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Tuesday, October 25, 2005
a towering
inferno of cinnamon goodness
The alarm went off this morning and I dragged myself out of bed, half
asleep, and stumbled into the shower to commence the early morning
ritual which would end with me sitting behind a desk in order to earn
a paycheck.
Mid-way through my lather, the pre-rinse portion of my hair washing
routine, a loud shrieking sound began wailing in the hallway of my
apartment building. The steam from the shower was slowly beginning to
thaw out my brain, and it dawned on me that this was the fire alarm
which was making the ear-piercing racket.
Unsure of what to do in my groggy state, but alert enough to realize
that I didn’t want to start the morning by being burnt to a crisp
because someone a few floors down failed to get their bread out of the
toaster before their breakfast evolved into a towering inferno of
cinnamon goodness, I stepped…with soap laden hair…out of the shower,
threw on a shirt and sweatpants, and headed for the stairwell.
The apartment complex that I live in more closely resembles an episode
of ‘The Golden Girls’ than it does ‘Melrose Place’. And, this being
the case, when I stepped out into the hallway, my neighbors didn’t
consist of the ‘girls in skimpy lingerie cowering for their lives and
latching onto me for protection’ variety. Rather, it was more like a
bingo enthusiast convention.
As I walked down the stairwell, I stopped to check out each hallway on
the seven floors below me. While I’d like to say that this was in a
good Samaritan effort to save any trapped women, children, and pets, I
must admit that I was simply trying to get an eyeful of blazing
tapestry on at least one of the floors. Having been dragged out of my
shower, shampoo now seeping down into my eyes, I felt that I was due
some type of recompense. Something burning, smoldering, or even
charred would have been adequate repayment.
Unfortunately, all I saw on each floor was a bunch of confused looking
elderly people, wandering around in bathrobes and walkers trying to
decipher whether there actually was a fire and, in the event that
there was, whether it was really worth the trouble to wander too far
from their doorways.
At this point, two sprightly 70 year olds quickly zipped past me on
their way down the stairwell…‘zipping’ in the sense that, for 70 year
old ladies, they were moving fast. By younger person standards, the
term ‘amble’ would be more accurate, but considering their age, this
‘amble’ was truly more of a ‘zip’.
The lady holding a plastic bag stuffed with what appeared to be scraps
of yarn and other knick-knacks was telling her friend with the blue
tinted hair that, “this has happened five times in the past three
years…and each time I just grab everything I can and run out!”
“Were the other times false alarms or was something really on fire?”
her teal coiffed partner asked.
“No, nothing has ever actually been on fire,” she answered, “but you
never know when it will be the real thing! So I’m getting out!”
A few seconds after they descended, the alarm stopped blaring, at
which point I trudged back up to the eighth floor and began the second
act of my shower. Once again, having just re-shampooed, the fire alarm
decided that it was time for an encore performance.
And as it blared from the hallway, I decided that if the building was
truly burning down, what better place was there to be than one where I
was surrounded by water?
Sunday, October 23, 2005
powerball fantasies
With the Powerball up to an impressive $340 million this past week, I
finally broke down and purchased my first lottery ticket. The reason
for my lack of lottery interest doesn’t stem from the odds, or an
allergy to the shiny silver scratchable surface that must be rubbed
off in order to reveal three ‘Pots ‘O Gold’ in order to win $5000
dollars instantly. Rather, my aversion to all things lottery related,
both games and the people who play these games, stems back to high
school when, for two long months one summer, I worked as a lottery
booth attendant.
Before this, I had been working at the pre-bankrupt Phar-Mor. Having
hit my six month job tolerance level, a level which even in my youth
would foreshadow every job that would come after it, I desperately
wanted out of the retail discount store world. A world which was
marked by constant weekly specials on two liter bottles of cola and
long lines of shopping carts filled to the brim with these special two
liter bottles of cola…cola which I was responsible for ringing up and
bagging.
It was near the end of my junior year when a friend of mine mentioned
that she worked at the lottery booth in the mall and that a position
was open. Being familiar with the mall of which she spoke, I was
surprised…having never noticed a lottery booth anywhere in the
cornucopia of stores which lined the gleaming tiled walkways. The deal
was sweetened when she said that employees were allowed to bring a
radio or portable television to watch while they worked. Since I never
knew the lottery booth existed, I reasoned that many others probably
didn’t know of its existence either…and with no customers, I concluded
that much watching of television and radio listening would be
incurred. A superb way to earn money. Thus I applied and took the job.
Soon after, though, I realized that many more people than I
anticipated knew exactly where the lottery booth was and frequented it
quite frequently. Worse yet, the customers weren’t comprised of high
school aged girls… a topic that interested me much more than the
lottery…all of which probably explained why I never noticed the
lottery booth in the first place. Instead, the average lottery
customer was old. And I soon found out that lottery players take their
numbers very seriously.
Elderly players would hobble up to my register and gum their daily
numbers to me. Having trouble distinguishing the exact diction of
toothless individuals, sometimes I would mistakenly punch in the
number 252 when the customer clearly said 242. And upon handing this
person their lottery ticket would get a five minute monologue on
everything that was wrong with today’s young people, how customer
service was so much better in their day, how the nation was going to
hell in a hand basket, and how teenagers never listen to anyone. I
never really listened, though…but I think that this was the general
idea that they were trying to get across.
Midway through the summer, I finally had my fill of the lottery life
and left before even getting to enjoy any television time while at
work. This also left me devoid of any desire to ever become a lottery
player.
Until now. $340 million dollars drew me into the seedy under-belly of
the lottery world. But while most people fantasize all the glorious
things they would do with their winnings, my day dreams tended to
differ slightly. Naturally, I wanted to win big, but rather than
dreaming about how I’d spend the money (of which the first thing I
would do is rent out Yankee stadium, tee up at home plate, and drive a
bucket of golf balls over the homerun fence) I fantasized about
telling Dave Letterman and Katie Couric, on national television, how
this is the first lottery ticket I ever bought…and isn’t it funny how,
when so many hardcore lottery players have been buying them for years
and have never won a thing, yet I buy only one and win $340 million.
And I would go on every talk show that would allow me air time and
continue to gladly rub salt into the wound of every lottery player out
there that ever gave me a hard time for mistaking their ‘4’ for a ‘5’
on the daily number.
Granted, I might have many people plotting my death, but I figured
that $340 million would buy me one kick ass security system and a hell
of a body guard.
Unfortunately, like most day dreams, my goal of winning big never
happened. No Yankee Stadium. No Letterman. No Katie. And, I can’t help
but think that if only I had bought one more. Granted, telling people
that ‘these were the first two lottery tickets I ever bought’ makes
for a crappy story, but being rich would have surely made up for it.
Friday, October 14, 2005
today's high
scores
I try to be a law abiding citizen. I’ve never killed anyone, I pay my
taxes, and I don’t steal cable. And even though I get HBO without
paying for it, I didn’t give some cable technician money to hook this
up. The cable company has apparently failed to realize that they
forgot to hit the scramble button on the HBO channel that connects to
my television, so this clearly isn’t my fault and, therefore, cannot
really be considered ‘stealing’. If they would ever bother to ask me,
‘do you receive free HBO?’, I most probably would tell them, ‘why yes
I do, and as a law abiding citizen please disconnect this service from
my television set immediately.’ But they have yet to inquire, and
until they do I don’t feel compelled to alert them to the situation.
And even though I am chocked full of law abidiness, there are certain
laws that I have a hard time forcing myself to obey. Like driving the
speed limit…which has remained pretty much the same since the horse
and buggy days and is therefore a law that is in dire need of being
erased from the books. Riding a horse at 55 miles per hour would
surely do great damage to the horse, thus it’s evident that these
speed limit laws needed to be enforced many years ago. My car, on the
other hand, is quite capable of going that speed without causing any
harm to itself. Actually, it does quite well going much faster than
that, therefore I see no real reason to toe the line in regards to
this law. I view the speed limit laws more as ‘suggested guidelines’ than
non-bendable laws.
It’s unfortunate, however, that the police force around here don’t see
things the same way I do…which has become increasingly clear by all
the police cars with those little radar guns sticking out of the
drivers side window that have been littering the highways the past few
weeks. In an attempt to appear a model citizen, I slow down whenever I
spot one.
Apparently, though, our concerned police force doesn’t feel that their
presence is enough of a deterrent, and they have put those large ‘Your
Speed Is ____’ radar displays around the city as well. And these
things are single handedly ruining my attempts at good citizenship.
Every time I see one of these radar posting displays, I view it less
as a reminder to slow down and more of a challenge. Much like those
speed pitch machines at the county fair where the goal is to see how
fast you can throw, I see these radar displays as a very similar, if
not more fun, game…because while I can’t throw very fast, I can
certainly drive fast.
And everyday, on that same stretch of highway, I aim to break my
record from the day before, flooring the pedal in an effort to achieve
some astronomically high score on the little display screen off to the
side of the road. I realize that I have a speedometer on my dashboard
that will provide the same information, but the feeling of
accomplishment and triumph just isn’t the same. Because when I fly
past and see that little number start flashing, I know that I’ve just
made some type of high score.
I only wish that there was some way to type my initials into the radar
display so that all the drivers behind me could see me sitting atop
the leader board.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
learning to
speak mechanicese
My car was back in the shop for an assortment of maladies. It’s no
longer a ‘young’ car and, in its old age, has become quite cranky and
persnickety. Therefore, a tune-up was long overdue.
I dropped my car off and called the following afternoon for an update
on its health. One of the mechanical MDs told me, “we just ordered the
parts for it. They should be in tomorrow morning.”
Which left me wondering where these parts were coming from? And, being
that they were ordered late in the afternoon, how are they going to be
delivered early the next morning? Is my car so very important that my
parts were expressed delivered overnight, straight from some part
making shop in China? Do mechanics know some secret to the universe
which allows them to bend the rules of time and space? Or, by
‘ordering parts’ do they mean that Eugene needs to walk to the back of
the garage and pick them up off of a shelf? I’m guessing that this is
probably what they meant.
And judging from what these parts cost me…$250 for some spark plugs
and wires…Eugene must have had one far walk in order to retrieve these
parts of mine. They might have also been very high up on the shelf,
thus adding to my total expense.
I’d like to think that the high dollar value of these spark plugs and
wires were due to the fact that they were truly exceptional
parts…parts that were guaranteed to greatly improve the performance of
my car. Or possibly that they were gold plated. But being that my car
still doesn’t work right, I question the durability of the parts. And
I highly suspect that there’s no gold plating either. Basically, I
think I’ve been screwed.
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
the vicarious life of a
secret agent
I’ve recently decided that I just
don’t have enough suspense and mystery in my life. And this mysteriousless
life of mine is clearly the reason that I’ve been in a rut and, quite
frankly, not nearly as happy as I deserve to be.
You never see a down and out secret agent. There’s always excitement,
international intrigue, and steamy nights for people in this type of
profession. I’ve seen some James Bond movies, so I can attest to this
fact. And even in the rare event that James Bond would start to feel like
he was in a rut, I’m certain that something would blow up, some rare
British crown jewel would need saving from the hands of the enemy (most
likely the Russians), and some beautiful lady would end up falling into
his arms.
Working in a billing department is about as far as one can possibly get
from being a secret agent. Thus, my opportunity for suspense and mystery
is severely limited. ‘Will our clients pay their bill on time this month?’
is as mysterious as my job gets. And being that I have yet to see a job
opening for Secret Agent advertised in the classified ads of the paper, I
came to the conclusion that I would have to add mystery to my life
vicariously. So I decided to buy a book.
I drove out to Barnes and Noble and saw that suspense and mystery
surrounded me on every shelf…books that promised to mystify my otherwise
unmysterious life. And I opted for a Tom Clancy novel. While I’m not a Tom
Clancy fan, the book promised me a ‘thrilling roller coaster ride of
action and suspense! Sure to keep you on the edge of your seat the entire
time!’ Surely the dust jacket wouldn’t make such claims if it weren’t
true, so I bought the book.
I headed out later that night and forgot about the lack of mystery in my
life until the following day. And after a generous helping of aspirin, I
set out to retrieve my book…though I soon realized that I had no idea
where Mr. Clancy was hiding. I searched everywhere that a book might be,
and then I searched everywhere that no self-respecting book would ever
dare venture. Then I re-searched everywhere I had previously searched.
The
book is gone and I have no idea where it might be. So, in a sense, I’ve
achieved my goal…mystery has been added to my life.
And now I’m left thinking that perhaps a life of mystery is over-rated,
because I no longer want mystery. I’d rather just have the book back.
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