ok, not really. but it is still a fun story!

This happened at the first “real” job I ever worked, when I lived in Atlanta. I was working as a fledgling HTML coder at a web design firm. I will always be grateful to this first opportunity, because they had some of the best graphic designers ever, as well as excellent programmers and project managers, and it was at this company that I really learned a lot, and got a good basis for my entire career. I think about some of the other shops I worked in and am RELIEVED that my first position was in such a professional shop which gave me a such a great start to grow from.

(Some of the other places I’ve worked, ho boy.)

And of course, now that I’ve told you how stalwart and professional and above-board this company was, I will toss all that and tell you about ALL the shenanigans that were carried on and oh how they were amusing!

Now, I’m going to tell you a secret. You may not have ever heard this before, so brace yourself. It is a bit shocking.

The majority of traffic on the internet is for porn.

That’s right, I know, SHOCKING! You have never ever heard that before, had you? There is actually a very fun little song about this, which you should go hear. I saw it in a video sung by World of Warcraft characters, but if you’re not a WoW person, just ignore the weird video and watch it anyway, because the song is dang funny.

LISTEN LISTEN LISTEN!!

So anyway. My company in Atlanta didn’t really have a ton of porn clients or anything, but they did have one. They had the client before I started working there, but apparently it was kind of a big deal when they were approached by this porn company to get their porn website up and running. My company initially said NO, not interested, but then the porn company threw so much money at them that they wouldn’t be self respecting business to say no! So, they asked this one web designer if he would mind doing the work and acting as the sole person on this project, and he was fine with it so they took the contract.

So it wasn’t too odd to walk past this guy’s desk and see pictures of naked women. Well, one day, he was working on a little shockwave interactive thingee. The girl (animated, not photographed) was dressed in minimal clothing- lingerie, bra, underwear, you know, and the user would click on an article of clothing, and she’d make some sexy sound in her sultry voice and the clothing would be gone, until the user had clicked it all away. Maybe they made the user pay 5 bucks for each click, who knows.

So my friend is doing this little shockwave movie, but the client didn’t send over any sound. The developer is a guy, so it wasn’t like he could make the sexy “OOH!” and “Ahhhs!” So he tells someone his dilemma and eventually all the gals in the entire office are gathered around his desk tittering into a microphone for him. Including yours truly. And who was the best?

That’s right, that’d be me.

So my claim to fame is that there was a little porn clickity movie somewhere that had my voice gasping “Oh baby!” and “Mmmm!”

It’s a cool story, especially at parties. And especially if you start it with a blatent, “I was in PORN!”

But it’s not over yet! The funny part of the story has yet to come!

The VP of sales in this company.. well, he was kind of a pervy horn dog. And knowing about this porn contract, he would always come over to the developer’s desk and check out whatever it was the web designer was working on for this particular client. Sometimes he would even request that the developer send him a copy of his work.

As the developer worked on this shockwave movie, he KNEW that Pervy VP would want a copy. So, while he had all the office ladies gathered around laughing and gasping into the microphone, he had one lady say, “YUMMM-EEEEEEH!” This lady had a very distinctive voice, as she had been smoking for about 20 years. Very husky, very low.. almost man-nish. In fact, I would have to say a lot of the time, she sounded like a (bad) drag queen.

So he made one version of the movie for the client. A normal version. Then, he made a second version for Pervy Sales VP guy. This version changed the ending. The last article of clothing to go is obviously the underwear, leaving the girl naked for all to see. Instead of seeing what you would usually see after sending the underwear bye-bye, he put … shall we say, very generously proportioned male genitalia there, along with this woman’s voice, saying, “YUMMM-EEEEE!” sounding all drag-queenish. It was HILARIOUS, — especially thinking about Pervy VP guy and the look on his face when he would get to the end.

Ahh yes.. those were the good old days.

The days when I was in porn.