Employee Planks, Boss Fires
Popular pastime leads to unemployment time.
NBC 5's Lindsay Wilcox demonstrates one of the latest Internet memes, toothpicking.
Apparently the higher-ups at Grapevine-based GameStop are not nearly as cool as their store employees.
The suits not only fired an employee who went planking on the job but also a fellow employee who snapped a photo of the rigid pastime.
The game isn’t the only thing rigid in that sequence.
Planking — going horizontal to the ground, lying stiff with hands straight on the sides, and making like a board or “plank” when one is bored — though, begets more than unemployment. Those wacky kids engaging in the popular activity — pastime? game? shenanigan? can “shenanigans” be singular? — spun it off to create different versions and variations such as:
- Owling — striking a pose emulating the bird of prey and perching, preferably on someone planking to create;
- Plowling — which is one person planking and a buddy owling on top, because underneath would be “batting” and contrary to the laws of gravity, but then there’s always;
- Toothpicking — which is kind of a perpendicular planking because the toothpicker stands on his or her head with the hands straight at the sides, as our own Lindsay Wilcox so gamely if not ably demonstrated in this piece.
Now, if they can just figure out a way to get paid for it. Well, except for Lindsay; she did get paid.
Bruce Felps owns and operates East Dallas Times, an online community news outlet serving the White Rock Lake area. Does it count if his arteries are planking?
