Reader and commenter Cameron, of Cultural Rumbles, wondered aloud in my little essay about the Punch Brothers if I wasn’t being too hasty when I remarked:

Oh, well; 2.3 children, a dog to kick and a cubicle makes for a dashed poor drinking song.

My favorite kind of people don’t take challenges lying down. No! They get drunk first, then lie down. Then they get up and write a Cubicle Protest/Drinking song!

Ohhhhhhhhhh,

Box me in, ya bloody bastards!
Pile them spreadsheets mountain high!
Ye won’t break me, you AP dastards!
Reconcile, then bloody die!
Reconcile, then bloody die!

A fine effort, no doubt, and long overdue, but son, stand back, ’cause I’m a pro.

First, we need a tune. Why not the greatest drinking song ever? If you’re from Boston and can’t recite (or more precisely: haven’t already recited) this grand tone poem while standing on one foot and touching your nose over and over by the side of the road, while a bemused Statie looks on, you’re no true Bostonian!

OK, all you Dilberts, sing along!

* If you don’t speak “Cubicle,” which is like Klingon but less mellifluous, go here.

Charlie And His CLM

Let me tell you all the story
Of the PC LOAD LETTER
And poor Charlie’s dyspeptic day
He’d eaten Kung Pao in Woonsocket,
Walked the aisle to the printer
And cropdusted the entire way

Chorus:
Did he ever return,
No he never returned
But his smell is still discerned
Prairie Dog coworkers
wonder who was passing
He cropdusted, and never returned.

Charlie lingered at the printer
As the gas cloud settled
Shoved in two reams of foolscap plain
Then the LaserJet was blinking, saying
LOW ON TONER
Charlie rumbled, and started to strain

Chorus:
Did he ever return,
No he never returned
But his smell is still discerned
Prairie Dog coworkers
wonder who was passing
He cropdusted, and never returned.

Now all day long
Charlie stands at the Canon
Thinking, “What will become of me?”
Crying
There’s never any paper
In the Men’s Room holders
And he was going to need a whole Dead Tree

Chorus:
Did he ever return,
No he never returned
But his smell is still discerned
Prairie Dog coworkers
wonder who was passing
He cropdusted, and never returned.

Charlie’s boss goes down
To the handicapped bathrooms
Every day at a quarter past two
And Charlie knew the danger
If he toilet bombed his bosses
When the szechuan came rumblin’ through.

Chorus:
Did he ever return,
No he never returned
But his smell is still discerned
Prairie Dog coworkers
wonder who was passing
He cropdusted, and never returned.

As his lunch rolled on
underneath his spattered tieclip
Charlie looked around and then he sighed:
“Well, I’m sore and disgusted
And my bowels can’t be trusted,”
And he lay down by the fax and died.

Chorus:
Did he ever return,
No he never returned
But his smell is still discerned
Prairie Dog coworkers
wonder who was passing
He cropdusted, and never returned.