Mr. Dave Barry has not blogged on this, so I will.
Miami - A Florida phone sex operator has won a workers' compensation settlement claiming she was injured after regularly masturbating at work, her lawyer said.
Oh no, you have to read the whole story, so you can learn why I am so glad I live in Orlando now. (That's right, the vicinity of the Disney Reich is an improvement over that of Miami and its environs.) By the way, I happen to know -- don't ask how I know, it's just the sort of thing you learn living in Miami even if you have no direct contact with such a profession, and I am sure I don't have to tell you I didn't -- that "phone sex" operators are not supposed to do anything sexual themselves other than talk. I'd like to know where her coworkers were while she was dialing the rotary phone* with her other hand. Or maybe the phone sex setup I heard stories about was actually one of the cleaner ones. Whatever.
*Yes, I went Googling for "euphemisms for female masturbation" to get that little expression. Of course I found a website dedicated to just that. My favorites so far are "auditioning the finger puppets," "checking for squirrels," and "double clicking your mouse."
(Via Pundit Ex Machina.)
Posted by Andrea Harris at March 11, 2003 02:12 AM"Checking for squirrels"!
And all this time I thought the bushy-tailed critters lying dead in the roadway had been run over by cars!
Posted by: Kevin McGehee at March 11, 2003 at 08:28 AMwhat i want to know is how completely clueless do you have to be to just not buy a vibrator?
put vibrator in trousers, put pillow on lap, turn vibrator on. trousers and pillow muffle noise. vibrations accomplish same thing as manual stimulation, only with NO repetitive injury risk.
so, ok, i would like to have been a judge and had this come before me. (rimshot)
"just how STUPID are you, lady?"
as for the coworker thing, i thought a lot of these - ahem - professionals worked from home?
Posted by: chris at March 11, 2003 at 09:45 AMDamn...all this time I had a goldmine at the end of my arm and didn't know it!
Posted by: Steve H. at March 11, 2003 at 11:03 AMI can see how one can acquire carpal tunnel syndrome that way ...
Posted by: Vicky at March 12, 2003 at 09:21 AMWow! I left my last comment before even reading the article. She actually did have carpal tunnel syndrome. I don't know whether I should be pleased or embarrassed that I guessed it.
Posted by: Vicky at March 12, 2003 at 09:24 AMI feel like a killjoy pointing this out, but I swear that that is not my intent. Honest. However, one reason it's unlikely Dave Barry would blog this is because the story is from 1999.
Nice euphemisms, though. I may swipe the link to that site from you, with thanks.
Posted by: Gary Farber at March 12, 2003 at 07:13 PMWell, yeah, if my entire reason for posting this had been to scoop Dave Barry, I'd be all upset. But since it isn't, I'm not.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at March 12, 2003 at 11:27 PM