Val. A Vital Cog in the Comedy Duo Wheel.

I was kicking my doorstop this morning when a colleague happened to pass by my room. Let the record show that I was not kicking my doorstop in a fit of pique. I was kicking it into place to hold the door open. You don't expect me to bend over, do you? Get real! And by happened to pass by my room, we all understand that such a journey occurs every day, every hour, since I am on the path to the faculty women's restroom.

The problem is that my doorstop is too big to hold my door against the concrete-block wall. Shh...don't let anyone else know, but my mother swiped it from an outside door once upon a time after a raft of doorstop thefts within the building. I chastised her. Severely. But I kept the doorstop. Who's gonna know? So anyway, this wooden wedge is made for a heavy metal door. One that does not abut an interior wall with a gap of one thin inch between them.

There I was, kicking to beat the band. My old wooden doorstop, made by my students in woodworking class (what were you thinking, that they whipped one up in Foods?), was filched by a shameless fellow employee. Or perhaps somebody's mom. How I miss that old woody inclined plane! All I had to do was push the door open, kick out the doorstop, finish shoving the door until it reached its limit, and VOILA! That little simple machine landed at the perfect angle, the perfect distance along the door, and propped it open. Not so the current one.

Oh, I try to kick that monster into place. But the pointy tip-end of it hits the wall and bounces back. That leaves the door only three-quarters open. That won't do. I have to jam it in at an angle, all cattywompus. It's time consuming.

So my colleague caught me in mid-kick. She raised her eyebrows. "That bad, huh?" A comment that never fails to get under my skin. Like I have rage issues by the end of first hour.

I motioned toward the doorstop. "It's too long. It doesn't fit."

Without breaking stride or missing a beat, my colleague deadpanned, "That's what SHE said."

I hate starting the day as a straight man.