After a day of celebrating Confederate Memorial Day (by celebrating I mean having a Japanese lunch, strolling the aisles at Fry's and then buying an Xbox — deets to follow), I came into work today rested and refreshed to dive into my new projects.

Then came the hip-hop discussion.

Since our retention rate is somewhere in the single digits these days, we've got new folks coming in all the time. Call it the revolving door of employment in the 21st century, ladies and germs. Hell, at the last job, they'd turn you around at the door or even call you out in the middle of your work day to fire you. They had no qualms about it. Perhaps it's because they felt people were pouring in to get jobs. I mean, we'd get upwards of 200 resumes a day from people wanting these penny-ante jobs. And for what? Some stale birthday cake and a half-cube in a call center?

Don't get me started — you didn't come here to read about that.

Anyway, so we have this new woman come in — a rather frumpy blonde wearing a navy blue business suit with thick white trim. She's one of the new secretaries — my bad, administrative professionals (it is their week, after all). My co-workers and I are were chatting about the weekend and she walks up to Hortense and says "Oh my God…were you on TV yesterday?"

"Umm…no…not that quickly." She's actually going to be on HGTV sometime this year for one of their shows. Crafty chicas get all the breaks.

"Well my friend from Detroit called me and said there was a report about hip hop and said that there was someone from here talking named Hortense. Is that you?"

"Umm…yeah, but I wasn't on television yesterday," she giggled. She always giggles when she's nervous. At this time, Micro-Manager storms in.

"Hey, what's going on here? Why aren't you guys working?"

"Micro-Manager, this lady says there was someone from here on Detroit television talking about hip hop. Do you know…" She also trails off and shrugs her shoulders a lot. If you didn't know her, you'd think she had short-term memory loss.

"Hip-hop? Oh no, that's not our forté. Unless you're talking about the bunny hop!" Groan.

They laugh and the new lady laughs and Hortense laughs and I die a little inside, mainly because I know exactly where this is going. Whole bunch of White people plus me, the only Black guy (and presumably the smartest, heh heh) equals a summon for the magic negro. Just as I started to back-step out of the circle of conversation, Micro-Manager's boss Alexis Carrington storms in (I have to go in-depth about her later).

A lot of storming going on, I tell ya.

"What's going on here?" she barks.

The new lady repeats her story. Hortense repeats her question as well.

"Hip-hop? Oh noooo…I don't know about that. Karsh, show me how to do the hip-hop."

Now why in the H-E-double-right-angles would she automagically ask me? Politically incorrect heffa. I play dumb.

"Do the hip-hop? I'm not sure I follow you." I cock my head to the side for an added "I don't know" factor.

Micro-Manager chimes in. "You know…the this" — she does a b-boy pose circa 1992 — "and the that. You know…c'mon!" Now her fingers are all tangled up like an arthritic palsy victim in what I'm guessing is supposed to be a gang sign. Is she reppin' her set?

"Yeah…it's the yo yo yo, baby baby and stuff like that," says Hortense.

I looked at her, Micro-Manager, the new lady and Alexis Carrington (who is beet red by this point) and asked "What in the hell would make you think I would know that?"

Everyone got silent for about 10 seconds — an eternity when you're in the midst of an awkward stereotypically racial moment.

"Umm…well, I guess we should get back to work."

The group disbands and I come in here to finish off my coffee. Hell, I got work to do.