In 1991, I was working as a stripper. No, not that kind of stripper. “Stripper” is a term from the commercial printing field, Sherlock. I worked with a bunch of guys in a dark room, around lighted tables, and at no point did I take my clothes off, except once when I was going to go swimming after work. None of which is relevant to this video.

About the video: I had this great idea that everyone in my department should build a model rocket, then we could go out on our lunch break and shoot ’em off in the adjacent soccer field and whoop it up and we could award prizes and it would be super fun! Please stop smirking.

Once I released this idea into the wild, however, several other yahoos in the Graphics Department latched onto it, and the scale of the event rapidly grew beyond all reasonable guidelines of acceptable lunchtime recreation, to wit: We wore lab coats and hard hats all day… we distributed informational fliers and safety brochures published by the American Model Rocketry Association… the lone young woman in our department volunteered to be “Miss Rockets” (cringe) and made herself a sash boldly announcing that dubious title… people from Accounting showed up with scorecards which they sternly held aloft after each launch… and, needless to say, we all learned a valuable lesson.

When I watched this video again, 17 years after the fact, I realized that it contained some embarrassing juvenile sexism, so (nervous cough, shuffles feet) viewer beware. But some parts are still pretty funny, especially that bit in the epilogue about Steely Dan, because, come on – Steely Dan.