Wistful Hinterland

We’d like a ring, are you listening,

Equal rights, they’re resisting

A frightening sight,

The doctrinal right

Talkin’ ‘bout a sinner, want it banned.

Gone away is the blue state bird,

“Gone astray,” bigots controvert

LGBT,

Equality,

Walkin’ in a wistful hinterland.

Rachel Maddow could say that’s a straw man,

To pretend that we all get around

She’ll say, “Are you married?”

We’ll say, “Oh, man!

Not as long as they conspire

To run this town.”

Blather on ‘bout Hellfire,

Heard it all from the prior

We’ll face unafraid,

The plans that we’ve made,

Something that they just can’t understand.

The Opposite of Customer Service

     So many of today's jobs, the low-paying jobs, require the worker to apologize incessantly; to take the heat; to subordinate oneself; and oftentimes to surrender their dignity.  Whether they be servers, tellers, repairmen, temps,  installers, clerks, or spokespeople, they have to absorb problems on behalf of the folks higher up the pecking order.  These employees are apology machines.

     You'll notice that satisfactory customer service is disappearing, largely because corporations aren't willing to invest in it.  They'd rather have angry customers and a few more pennies getting to the bottom line.

     What and who is the quintessential opposite of taking responsibility for problems?  Mitt Romney and CEOs of his ilk.  After all, Mitt titled his book No Apologies.


     RE: Reince Priebus:  His stuffy name sounds like "pre-bus," suggestive of a familiar transportation industry procedure, "pre-board."  "We would now like to begin pre-boarding.  All those in need of special assistance, who are burdened by onerous tax laws, all those with offshore trust accounts, you people in need of special accounting procedures... Oh wait.  Never mind.  You have your own jet.  Fuck off."

The Classics

     Many folks  have had fun with the notion that  President George W Bush never made reading a big priority.  They laughed at his lack of gravitas.  But I think much of that criticism is unfair.  He may have had a bad experience with, say, Proust, or Dickens, or even Robert Ludlum.  Such an experience can emotionally scar (scare?) the reader,  in the same way that a person who gets stung in the stock market can never again take on anything riskier than treasury bonds or certificates of deposit. 

     I personally had a traumatic experience in college while on Milton.  It came close to putting me off the classics for good.  I fucking hate Milton.

      So lay off President Bush if he wants to read Field and Stream.

Dreaded Question

     Now that I have a new job, I can stop worrying about being asked the dreaded question: Where do you see yourself in five years?  (My interview last Friday was kind of a softball interaction, with no difficult questions.  I should be happy among these folks.)

     I always want to answer the question as follows.  "The usual places.  The play-side of a DVD, outside a store window.  My bathroom."

     Or maybe, "Well, Jim, quite frankly I'm an optimist: I'd like to think that in five years I will have begun seeing other people.  Trust me, I've been seeing myself long enough."  I like to keep things upbeat.

Hot Jobs

    Heat index one-o-four, and it’s door to door. 

    First day on the job.  Tuesday, July 3^rd.  I get in the truck, which is keeping the meats cold, and as it would turn out, the conversation.  You see, as I waited for my trainer, the radio was tuned to the big right wing blather station.  I probably shouldn’t turn it off, I thought, but I had to turn it down.  These radio drama queens are so sensationalistic.  You’d think we just gave Mt Rushmore to Pakistan for a mosque.  After the windbag delivered a rant imploring Obama backers to stay indoors on the 4^th, my trainer, John,  comes out of the warehouse.

     He gets in the truck and we’re off.  After a few newbie questions from me, he asks, “You follow politics?” 

    Uh boy.  It could be a long day. 

    Actually, we hit it off okay.  I was very careful with my comments, and we found  common ground in college hoops (he played), investing and guy stuff.  He seemed not to be religious, but nonetheless, his jokes did seem  kind of racist.  

   

    And he tried the usual tricks with numbers to blast the president. 

    “Yeah,” I objected as I squirted a blob of sunblock on my forehead, “but the economy is much bigger today than it was even just twenty years ago.  So I’m not particularly impressed with that statement.”

    He persisted.  "In this country, if you work hard, you can do anything."

    There is a notion, constantly inculcated by the magazine industry and self-help hustlers, that in America anyone can achieve whatever they desire.  As long as they work hard.  The fact is, most people have a genetic make-up that limits their options.  Not everyone can grow up to be a famous radio bigot.

    John's plan was to drive 60 miles east to the Canaveral area where he had many regular meat customers.  I told him that I used to date a woman over there and would try to steer clear.

    Honestly, most of the people I spoke to treated me with respect and kindness.  I always knock softly and am usually apologetic about interrupting.  My own place is built such that even light knocks on the old, weathered door project and echo wildly down the narrow hall and off the terrazzo floors.   I encountered a slight problem, though, with my appearance.  My glasses have that “transitions” shit on the lenses, so folks can’t always see my eyes when they open the door.

    In a nice little out-of-the-sun section of the neighborhood, a bright, attractive woman who appeared to be in her late 50s opened the door, and seemed interested in what I was saying.  She had the usual concerns about cost, and asked if I had a brochure or card.  “No, but my manager can show you what we have.  Here he comes.  Becky, this is John.  John, Becky.” 

    We brought in the whole works.  Two big boxes.  John opened all of a dozen flat boxes of steaks and seafood, and spread it all out on the table.  Up to this point, I had no idea how much we charged for this stuff.  When he got to price, John wrote a number on a piece of paper and laid it in front of Becky.  (I guess he couldn’t even say it.  They start off very high, and usually come down.) 

    John asked me to wait in the truck.  I felt kind of  sorry for Becky.  She was really a sweet lady.  After thirty minutes, I figured Becky was cooking dinner for him.  Another ten minutes later he  finally came out with empty cases and grabbed a credit slip from the glove box.  I felt kind of guilty sicking him on her.  He closed the deal hard.  “She’s going up to the mountains in Georgia.  I know exactly where it is.  Gave her some tips.”

    I asked John what seafood items he likes.  (They sell lobster and some kind of fish.)  "I never eat lobster," he admitted.  "Cockroaches of the sea."

    Even over there by the coast it was oppresssively hot.  By 7:00PM, we’d made some money and had some laughs.  He wanted to hit one last area, so we fanned out, so to speak, stalking the neighborhood like the robbers in Ben Affleck's film The Town.   I’m  really exhausted and soaked with sweat.  As I’m coming down the last street—two more houses before the truck—I knock on the door. 

    Of all the houses in that town, I had to knock on that door.  I’m lightheaded, withering in the sun, gasping for air like a bullet-riddled criminal.  He opens the door.  (The scope of this post prohibits a lengthy backstory.)  I instantly recognize him.  He certainly remembers me.  There is a woman I can’t quite make out lurking in the foyer.  It’s not her.  I don’t think it’s her.  It’s her best friend.  We used to drink and cookout together.  I’m embarrassed.  He  always paid the bar tab at the hotel. And I think he always wanted my girl.  He is an older man, and I can't remember his name.  After a long pause, I utter, “Hi.  Um, we’re doing a…4^th of July special…”

    “Oh, we’re good, thanks.” 

    “Right, thanks.  Have a nice 4^th.” 

     If only life could be more awkward.  Did they assume I was just coming around to see what she was up to?  After all, the truck was out of sight, and I wasn't wearing any identifying clothing or tag to lend legitimacy to my call.  But why would I have been so sweaty?   

    On our way out of town, John stopped off for one last shakedown of a regular.  As I’m recovering in the truck, drinking some bright red synthetic, harsh, no-calorie drink that a previous mark had offered, my cell rings.  Good news.  I’ve been offered a real job.  Indoors.  With air conditioning.  And health coverage.  And, I would imagine, some people who don’t hate Obama.  

I Feel Kind of Funny up Here

     Wherever there are people, you'll find a laboratory of human behavior.  Any office setting, a comedy club, the set of an in-production film, to name just a few.  The players are engaged in alliances, grudges, and power struggles within the pecking order.  ( If you don't believe me, Google Louis CK, Dane Cook, Steve Byrne.)

     One night at an open mike, a first-time stand-up, who had brought his cute girlfriend along, was bombing pretty badly.  No one was buying it, except for the girlfriend, who was busy ordering a full 13-episode season of his act.  She was  showing every tooth in her head.

     Another time there was a guy who was careful to point out that he usually plays in a band.  "I feel kind of funny up here without my guitar.  I'm really more of a musician than a comic."

     What?  Come on, man.  There are people with jokes waiting to go up.  More of a musician than a comic?  That'd be like me going down to the local strip club, hopping up on stage and saying, "Bear with me folks: I'm more of a dude than a chick.  I feel kind of funny up here without my boobs."

WHYY

    Tired of hearing the letter "w" spoken three times in a row?  "Lemme give you my address:  It's www... wait.  That's not it.  It's www..."

     "We know about the fucking w's!  Just give me the rest of it."

     How ugly are people who do this?  Uglier than the Wicked Witch of the West.

     It's more annoying than, "Call 1-800; that number once again is 1-800...  That's..."

     There is only one letter in the entire alphabet that has more than one syllable.  Right:  DUH.  Bull.  You.  Would it be so hard to say something like, "Triple-dub?"  Now, I was not blessed with  a great imagination, but even I could come up with something like that.

     And if the address is for World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc?  Or a radio station that's east of the Mississippi?  Jesus Christ.  Or the web site for 1-800 Flowers?

     When you're  holding on the phone, and they keep saying, "Did you know you can go to www..."  If I wanted to use the computer for this, I wouldn't be calling, would I?

     Why couldn't internet pioneers have used a different letter?  Like, oh, maybe the letter "Y."  You want my address?  "Why, Why, Why?"

Coney Crimes

    So we’re going to ban 32-oz sodas but continue allowing 52 hot dogs in 10 minutes? 

    It’s hard not to have mixed feelings about Mayor Bloomberg.  He seems like a very smart, effective leader who genuinely cares about people.  I happen to agree that restaurant patrons do have the right to know what’s in their food.  But you can’t legislate what people do to themselves.  There are people with hot dog carts in their house, next to the chocolate fountain and the funnel cake maker.   Indeed, some people are orchestrating the food equivalent of Nick Cage’s alcohol suicide in Leaving Las Vegas. 

    That said, publicly glorifying overeating at Coney Island every summer is a crime against the planet.  It’s why  animals hate us, and when I say animals, I’m naturally including most other humans.

    In an old Washington Post article titled Local Resident Claws Way to Lobster-Eating Championship, we learn that Sonya Thomas, known as “The Black Widow,” has eaten 38 lobsters in 12 minutes.  Another tasty tid bit:  "Thomas was coming off a baked bean victory days before in Indiana, where she ate 8.4 pounds  of beans with pork in 2 minutes 47 seconds."

    I would imagine she was also just coming off the toilet. 

   

Gee, Thanks

    Diane, a woman from my "teaching days," once told me how she was describing me to another friend of hers:  "He doesn't really have a career.  He's usually unattached."  And  then she said something that rubbed me the wrong way.  "He just kind of exists."  Just kind of exists. 

    Recently, the wonderful Maria Popova of Brainpickings.org  tweeted a link to a fascinating science article.  Her tweet headline reads, "Newly found buried microbes may live for thousands of years at the limit between life and death."   

    Why didn't Diane just tell her friend that I live like a buried microbe?  In spite of the fact that, apparently, little is known about their lifestyle, their feeding habits, how they reproduce, etc., she could have had the decency to tell her friend I live like a buried microbe:  He lives at the limit between life and death!  At least that sounds kind of cool and dangerous, like Houdini or James Dean.  But no.  Diane said that I just kind of exist.  Well, still puts me one up on the gods.

Don't Knock

One of the benefits of the internet/computer  age is that when you’re home at two on a Monday  afternoon and someone—the meter man, a sales rep, etc—comes knocking, you don’t have to make up some fake job to hide the fact that you’re slacking.  “Yeah, I work nights.” 

“Oh?  Where?”

“Uh, up at the plant.”

“The plant?”

“Yeah, Hi-Speed.  Hi-Speed  Chicken Wire.”

Now you can just say that you work from home via the Web.

On a radio call in show people were discussing the different ways in which various jobs are portrayed in the movies.  One woman was going on in the vein that most jobs are humiliating.  People endure the indignities of commuting, taking shit from bosses, customers, etc.  These, she pointed out, are all indignities.

Then you hear politicians talking about the dignity of work.  "All people deserve to have the dignity that comes with a job."


In any case, don’t knock on my  door if you are any of the following.  (I know what you’re thinking:  He’s going to attack Jehovah’s Witnesses.  Actually, they don’t come around.  Maybe all this freethinking, non-believing and questioning that's going around is having some positive effect.)

No, here are the real pests.  Don’t knock if you are…

·         A neighbor who wants to know if I’m missing a cat.  (I will never be missing a cat.)

·         A Cop with a bad attitude.  (Cops with a good attitude are okay.)

·         A contractor  working with your young son on the vacant house next door and want to know if you can plug your extension into the outlet on the side of my house.  I don’t have time to go look through the hedges every hour to make sure you’re not running a TV, air conditioner,  battery charger, game boy, hot plate and mini fridge off a power strip.

·         Any realtors, developers or boy scouts.  Fuck boy scouts.  That is, fuck THE Boy Scouts.

·         A landscaper—there  is a big, rotten stump out in the front yard—who wants to do yard work and grind the stump. 

(If it is your first day as a door-to-door call girl and you want to grind my stump, the door is open.)

The Day Pat Decided To Be a Preacher

  When he was quite young, Pat  had a loose tooth.  (Turns out the tooth wasn't the only thing loose in little Pat's head.)  He figured he'd go ahead and yank it, so as to collect from the tooth fairy.  So when he went to bed that night, little Pat put his bicuspid under the pillow, and dreamed of a remunerative visit.

   When he awoke, there was a coin and a misspelled note.  The note said, "Change for your Bicupid."

   Little Pat thought to himself, Bi Cupid? Change for my Bi Cupid?  Never! You'll have to pry my next loose tooth from my cold, deadened gum!  So that's how all these gay people are getting together... They're not born gay; it's a slippery slope set in motion by the evil handiwork of Bi Cupid.  So that's why he's called the tooth fairy.

   Now, Pat is nothing if not non-curious, so he never checked out the spelling of that note.  To this day he blames Bi Cupid, a sort of moral decay villain and teammate of Bi-Curious, for the decline of civilization.


Speaking of teeth...

   I recently had an upper wisdom tooth pulled.  I don't know if you've had this happen, but it can leave a space, a passage, between your mouth and your sinuses, and you get backwash up in there, and it stinks.  But the thing that worries me is I'm gonna get like a hunk of hot dog stuck up in the socket.  Then the gum's gonna heal over and I'm gonna have a hot dog socket.  This thing's gonna go bad, gonna come back to haunt me like something from a Poe story.  I'll be bent over in madness.  "The pulsing!  The throbbing!"

    Is that gay?  A throbbing hot dog in my mouth?

What Doesn't Happen

      About 12  years ago I was lying in this woman's bed.  (When someone else is in bed with me, I don't really sleep.  I also don't really have sex.)  At around 4:00 AM, while she's asleep and I'm maybe half asleep, I had a startling, profound, vivid realization that I'm going to die.  One day I will die and all my thoughts will cease; everything I'm working on (or should be working on) will stop.  It's hard to describe.  Just a startling revelation that the curtain will fall and my little show, such as it is, will fade to black.

    One would think that after such a jarring wake-up call I'd have resolved to buckle down, to reach  some goals; but alas, life since then has continued to be what might be best described by paraphrasing Lennon: what doesn't happen to you while you're not busy making other plans.

   Someone recently said  that "nothing happens after you die."  Pity, since in my case nothing much happens before, either.

This I Believe

    I believe that when I die my soul will be spirited to a remote  tropical paradise where I will meet Billy Crystal from Throw Mama from the Train, Kathleen Turner from Body Heat, Stephen Root from Office Space and, of course, Eddie Murphy, Dan Aykroyd, Jamie Lee Curtis and “Coleman” from Trading Places.  

On Religion

    It's not 995 BC!  Or even 588 BC.  It's neither 2000 BC nor 200 BC.  It isn't 33;  it isn't 622.  1633 happened.  1692 is over.  We are past 1814.  1925 is ancient history.  It's not 1914, 1975 or 1984.  New Year's Eve 1999 came and went.  It is 2012.  (Well, maybe 2012 isn't the best example.)

                                                                         The End
                                                             (Turns out it isn't after all)

The Answer Man (Part 3)

    





    The only other person who worked at the station was Tom Campbell.  He had a cool old car, a young wife, and some kids.  I liked him a lot.  He would say things like, "No sweat" and "Bye, now."  Ever since then, I like to use those expressions because they sound folksy, sincere, and reassuring. He didn't seem to pick up on the extent to which I was an impostor.  Or if he did, he didn't let on.  He only worked there one, or at most, two days a week and I wished he were there more often. 

    There was a kid in my school who didn’t normally ride our bus, but one day, freshman year, he appeared in the seat in front of mine.  I didn't like the look of him.  His name was Victor.  As he turned to yell across the aisle, I involuntarily popped him.  Not hard enough to cause any real injury, except maybe to his pride.  It was the sort of thing a much (much) younger kid would do.  Just a knee-jerk reaction to some ugliness in front of me.  He didn’t retaliate, but hitting him was a bad idea. (Well, again, it wasn't so much an idea, it just sort of happened.)  I didn’t see him around after that and I felt bad about what happened.

    My pre-closing routine included jotting down on my clipboard the readings on the pumps.  As I was walking back from the diesel pump one night, I heard talking.  I walked through the store and saw some kid sitting on the window seat in the office.  He looked at 
me with a what-are-you-gonna-do-about-it expression.  Who was he talking to?  I walked into the office and Victor was sitting in my chair.  No, Don's chair!  

    After a three-year absence, Victor had recently reappeared at school, and he seemed to hold a grudge, made some vaguely threatening gestures in the hallways.  He had long, thick, greasy blond hair.  Victor had filled out and was getting pretty big.

    I can't let these punks disrespect Don's office.  They started making dumb wisecracks and laughing, acting like they owned the place.  (Now that I'm thinking about it, maybe he was Don's nephew or something, and Don sent him down to show me how to do the job without fucking it up.)  I told him he couldn’t hang around in there, had to buy something or get going.

    There was going to be a reckoning.

    Presumably, he was younger than I, but he was a farm kid.  ‘Course I was a farm kid, too, but he was a real farm kid, whereas I was more of a gentleman farmer's kid.  My family farmed just for the experience, so we could say that we’d done it.  Maybe Victor was going to kick my ass just for the experience, so he could say that he’d done it.

    It didn't occur to me to make a phone call.  I had to defend the fort.

    Hey, I can throw 50-pound bales four tiers up.  Five tiers on a good day.  I’ve held on for dear life when a horse with a bad attitude tried to run me under low-hanging branches. I’ve stuck an old, weathered pitchfork through my left foot, and subsequently watched that foot blow up like a balloon with infection. (My dad had pulled it out suddenly in the middle of saying, "Okay, so I think the best..."  Talented though he is, he apparently didn't have the necessary materials on the farm to manufacture a tetanus shot and didn't think a drive to the city was called for.)  Hurt like hell.  I can take it!

    The showdown started in the store area and then sprawled out to the garage.  I didn’t remember much of what actually happened.  We were both flailing; I tripped over a lift and hit the now-closed garage door. I would employ the rope-a-dope strategy and then lay him out, I thought. We were pretty much tied up when suddenly it was over.  I could see Victor standing there with a big smudge of black grease on the side of his face, looking less sure of himself. I guess he'd had enough. His buddy must've skedaddled.

    Had I battled Victor to a draw?  It could be done!  I felt a surge of confidence.  The defiant voice of Roger Daltrey boomed in the back of my head.  

Out here in the fields, 
I fight for my meals.  
I get my back into my living! 

    

     I had defended the fort.  Be gone, you ruffian!

    By the time I got my glasses straightened out, I could see more grease all over Victor’s neck.  Oh, and there’s Vern.  Unbeknownst to me, one of our best regulars had been in the back, up to his armpits in his Mack’s tranny, when he caught wind of what was going on. 

    “No fighting in my garage!”  Vern barked.  Victor headed for the exit.  “Don’t let me catch you in here again.”

     "Yeah." I added, in case he didn't get it the first time.  

     After Victor was gone, I wondered, "How’d he get grease all over himself?”

     Vern shook his head and said, “I had to grab him.” 

I don’t need to fight, 
to prove I’m right 
I don’t need to be forgiven...
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah-eh, yeah-eh!

    

      I had never been in any fights until senior year.  Then, counting Victor, I got into four.  Went through a phase.  Boys go through this.  Everything bugs them; everything is a showdown.  Farm life kept me in pretty good shape, so I mostly held my own.

    During gym class, a kid named Ed took issue with something I said, and we rumbled in the locker room.  Coincidentally, Ed ended up getting into a car accident not far from the Shell station, and when he and his passenger came in to call for help, looking pretty traumatized, he acted like we were best of friends.  And why wouldn’t he?  Why shouldn’t we be friends?  Water under the bridge.  The things that cause fights in high school...

    Junior year, a guy on the wrestling team named Kevin gave me a hard time.  He would knock stuff out of my hand.  I remember saying, “You do that again and you’ll suffer the consequences.”  His younger brother,  Nathan, was standing by at the time, and henceforth would  taunt me by calling out, “Hey, Mister Suffer-the-Consequences.”  By senior year, I heard from a sweet classmate that Kevin had been murdered.  What?!  I didn’t know what to say, and didn’t ask her about it.  Never heard anything more.   At the end of the year, Nathan signed my yearbook:  “Chris, we had fun in typing and gym.  Your friend, Nathan.”   As usual, I didn’t know how to answer.

The Answer Man (Part 2)

(con'd from Apr 5)

    Weekdays my shift started at 4:00 and finished at 10:00.  For the most part, I kept busy and enjoyed the job.  The pumps back then had heavy-guage wire spiralling the length of the nozzle, so you could hang it on the side of the car and go do something else while it filled. When you pulled the nozzle out of  old pump number three, the wraps of wire would play on the thin metal siding, and it made a “Bah DAH dah dah dah” sound, like the drum riff that begins every reggae song.  I sometimes wondered what it would sound like if a customer drove away with the nozzle still stuck in their tank.  Decidedly less peaceful than reggae, no doubt.

    What bothered me was when I didn’t have time to adequately mind the garage and prevent theft.  There were two blockheads who came in a lot to hang around, and eventually I told them the garage wasn’t available.  “Mr Sullivan said that until further notice the bays aren’t for rent.  There’s a problem with fluids leaking,” or something.  They weren’t buying it.  I probably should have told Mr Sullivan about these two guys, but what was I going to say?  “Well, Mr Sullivan, I can’t say for sure that they’re stealing because I didn’t have them sign off on the pre-rent inventory.  Well, because I was too busy.” 

  

    By around 8:30 things started to slow down.  Sodas from the machine were 40 cents, and the coffee back in the employees area was free, so I’d get hopped up on coffee, sit behind the desk and listen to the radio.  I had put in a good day's work and now I was sitting in Don's chair. In the lair of all that practical knowledge. He had various reference books w/ part numbers and so forth. There was glossy promotional material for all the Shell products. Don really knew the service station game.  I was ensconced in the wheelhouse of Answer Man wisdom while Mick Jagger reminded me that "Some girls they're so pure
Some girls so corrupt
Some girls give me children
I only made love to her once"   

    One night, I thought to look in the big bottom drawer of Don's desk. 

    What I found in there was a trove of nasty porn: an assortment of messy, extreme men’s magazines anchored by Hustler.  Up until that point in my life, I’d only seen a few Playboys with my older brother's friends up in the sugar house. I closed the drawer. 

    Now that I’m thinking about it, I’d seen an issue of a classy French magazine called lui while in Quebec with the French Club.  It emphasized natural beauty, the photos being set in the pretty countryside, the models holding up pears in the orchard, that sort of thing.

    Nobody wants to be the last to know what's what.  After carefully surveying the garage area and checking for any activity outside, I delved in:  “What the… Oh, my.  So that’s how it is.  The lay of the land threw me.  Women had certainly changed from the days of bucolic frolic.  All at once I was glad that I wasn’t a female, yet resentful of being a male.

 

     I thought about what kind of man Don is, and how he seemed so different from Mr Sullivan, who was very quiet, very tall and rather intimidating in the slow, deliberate way that he moved.

      So I would get my chores out of the way, sell some refined crude, put the dwindling complement of tools back, then settle in for that last hour.  The desk would beckon to me, and I’d head in with another hot cup of creamy, sugary coffee.  It’s strange.  I’m realizing now that it would be another year or so before my first bone-density self exam with the Sears catalog. I must've been four years behind most guys, I guess.  Those evenings... wired on free coffee... poring over porn... then I’d just lock up, drive home and go to sleep.  Unresolved.  Unfathomable.

    Mr Sullivan almost never showed up, but of course, the time he did, on a Sunday afternoon, there were a few issues of adult entertainment out on the desk.  The big picture window in front of the desk did not afford a view of the north entrance to the station.  The second that Mr. Sullivan passed in front of the window, I threw the smut into the big drawer and sprang to my feet, trying not to look too freaked out.  While the Answer Man coveralls do indeed hide many sins, they couldn't begin to cover how bad I felt about myself at that moment.  He came through the front door and turned into the office.  He didn’t say much, but seemed to be in a bad mood. 

    He wasn't accusing me of anything (at least I don't think he was) but he was disappointed.
   

    The next time I reported for work, I noticed a sign on the wall behind the register saying that at no time should employees be sitting around doing nothing.  If the station is slow, there is a long list of jobs that need doing.  I felt sheepish and guilty.  Then again, Don obviously looked at these publications, and he did a bang-up job running the place.  Maybe a bit of animal spirits is conducive to properly running a service station. 

(to be cont'd)

The Answer Man (Part 1)

      Driving south from our high school, Sullivan's Shell Station was on the left side of the main road before you get up to cruising speed.  Nicely appointed, with a split rail fence fronting the highway, and extending along the sides of the property, the place had a rustic charm. When facing the station, from right to left, you had the self-serve air and the diesel pump, two gigantic DIY garage bays, a nice store area with vending machines, (and a little back room for employees), a very cozy office and on the other side of the office, the restroom, whose key hung from the obligatory huge block of wood.

    Back then, the attendant didn’t just sit inside and run the register; no sir, he had to pump the gas, check the oil, wash the windows and even take a crack at diagnosing car trouble.  The two fully-equipped garage bays were rented by the hour and he had to go over tool inventory with each customer pre- and post-rental.  Never a dull moment. 

    The guidance counselor helped me get the job, my first non-farm work.  For five years, I had been toiling in the fields fifteen miles south of the station, in the middle of nowhere, on our farm.

Out here in the fields
I fight for my meals
I get my back into my living  

    I was a senior with the social awareness and skills of a 13-year old and needed to expand my vistas.  Or at least do something I could put on my college applications.  I now had real responsibility, handling money, dealing with the public, and doling out apologies.

    The manager’s name was Don Wesson.  He kind of looked—and acted—like Humphrey Bogart, hair slicked back, weathered face, the short sleeves of his name-bearing yellow shirt rolled up.  I admired the way Don ran the place.  He really had a nose for the job, and didn’t take any crap.  He looked like the kind of guy you’d want minding the station. He was nice to me but I couldn't help wondering if he was a bit perplexed as to why I was hired for this.

     Back in those days, Shell had an ad campaign that touted the knowledge of their attendants:  Ask the Shell Answer Man.  The company issued me a crisp, brown pair of coveralls with a bright yellow Shell patch sewn on the breast.  I would’ve looked resplendent, but at sixteen, sporting braces, geeky wire-rimmed glasses, and a pencil neck, I probably looked like a kid dressing up for Halloween as a mechanic.  

    One day I came to school in a short-sleeved golf shirt that had a colored body and a white collar.  So when I got into my coveralls, the white collar was all you could see.  Don remarked that I looked like a priest.  I knew nothing about religion but even back then, in the late seventies, I didn’t like the sound of that. 

     I was book smart but had zero mechanical skills. My older brother was a pretty good mechanic and we all had dirt bikes.  My physicist dad studied mechanical engineering and could fix/build anything. He had a small Cessna for trips to Chicago.  I don't remember him ever taking flying lessons but there were some issues of Flying magazine lying around in the john. He built a sawmill at our farm from scratch. Built our tennis court. We were quite self-sufficient out there. But I could barely change a spark plug.  

    Another thing I knew nothing about was women.  Teenagers today don’t have that problem.  With the internet all you have to do is go to the How Stuff Works website, type in “women,” and everything you need to know is right there.  Don was very knowledgeable about women; I could overhear him talking to some of the ladies. Thinking back on it 35 years later, he probably went home to an empty house every night like police chief Gillespie in the film In the Heat of the Night.  

(to be cont'd)

Friend of a Friend of Sylvia

                                                           

     I was thinking about Sylvia Hudson, and how talking to her in the supermarket made me feel better, but only for a short while.  She gave off an upbeat, happy vibe as she entered the store, so after five or ten minutes I approached her and made some small talk.  We had a nice chat, and she gave me her number. 

     When I called her a few days later, she suggested we get together with her friend Rusty.  “Rusty?”  That can’t be good.  Turns out she wanted to discuss religion.  I didn’t really want to get together because  I think they want to prosylatize.  Convert me.    

    Rusty would probably tell me about his religious awakening.  Some of these accounts of almighty meet-cutes  can really ramble:  “My life was spiralling out of control.  I was reviewing Women in Prison (WIP) movies for a website, and one night it ocurred to me that I was spending 9 or 10 hours a day looking at WIPs, which  you’d have to admit, are  pornographic.

    “As I was doing the research for my four-star review of Caged Fury I felt an unmistakeable sign from above.  Something happened.  A golden light that I hadn’t noticed before seemed to  bathe the compound.  It gripped me as palpably as I’ve been gripped, and I said, ‘Lord, I can’t do it by myself anymore.  If I’m gonna beat this addiction, I’ll need your help.   I need a partner.  You need to steer me in a new direction, to show me…’”

    Dude, bottom line it.

    “Well, suffice it to say I threw off the bonds of Satan in my life just like the inmates in Heat on the Run IV threw off the repression of the evil warden.  (That’s not the only thing they were throwing off—three and a half stars.)  From that moment on, I have felt His presence.  When I was at a friend’s house and he had Cinemax on, it had no effect on me whatsoever.  Granted, I’ve always tended to find those  simulated simulated-procreation scenes rather lame, good for only a half-mast at best.  But now Little Rusty just seems to say, ‘I’m so sure.  This offends my intelligence.’

    “The new me can look at even formerly smoking hot stuff, and  it’s like my junk is engaging in civil disobedience, refusing to go down that path again.  We’re not having it.  Hard to describe the feeling.”

    Good.  Please don’t.  This is turning into a meat-cute.

    “Well, it’s not like when you sit out on the edge of a lame sofa and your johnson goes numb; it’s more like your nether region just goes slack, like a passive-aggressive four-year old who doesn’t want to go to kindergarten.  My life has been so much more meaningful since my experience.  Is that something you’d like to have in your life?”

    Uh, I gotta go. 

    (Editor's note:  To all the Reason Rallyers in Washington today:  Have a nice day.)   

                                                                                   

I'd Like to Solve the Puzzle, Pat

Remember that show The $100,000 Pyramid?

“Gym membership, uh, lottery tickets… lottery tickets,  uh, Rush Limbaugh’s wives…”

“Uh, things that are gullible.”

The clue-giver shakes her head.  “Exercise equipment, DVDs, Rush Limbaugh’s wives..”

“THINGS YOU BUY AND ONLY USE ONCE!!!”

(Bells going off)  “Yes!  $100,000.” 

Wheel of Fortune:  

BEFORE & AFTER

M__r__g_         M_t_r__l           __rl

“I’d like to solve, Pat."
Pat: "Okay, sure."
"Marriage.  Material.  Girl.”

Pat:  “Yeah, that’s it.  Nicely done.”

Jeopardy Categories:

Continents      Beverages     Incontinents     Porcine Blowhards    

People Who Are Inadvertently Helping the Presidential Race but Hurting the Human Race

Angry Old Xenophobes    Large-Mouthed Bastards



Nature abhors a vacuum.  There was a vacuum in the GOP.  It was filled by Limbaugh.  I mean, nature must really abhor vacuums... but not as much as decent folks abhor Limbaugh.

Last of the Emoticons

    Time to quit internet dating.  Too many fakes and flakes. 

    No more smileys.  No more insipid “LOL”s.  Last of the emoticons.

Top Phrases for Computer Dating  (Or Masturbating.  Or actual sex.)

Hunt & Peck

Pull & Paste 

Rinse & Repeat

Junk & Dial

Stick & Jab

Clean & Jerk

Shake & Wait (one for the ladies?  Not even sure I get that one)

Catch & Release

Fake & Dribble

Pick & Roll  (okay, I have been watching a lot of college hoops)

Cut & Run

Ruminate & Fulminate (look it up, Einstein)

Block & Relocate

    One time a few years ago a woman from the internet sent me a text one hour before our first date:  “I’m nervous.  Tell me something to calm my nerves.” 

    You’re nervous?  I’m the one with the 3-day spunk backup.

    March 10^th  we all lost an hour to Daylight Saving Time.  I wish I could have made the 7:00-8:00 hour disappear.  As the weather turned cloudy and drizzly, my date showed up.  Another train wreck.  A horrid, foul-weather front.

    She was rude to the sweet waittress.  “You don’t have Sky?  Well.  All other vodkas taste like turpentine.”  Really?  How about a blindfolded taste test.  Come to think of it, how about a blindfolded date?  A quicker man would have taken this moment as his cue to utter, “Separate checks, please.”  Or better yet, to just bolt.

    She suggested we go sit outside because, "It's so loud in here."    I was actually embarrassed that her volume and tone was bothering the folks seated near us.

    I’d mentioned over the phone that normally on internet first dates a guy is only expected to go for coffee or a drink.  Everybody knows that.   This charmer actually  started talking about getting the salmon!  We ordered expensive burgers and by the time I realized the only viable course was Abort!, she had killed two vodkas.  She was defensive, angry, undateable.

    Why didn't I get up?  I could have said simply, "Call of nature." (Nature's giant repulsor beam is literally pushing me away.)  Stop the food!  Here's five bucks for my draft.  Keep the change.  I could have blown out the main door, and the charmer wouldn't have seen me.  Instead, I was honest, and told her it wasn't working.   "I'll go talk to the waittress," I said. 

    If this debacle had a movie title, it would be Flight Plan.  (Be prepared to take flight!)  By the way, Flight Plan borrows its plot from the Hitchcock classic, The Lady Vanishes.  Which is exactly what this lady did before I could ask her to chip in. 

   I pleaded victim with the manager.  They had already started undercooking the food, so I stayed and dealt with the pink slime.  

       Another soul-corroding experience.   "Let's agree to disaggregate."

                                                                 

                                                                                                Faithfully submitted,

                                                                                                The S-A-H-B    

Workplace Hanky-Panky

    You might think that the amount of hanky-panky in the workplace varies inversely with level of pay.  Why would an exec making $300,000 a year risk his cushy job for lobby tush?  But walk onto a floor where the rank-and-filers are bringing down eight bucks an hour, and it’s a veritable orgy:  “Candace! Get off Bobby and make a call.”  In other words, the stakes are lower, as are the standards.

    Another school of thought says the 300K folks have plenty of power, which naturally attracts partners, and in the event of “he said/ she said,” they can strongarm plaintiffs.  Meanwhile, the wage slaves, particularly during tough times, typically have to work about three part-time jobs, so they barely have the energy to chew their food, let alone work up some effective flirting banter.

    At any rate, I tend to do better with women at work than in other contexts.  Perhaps it’s because they see me there, so they’re pretty sure I have a job.  I enjoy being at work.  It’s the doing of the work that gets old.

    That puts me in the mind of Maureen Dowd’s book, Are Men Necessary?  If you asked the head of PETA that question, she’d probably say, “Men?!  Hell, are humans necessary?”  But even without self-absorbed humans wreaking havoc, I suppose this planet would still witness plenty of suffering.  ‘Course the economy wouldn’t be as good.  Probably knock a few points off GDP.

Renter's Residue

   As a general rule I don’t watch reality shows.  When I was taking care of an elderly relative, however, she had the Food Channel on a lot.  Have you seen this show called Chopped?  Contestants must make a first rate meal from miscellaneous scraps.

    "Open your baskets, chefs.  You will have 30 minutes to prepare an entree from:  rutabaga, pigs feet, a slice of American cheese and orange gatorade."  I would definitely tune in for  an episode of Chopped where the contestants poison the judges, who tend to be snotty.  "This isn't clarified butter!  It has to be clarified."  You've made yourself clear, Master.  What's the next course?  Scolded potatoes?  Dressed down crab?   Brow-beaten biscuits? 

  

   When did the price of spaghetti sauce go to nine dollars for a 24 ounce jar?  Have you seen these premium sauces?  There’s one called Mom’s, with a picture of a hefty granny on the label.    Then there's the celebrity chef who looks like a porcine stoner—what’s his name?  With the pony tail?  Then there’s the brand with the picture of a young, hirsute Italian woman who looks not unlike Fez from That 70s Show.  What kind of mushrooms are they putting in there?  You can get a decent jar of sauce at ALDI for a buck.

 (The Food Channel could collaborate with the Cartoon Network on an upcoming special, It’s the Grey Poupon, Charlie Brown!)

    One menu item I'll skip is the Jerk Pulled Pork Swords.  Hold the dipping sauce!  Also, avoid the New York Custard-Filled Long Johns and Kozy Shack Pudding.

    I decided long ago that I don’t want any cottage cheese.  I think because the name sounds bad.  Cottage cheese.  Why not just call it bungalow buildup?  Renter’s residue?

   Speaking of cheese, there's a radio ad for a Vermont cheese company's web site that says they have "cheese stories."  Nothing like a good cheese story:  "One night our fraternity president dared us to eat a wheel of cheese the size of a snare drum, and..."  Talk about "Breaking Bad."