ended up being three. Thus, I changed my anticipated going-home time from 5 to 6pm. Sad, but deal-with-able.

Around 4:30 I was sitting in my office pretending to work when the Office Manager (what are we calling this position these days??) poked her head in, "Why aren't you out playing with the guys? They just got a new blade center (In other words, Mom: a really super neat super fast computer, etc. It's cool, go with me on this one), and a bunch of other servers."
"I thought we got those all taken care of last week when they came in?" I asked.
"No, more just came in today."

I jumped out of my seat and headed to the lab.

I joined the group of people milling about. The first person to speak to me was RayOfSunshine. "You can go home, if you want, Granola." (I should note, here, that RayOfSunshine is, apparently, sort of one of my supervisors. I'm not really sure who all I answer to, but he seems to be ok with telling me to go home early, etc, and no one else was telling me I couldn't.)
"Uh, why?"
"Because we're done for the day."
Oh. pause.
"Oh, yeah, you have to wait for your bus, don't you?"
"Pretty much." (The van isn't registered yet, and my aunt and uncle took the plates).
"Well, we're going to have a team bonding experience, if you want to join us." MyBoss proffered.
"Team bonding?"
"Yeah, we're going to play a game or two of Unreal Tournament."
"Sure. Uh, what's that?"
"It's a first person shooter. Have you ever played one of those?"
This lead to a series of jokes about how I am probably a crack-shot and just pretending to abhor violence and guns, etc (not that I have ever commented on gun usage, but, well, they just assumed based on other conversations). Which lead to the obvious question on whether or not I have ever shot a gun. I think they were all surprised when I assured them that I was, in fact, a decent shot, thankyouverymuch.

One of the guys (ok, he needs a name, I shall call him GoteeBoy, since he's the only one in the office with one) helped me set the game up on my machine, and we all commenced playing. I named myself, appropriately, Gun_Fodder. I was pretty much schooled, but it was fun! Oh, and when I left for the day, it was 5:15, with no need to make up lost time.

When I got home I told my roommates about it, and they laughed. None of us could believe that I got paid for 45 minutes of gaming.

Have I mentioned this week, I love my job!