Nailed

Bank Teller: Wow, you’re rich, what are you going to do with all that money?

K.T.: I don’t know. You know, I have no idea whatsoever. I really should have come up with something clever to say beforehand.

She caught me flat-footed while cashing a ten dollar check. It sucked. What I should have said was that I was going to the same party as the guy before me (whom had just received a giant stack of one dollar bills), but I was going to have to leave early. You take away my humor, and I have nothing.

***

My first nailgun experience was the original Quake, played five years after it first released. Though Quake II was one of the many games that sustained me through college, I didn’t possess a computer powerful enough to run the original Quake. So, on a lark (as with nearly everything I do), I downloaded and installed the original Quake. How charming, you had to hold down a button to mouselook. That sucked. I went through the levels, marveling at the blocky enemies, the charming level design. Then I found a nailgun.

Woo.

There are two weapons I remember from that game: the rocket launcher, because every first person shooter has a similar weapon, and the nailgun. Those little triangular pellets shooting out at high velocity seemed like they’d screw up some enemies from close range. And they did. Such a high rate of fire. Such a novel weapon, carpentry applied towards more gruesome ends. It makes me sad that more games don’t have a nailgun. The poor man’s railgun, chunks of metal propelled at relatively low speeds, but still packs a punch. Plus, most of the weapons in first person shooters don’t scare me enough, as I’ve never used them in real life.

Now that I’ve had a chance to use a nailgun, I want one. Though I’ve been working for a few months, I’ve never really wanted to use the nailgun. A couple of weeks in, when I first helped to assemble crates, A.G. wielded the nailgun while I held the planks in place. Bam, a nail went through off center, and most of the nail extruded through the wood, pointed directly at my right testicle. Since then, I’ve had an understandable aversion to the nailgun.

Last Friday, we were assembling crates again. K.R. asked if I wanted to nail for a while. I assume this was because his arm was getting tired. I assented.

Woo.

The nailgun uses compressed air to embed a three inch nail into wood. The nailgun will not fire unless you depress the barrel catch into your target, except when you switch to automatic. The barrel press can be circumvented by pulling it back using a swatch of cloth and firing. Each nail “magazine” consists of about fifteen corkscrewed nails lined up in a slant, connected with thin yellowy plastic. These you load into the chamber directly below the barrel. With every press of the trigger, the air shoots a nail through the barrel, expels the air through the rear of the gun in a large puff, and emits a loud crack. The plastic more often than not goes flying, leaving little bits everywhere after twenty-five crates have been built. Given the quality of the wood, when you fire a nail, the odds wood chips and splinters fly outward are pretty good; we generally take at least one shot of wood shaving to the eyes.

The nails are loud, bottled thunder loud, spike-driving sledgehammer loud. If the Greeks had a god of carpentry, surely she would have sounded something like the loading bay sounds. Hephaestus got nothing on Carpentria. (If I’ve screwed up Greek/Roman gods, I have no access to the internet right now, and you’ve got to look up something on your own.)

The nailgun itself is not very heavy, but given its size, it is quite unwieldy. I needed two hands to steady it, one on the handle and trigger, one on the air chamber. Simple, just line up the wood, place the barrel to the wood, press inward, fire. Repeat. Now, I’m not that destructive, but there was something liberating about firing nails into wood. Whether it was that I was helping something take shape from something less, or that I was granted the power to put holes into things, I don’t know. All I know is that with each successive thud, and my degrading hearing, I was having some real fun.

I nailed four crates, driving nails with a heavy-handed crash. Chips would fly everywhere. I’ve come to notice that when I blow my nose on days after crate building, my snot is full of black detritus. Not a good sign. Nonetheless, the power of these nails was incredible at close range. If I had to face the hordes of hell, surely I would take a nailgun with me at some point.

I don’t know for sure why it was so good to fire nails, but I know that I kept doing it.

We would later supplement this fun by firing nails into long distance targets. An air-powered nailgun has little accuracy beyond ten feet, definitely a close range weapon. Nails would rotate along the Y and Z axes, rather than spiral along the X. Still, when they connected, it looked like it would hurt. Like a bullet to the brain.

What to Do

C.S. Her thighs are the size of my chest.

I actually think she’s cute, and if I were a foot and a half taller, I’d ask her out.

***

Some of us carry our pain as we would babies. We clutch them tight to our breast, hold on dearly, and shy away from showing them to the world. You raise a child in this manner, you get Buster from Arrested Development.

I hold my pain in like that. It’s the barbed bauble that I possess. For the past week, I’ve not wanted to talk about my aunt’s death. Indeed, for the past month, I’ve not wanted to discuss the inevitability of my aunt’s death. And now, here we are. Forgive me this indulgence, painful though it be.

Last Friday, after work, I drove to my aunt’s apartment to visit. This I had done for the past few weeks. She’d had the lung cancer for years now, but about a month ago, that was near the end. It was a wonder she lasted as long as she did.

To try and deal with it, I said my goodbyes each Friday, and hoped she’d pass on, move out of her pain. Each week brought me back to say goodbye yet again. It wore on me after a while, trying to think of her as dead, to prepare myself. It didn’t work so well.

From week to week, it was hardly fair to watch her pass from consciousness to unconsciousness to barely even living. She’d gone a month without eating, so destroyed were her insides.

Last Friday, my mom told me it was almost the end. The same thing she’d told me the past few weeks. I didn’t believe it, but I still went. God damn me for being so callous at that point, but I don’t deal well with life. Or death.

What struck me, what struck me every time, was how small she was under the blanket. Like a ten year old almost. So frail beneath her cover. Wired up with a breathing tube. With a catheter. With an intravenous tube. Tubes everywhere.

A few weeks previous, her final words to me were, the next time we meet, it will be in heaven. It wasn’t as I had to keep seeing her, but it was the last thing she said to me.

We sat down to eat. Everyone believed she would last until Saturday or Sunday, based on how she was doing. I had a mouthful of brown rice in my mouth, and was chewing on it, when J.Y. came out and told us she had passed on. Died, let’s try to keep the euphemisms to a minimum.

That mouthful of rice was like dirt in my mouth. I was stunned, which is probably why I kept chewing on it, finally managing to choke it down. Worse than the first time I had raisin bran when I was four and thought I’d die if I had to eat any more of that mushy slop.

At this point, my mom told me to clear the table of all the dinner. What the hell else could I do? Someone had to do it, and I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t know what else to do, so I just gathered up all the dishes, washed them, put them on the dish rack. Left them to dry. I wonder if, when they clean the apartment out, they’ll find the dishes clean and dry, and if they’ll donate them, throw them out, keep them, what.

The family converged. Everyone went straight for my aunt’s bedroom. I couldn’t really stay in there, still stuck in heavy denial, so I sat in the living room, waiting for people to come, opening the door when they did, waiting for the front buzzer to ring. Little did I know someone had propped the front door open, so my waiting was for naught. But still, still I waited, because I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know what the hell to do.

We were distraught. My aunt was the matriarch on my dad’s side of the family. For the most part, people were stunned. The notable exception was R.Y. He wanted to go watch Doom afterwards. I said I’d go with him, because he wasn’t then grieving (he’d already grieved as she started losing her consciousness). I guess I wanted to be somewhere else. However, I wouldn’t leave until after they removed her corpus.

The funeral home representatives came in with a gurney, and removed her body, just as you would see at a crime scene.

Nothing happened of note Saturday.

Sunday was the funeral. Life goes on.

As usual, my parents (my mom) likes being early, so we arrived about an hour and a half early at the funeral home. I was the first one inside, and as far as I can tell, I was the first family member to see the body in the open casket.

There were bouquets and flowers everywhere, all with names on ribbons in Chinese. I couldn’t read most of them, but later, my mom did point out my name on one of the ribbons. How nice.

She looked so beautiful, so at peace. So alive.

It didn’t feel right. No, it didn’t feel real. I was still denying what was going on, and kept thinking she was sleeping, resting, something, anything. I didn’t know what to think, I didn’t know what to do.

In some ways, pre-funeral was worse than actual funeral. As the family came in, set up pictures, organized everything, people dealt in their own way. This generally meant breaking down crying at the casket, or breaking down crying in the bathroom, or in my case, staring blankly at the flowers and not knowing what to do.

I don’t remember most of the funeral. What I do remember is the opera singer, as she sang at the beginning. I thought she was horrendous, all pitchy and offkey. Turned out she sings at the Kennedy Center, so what do I know?

Then the preacher started giving his eulogy in Chinese. Damned if he wasn’t straight up deep-South-Hellfire-and-Brimstone passion and fury, based solely on his intonation. Based on his words, from what I could understand, he wasn’t nearly that angry, but he sort of was. And it turned out he used to be a DuPont chemist. Go figure.

At some point I was handed a pair of gloves and told I was a pallbearer, just like my uncle’s funeral (this aunt’s husband). The casket had a hinged handle, which made carrying easy. Nice of the casket makers to think ahead.

We drove down to the cemetery. It was a beautiful day, the one break in a weekend full of rain and hurt. Well, one of two isn’t bad.

We carried the casket to the grave, positioned it on the lowering system. My uncle was buried first, twelve feet deep, and my aunt would be buried six feet deep on the same plot.

There was a nice green tent above the grave, and green carpeting all around, green felt chairs set up before the grave. The flowers were beside the casket, in a large pile, and one of the funeral home employees handed out single flowers to the family. I took a yellow rose, dethorned of course (as if we would feel the thorns. I couldn’t feel anything in my hands.). It smelled light, sweet, like a rose ought to smell. And then I looked up at the casket, sitting there on the suspension. Like lightning, it hit me. I knew what to do.

I started crying. Bawling. Couldn’t deny it any longer. My aunt was dead.

They lowered the casket, and I walked up, rose in hand. Time didn’t slow down like the movies, probably because it wasn’t a period of high stress. My feet fell fast, one after the other, and when I peeped down over the edge, barely able to look at the flowers and that casket, lowered down down down, I lost it again. Everything blurred as tears welled in my eyes, as if I was staring up into a heavy rain. I almost tripped walking away.

After, we went to grab dinner, gorged ourselves on way too much food as if there had just been a marriage. The kids had their own table, and we were content to relive the past, not really discussing our aunt. And it helped.

And now, here I am, reliving it, accepting what I haven’t wanted to, what I’ve still been slightly denying, even though I watched that coffin lower, watched as the cemetery workmen in their dirty khakis and dirty hats removed their wooden blocks and manually lowered the casket. My aunt is dead.

Rest in peace C.Y.

Ping

K.D.: Bring your appetite on Monday, I have plenty of Girl Scout Cookies.

K.T.: Do they have real Girl Scouts in them?

Groan. Nothing like making bad jokes to your professor.

***

Aside from the weekend, its been a slow week. Well, perhaps not a slow week, but I’ve definitely been less attentive than I would normally be. Along with the inevitable winter’s chill encroaching upon Maryland, this has slown my mind and my perception down to that of a three-toed sloth. It’s so slow, I didn’t realize that slown isn’t recognized as an actual word in MS Word.

With precious little to discuss with all of you in these e-missives, I’m going to have to default to a video game review. Yes, many of you will be bored out of your soccer-ball-sized heads, but so be it. I am willing to kick you all in the head in order to post.

Pong

Players: one to two
System: I used an Atari Twenty-six Hundred, but several different versions exist.
Rating: Zero stars, Five possible

Story: The development team should be defenestrated from the top floor of the Empire State Building for their near-complete lack of story development. As it appears, there is a game of table tennis, and you must triumph over your opponent. While many sports games have thin narratives, especially in the multiplayer arena, here the flow is nonexistent. Table Tennis. Ping-pong if you prefer. Wow. No tournament to slug through, no sick relatives that need prize money, no nothing. To be fair, they did do a good job of avoiding all of the video game clichés that have cropped up throughout the years, but really, they were the first. They could have come up with something, anything, and it would have been acceptable.

Gameplay: Insofar as that you are playing a game, we must commend the developers for lending that little bit of verisimilitude to their digital baby. However, note that it doesn’t get more basic than this. Even Tetris, one of the oldest, greatest video games of all time, has a more complicated interface than Pong. The action is top-down, and the entire playing field readjusts to fit your television screen, albeit with some manual help from the television settings. There is a mid-line separating the field. A rudimentary scoreboard centered at the top of the screen keeps track of which player has scored more points. Points are earned, laboriously, by smacking the “ball” (a white square) past your opponent’s paddle (a white line segment) with your own (ditto). The paddle is stuck in two dimensions, able to move from top to bottom of the screen. You can’t apply spin or English to the “ball’ when you hit it; only the angle of contact and the speed of the paddle as it moves will influence the “ball’s” trajectory. The top and bottom of the screen are walled to keep the ball in play.

This is as straightforward as you can get. Play till neither person can stand it anymore. Free game programs that come with computers are more entertaining than this. This game is so vanilla Breyers is jealous. It’s so straightforward Donald Trump is studying it for next seasons’ Apprentice firings. It’so boring and tedious that I’m putting myself to sleep analyzing it. Let’s move on.

Control: Perhaps the sole bright point in this game, but with a caveat. You must use the dial control, shaped much like a safe’s combination dial. Hold it as you would grasp the lip of a glass with all five fingers, and you are good to go. The fine-tuned motions allow you precision movement over your paddle, and let you shoot up and down in the span of a second. Stopping is tight, never overrunning when you cease input. If I ever require a line start/stop simulation, you can be sure I’ll be contacting these people.

Graphics: I can, and have, drawn more impressive graphics in my notebook while killing time in class. It is a bunch of straight lines. Remember pick-up sticks? The programmers cribbed from that game, but forgot about multiple colors. Damn. White, black. What is this, nineteen sixty? Daguerrotypes once constituted the finest form of photography, but now we have digital cameras. Move on!

Fun: I had a lot of fun laughing at it.

Conclusion: This was the apex of video gaming once upon a time. Now, it is a pile of trash. No, let me take that back, such a comparison insults refuse everywhere. It is a pile of George W. Bush. (Oh no he din’t, he went there!). I know you can find this for free on the internet, and could probably program a true-to-life recreation in thirty minutes or so if so inclined. Save your time, and spend your gaming dollar and gaming time elsewhere. Forty-year old technologies do not hold up to today’s gaming extravaganzas.

Dearly Beloved...

R.Y.: If you die, I call dibs on your PS2. Yeah, Dead or Alive Volleyball.

K.T.: You know that’s only on X-box.

R.Y.: Damn.

***

My aunt died last Friday. The funeral was on Sunday. It's been a long weekend, so you'll grant me a little leeway on updates. Rest in peace C.Y.

***

Recent events have gotten me thinking about funerals. I read a book a while back about cadavers, called Stiff, by Mary Roach. In it, the final chapter discussed what the author intended for her own funeral. Her solution, simple and elegant, was to have her husband decide the funeral arrangements, as she would be dead and wouldn’t care so much about what would be going on. He, on the other hand, would have to express his grief, and the burial she might want might not necessarily be what was best for the assembled (though I do not believe she stated her preferred funeral arrangements). I like this approach, and if I know when my time is near, I will appoint my wife to make the necessary arrangements.

However, today is still today, I’m still alive, and I’d like to share with you what would be my funeral, if I may.

I’d like a Sunday morning, September preferably, as close to the seventh as possible. September 7, 2059 and 2064 both fall on Sundays. A bit ambitious for lifespan, yes, but benchmarks to aim for. That would be a nice bookend to my life. It should be a morning ceremony, done in time for the one o’clock games. If for whatever reason I am not on the East Coast, the ceremony should still be done in time for the one o’clock games.

Closed casket, closed casket all the way. No viewing. Tape pictures of me to the casket if you have to, but no open casket. Remember me in my better days, not after the morticians have worked their morbid magic and taxidermied me.

I have no preference for locale, beyond somewhere near Baltimore if convenient. Plot Union Memorial Hospital as the central point, and work outwards. The closest graveyard is the best option, then spread outward.

There should be soft music persistent in the background, lots of Final Fantasy thematic music, some selections from the Iron Chef soundtrack, some Cowboy Bebop, perhaps some old spirituals to make it seem like a funeral.

No suits. Please, no suits. Dress nice, but dress comfortably. Funerals tend to go on a while, and I wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable even after I’ve passed on. If we need embarrassment, we can send up D.C. to give a five minute monologue on his favorite insults. If we’re going to be celebrating my life, I want you to be able to breathe. I want you to be able to walk from point A to point B. I want you to appreciate the day.

Should we have advance warning, then what will happen is that we will have a present system. The assembled, just for coming, will not leave empty-handed. All of my most prized possessions will be apportioned and distributed. Then, I will post a list of what remains that I can feasibly give away (sorry Honey, whoever you are). People will call “dibs” on items, and will receive these items on the appointed day. I will try to write a note for everyone, calling from the dead if you will.

The structured portion will be short, fifteen minutes tops. We’ll also have an open section for people to say something, another fifteen minutes, less if no one wants to speak. Hell, I probably wouldn’t say anything at my own funeral if I were attending (and alive), so I wouldn’t fault any of you if you didn’t say anything (cause I wouldn’t be in any position to fault any of you).

To be fair, I probably would write something short, and have someone read it (thanks Dear, whoever you are). Something simple and to the point, but also a bit irreverent and irrelevant.

We’ll do it all outside, beneath tents, rain or shine. The seats will have nice cushioning. There will also be some light foods catered for the event, some of my personal favorites. Nachos, bacon-wrapped scallops, steak tips, spring rolls, orange slices and whole oranges, green beans, six different flavors of chicken wings, bacon wrapped filet-mignon if feasible, orange juice, soy milk, water, ham, mixed berries (straw, blue, rasp, black), pizza with many toppings, Grandma Utz’s Old Fashioned Chips (cooked in lard!) and French onion dip, oh man, the list could go on and on, and you’d all get a little fatter because of me. And you’d enjoy it damnit, I’d probably position someone to hand you a bacon wrapped scallop or two at the main entryway.

There would be televisions set up with pregame shows on, not too loud since its still a funeral, but loud enough to appreciate the day’s games.

Finally, at the appointed moment, I’d probably hire a few beautiful women to fling themselves at my casket if I were single (God forbid). If I’m married, we’ll probably have the cheese moment, where Whitney Houston will sing I Will Always Love You over the loudspeakers.

The longest moment should be the food-eating, since there should be a lot, and it should be so heavy. We’d arrange for people that wanted to chill there to be able to watch the games and continue eating, or set up a reception afterwards for the same. And really, that’s it. Is it extravagant, and not in keeping with the reality that I go out just as I came in? Yes, yes. Do I want people to be happy that I’m at rest, and understand that they persist, and continue on? Yes, yes. Am I now hungry, and seriously considering driving in the rain to pick up some bacon-wrapped scallops?

Yes, yes.

Egairram

Congrats to G.B. and N.B. (nee N.F.)!

I apologize for the first post this week. It was crap, and I shouldn’t have posted it. I did not bring “it," and hope the previous two entries have been baby steps towards redeeming myself in your silent, anonymous eyes.

Urinalysis

C.S.: “There’s nothing that gets me hungrier than starving Jewish people.”

Clearly a sarcastic statement, made when considering the presentation on concentration camps. Of course, I forgot to inform C.S. that the presentation was on the American concentration camps, which held Japanese-Americans during World War II.

***

I am more sympathetic towards pregnant women than I was yesterday; I felt their pain.

I ran this morning, or rather, I jogged with intermittent wind sprints punctuating my slow cantor. The wooded track I run on has a long gradual incline and a sharp decline, or a long gradual decline and a sharp incline if you run widdershins. In order to make it up the slant, I have to go into sprinter mode, touching the ground with little more than the balls of my feet and my toes, hardly making any contact, and gunning it like a biblical tax collector was chasing me. Now, for someone in shape, this is hardly more than a basic bodily upkeep, but for me, it was like dragging a rock across an ocean. The net result, besides tacking ten minutes onto my life (which is a net loss of ten minutes since I ran for twenty), are the persistent sore ankles that now plague my legs.

As anyone who runs knows, I needed water when I returned, and lots of it. Slammed it down like I was in a shot-for-shot contest with an elephant. Good thing it comes from the tap huh? Had to get ready for school, so I did, and before I left the apartment, I took the opportunity to urinate. Sensible precaution, it would be about an hour before I would arrive the law school’s toilets.

I went to get some Chick-fil-a, maker of the greatest chicken nugget in history. Yes, I know in the past I maligned Chick-fil-a as little more than fast food swill, but I’m sorry baby, Vegas was a cruel mistress, it did horrible things to me, I didn’t mean any of it. Please take me back.

She took me back, and even handed me a large sweetened ice tea in the process. I took a few exploratory sips and rested the cup in its holder. No biggie right?

Halfway to school, I start to get that twinge, that light pressure that wanted to flow out of me, like a story, or a urine stream. Since it was in my belly and not my brain, I knew it was the latter. Whatever. I start relaxing my bladder a little instead of full on clenching. Why waste energy that might come in handy later? Its not like I let a few drops go, just kept the seal closed, but not iron-tight.

When I get to Baltimore, it’s around eleven, and the parking garage’s first eight floors are full. I am forced to drive in circles all the way up to floor nine, quite unlike cloud nine since I was ready to bust open. Not from joy, from water and iced tea. Water is like your parents; it nurtures you and threatens to embarrass you at the worst possible opportunities.

Now, please please please feel the irony of this situation: I have to hold it in the parking garage, essentially one of the world’s largest toilets, at least according to all the alcoholics and homeless I have made the acquaintance of. I know its just a parking garage, but can’t they at least install drains and dividers for privacy? Maybe little stalls in the corners with basic piping just to move it all away?

I park, swing out of my car, holding my backpack, easily twenty pounds. Its hard to get out, and I’m starting to feel the pressure. Sweat is starting to sheen on my forehead, coat my body in a thin protective barrier. I shuffle, sore ankles and all, trying to shift the extra weight around, knocking into things because I create a much larger footprint with the backpack that I am not used to. And still my bladder cries for sweet release.

Pregnant women, I feel your pain.

Now, I’ve to walk ten minutes to get to the law school. I have two fears at this point, one chronic and irrational, one persistent and logical. The former is a fear of getting punched. I’m not joking, when my bladder is full, the worst thing I think could happen would be to get punched. You’re probably going to lose bladder control, and you’re probably in a fight, so you’ve got to beat down someone in wet pants. Win, and you’re a baby. Lose, and you wet yourself while getting beat. No win. The latter is simpler, in that I don’t want to have to cuyt someone off with a simple “I gotta piss, that’s more important than what you have to say.” Granted, my urine is more important than what you have to say, but I don’t want you to know that, and I don’t want to dissemble.

Normally, I enjoy the sights and smells, and by enjoy the sights and smells, I mean walk with my neck stiff, my eyes unwavering from the present course, my breathing through my mouth so as to avoid the sweet mélange of sweat refuse and smog.Now, my eyes are throwing around willy-nilly, tracking for anything that resembles a toilet and would afford me some trace amount of privacy. Anything. At one point, I look down at the ice tea I’m carrying and take a sip.

Dumbass.

I then think about it. Would it be possible to dump out the tea, absorb the $1.50, and pee in the cup in a corner? That was how far gone I was, that I considered peeing into my cup. In retrospect, I doubt the thirty-two ounce cup would have withstood the force of my amber blast (weak Styrofoam), and even if it managed to resist the fury of the stream, it likely would have overflown, creating a potentially more embarrassing situation (No, you really don’t want a sip of this, trust me.)

I have never been so glad to see the law school. I was so glad I took a sip of iced tea.

Idiot.

Social Conformity

K.T.: “Boy that warms the cockles of your heart.”

S.P.: “What did you say?”

K.T.: “Cockles of your heart, read a book.”

S.P.: “What does it mean?”

K.T.: “What does it mean? Uh, I’m not sure.”

S.P: “At least I understand everything I read.”

“Cockles of one’s heart” means one’s innermost feelings.

***

Warning: Sleep-hazy recollections follow.

When I arrived at work at one post meridian, we were loading the finished, crated product into a fifty-three foot truck. Since the fifty-three foot truck cannot swing around to meet its opened rear to the loading bay dock, this process involves A.G. driving the battery-operated forklift and moving the approximately four hundred pound crates from the loading bay into the truck, where others will help move the crates into position with a pallet jack and brute force. I recall around forty crates or so, and everyone had been loading since around ten ante meridian. It didn’t help that when tightening the crates to the forklift, M.N. strapped it down so tight that K.R. and B.E. were having trouble unstrapping the squat beasts. They started screaming over to the loading bay, at which point V.C. stuffed some tissues into the next strapped crate.

At around two thirty post meridian, the dirty deed had been done, and the truck sat pregnant with product. Much of the forklift’s battery had been drained by the back and forth, back and forth. However, there was still enough charge, sixty percent or so, to take care of the second truck. This one had been crammed full of wooden crate material, sides, tops, bottoms, all stacked up and ready to be transported.

To give you an idea of what the crates are like, when fully assembled, they stand about eight to nine feet tall. The bases and sides weigh ten to fifteen pounds each, with the top an additional five to ten. This phone booth sized coffin is nail-gunned together, and the door is screwed in. Though not the most attractive girl on the block, she’ll still take whatever you have to give her into her hole, and keep it trapped in there. Wait, that makes her like the psycho-ex that keeps on calling you and saving the used condoms forever and ever. But I digress.

Tops and bottoms are stacked ten to a pallet. Sides are probably forty or fifty to a pallet. These numbers necessitate the use of the forklift, because we sure as hell can’t move that sort of weight ourselves, except piecemeal. Given that this second truck is also a fifty-three footer, what we have to do is hoist a pallet jack into the truck to move successive pallets forward as we unload the earlier pallets. Since there are so many pallets, and its already late, the plan is to just get them unloaded into the parking lot, and move them to the storage facility later.

A.G. had just walked away to eat his lunch, KFC I believe, when M.N. called him back into duty. This infuriated him so badly that later, he went to get his biscuit, took two bites, said now it was hard as a rock, and chucked it sidearm off into the grass lot adjoining the parking lot, a good sixty feet away. That biscuit flew like a chicken shot from a cannon. It dropped tiny pebble-like crumbs all over the parking lot.

We unload the first fourteen or so pallets without much difficulty. The problem comes in magic number fifteen, a sides pallet. These eight to nine foot sides are unwieldy and prohibitively heavy when stacked together. At this point, a wrench and the number seven have been blinking on the forklift’s console for a significant amount of time, but what choice have we but to ignore the warning we don’t understand? This sides pallet was also off balance, as the pallet itself was off center. A.G. had to try to balance the forklift tines beneath the center of gravity, rather than on the pallet. He cleared the sides of the truck trailer, and was starting to back up, when the forklift seized up. Everything stopped working, and in slow motion, you could watch forty to fifty side panels waterfall off to the side, tumbling away from the forklift, spilling off like a new river.

To our surprise, none of the panels had been damaged, but to our chagrin, we had to move all of them piece by piece onto a separate pallet. Further, the forklift refused to function, like a donkey overworked in the summer’s heat. It sat there, silent ass, refusing to go anywhere. We had one sides pallet left on the truck. M.N. first suggested that we get it all down in one rush. Three on one side, three on the other, we carefully balance it out of the trailer, then drop that shit on the ground. I had to ask him if he was serious, to which he replied he wasn’t. We’d have to take this one down piece by piece.

The limiting factor on these sides is not the weight, but the size. They are a bitch to move around, because you either can’t see where you are going, or produce a very large footprint as you move around. More than once I almost clocked someone because I couldn’t see them and chose to turn at a bad time. However, we finally got it onto a separate pallet. There we stood, panting and frowning; it seemed appropriate that the forklift would choose this moment to reactivate.

A.G. took it down to recharge. Meanwhile, we had sixteen pallets stuck in the parking lot, and no way to move them. M.N. at this point suggested we “take fifty.” K.R. bristled at this idea. He was tired of us sitting around “with our dicks in our hands,” and proposed the mad genius idea to transport the tops and bottoms pallets to the storage facility using naught but a pallet jack and teams of two.

Allow me to diagram for you the circuitous path that such a pallet jack team must traverse. The parking lot is a good football field in length, and on a gradual downslope. At the far end, you must hang a left onto a ten degree incline, then continue up to the left until you have completed a one hundred and eighty degree turn. At this point, the incline continues, and you must go about half a football field up, then make a ninety degree turn to the right, at which point you have found the Storage USA facility. Take it up, activate the gate, then push on through as the incline increases in slope to twenty or twenty-five degrees. Push upwards about seventy-five yards, hang a right, and stumble forward another fifty yards until you arrive at our two storage bays, then jack the pallet in. Simple.

I had the good fortune to volunteer to help K.R. and to take the keys to the storage bay door locks. We had no problem going downhill. Hell, K.R. jumped on the pallet jack and rode it a good twenty-five yards, with me hanging on behind with one hand, trying to slow it down, and really just running fast just to try not to fall down.

The first problem came with the incline, when he pulled and I pushed. We had to run to get it up, and that was no simpleton folly. As the incline increased, so did our patience for this job decrease, but we huffed and we puffed until we managed to round the final bend and stumble it over to the bay doors. K.R. took a few steps away while I went to unlock the bay door. When I turned back he had collapsed onto the ground, chest heaving, breaths shallow and faint.

The family using their van to load up items stared at him with a mix of curiosity, pity and laughter.

I wasn’t going to get the pallet into the bay by myself, so K.R. called B.E. to come help me. There is a step leading into the bay, which necessitated going wheel first with the jack. We of course didn’t think of that, so we went fork first, where the jack’s profile is naturally lower. Three times we ran it forward, three times we battering rammed the two inch lip. My body jolted as if a lover touched me. Three times. We finally managed to get the jack positioned wheel first, and with me pulling and B.E. pushing, slammed the jack home. Of course, I fall over and B.E. almost pushes the pallet jack over me.

On the way back, we all agreed that we were not going to do this anymore. In the end, we had to compromise by putting the sides pallets into the loading bay, then stacking the tops and bottoms tight, and hoping no one would steal them. “But K.T.,” you ask the phosphorous screen before you, “who would plunder such a strange assortment of wooden crating?” There are some screwed up people out there, and I can only hope right now no one has stolen it.

***

After work, I thought I was going to a bar, but it turned out that I was babysitting. We were all headed to Galaxies, a pool bar in Silver Spring. Though I rarely drink beer and hard liquor, I do like hanging out and screwing around. Besides, the Galaxies waitresses tend to be easy on the eyes and willing to be perfectly unaware of how hot they are in order to unwittingly garner larger tips from the patrons, i.e. us.

G.B. had just gotten off work, while K.C. was still finishing up some last minute assignments. J.L. and E.X. had previously scouted out the area and were waiting outside, while V.P. and A.T. were en route, to arrive at seven post meridian. So, myself, G.B., J.L. and E.X. headed off to Galaxies.

Several things strike me as unique about Galaxies. The area is quite capacious and open, despite its basement situation. There are a slew of televisions decorating the walls, as well as a main projection screen displaying the most popular sporting event at the time. Galaxies must contain thirty full sized pool tables, with wide enough alleys between to disallow clumsy people from clocking each others on their pool cue recoil. Every time I enter Galaxies, it is deserted. There are no more than forty people in the entire area at any one time.

We arrive at happy hour, and so order two pitchers of beer and a large cheese pizza. Our waitress is a cute Latina, with a wonderful ass that I could wrap my hands around and just grab onto for dear life. G.B. observed that it would only take one of his hands to do the same, and that we should go in for a surgical trade. Throughout the night, despite being idle for much of the time (there are only forty people!), she tends to not come on a timely basis, unless that time is “late.” For example, she brings us plates, but neglects the actual pizza until ten minutes later. A cruel joke, cruel as children, and if she were not the bringer of beer, she would have been rejected from our table long ago. Alas, she is the beer wench.

I have to make special mention of this “pizza.” The mozzarella has extended all the way to the crust, so that there is no technical crust, just a delineation between the state of being pizza, and the state of not being pizza. The dough is undercooked, and the entire venture is lukewarm, leading us to wonder if it was prepared using a heat lamp, a giant non functioning microwave, or my private thought, a fat cook lying on top of it for fifteen minutes. It is not nauseating, but I observe that if I were alone in a sewer, lost, and starving, if this pizza and a diseased rat were side by side, nine times out of ten I would deign to consume a slice of this monstrosity. The tenth time, yes, I would consume the rat.

We vacuum through the pitchers in due time. G.B. pours me some, which I am forced to accept, as angry G.B. equates to injured K.T. In due time, K.C., V.P. and A.T. arrive. Our party, seated comfortably at a four person table, now stretches the same boundaries as a seven person melee. More pitchers are called for, as well as quesadillas and wings. Thankfully, their pizza incompetence does not extend to their quesadillas or their chicken wings. I didn’t partake of the quesadilla, but the hot and barbecue wings were done to perfection, basted thick in their own savory sauces, still piping hot, but not to the point of scalding the precious folds of the inner mouth. A culinary miracle erasing the horrid memory of that damned pizza.

As we sit there, we get more pitchers. G.B., J.L., K.C. and A.T. get noticeably drunk, though G.B.’s was frontloaded, and everyone else’s was backloaded. As the drinking madness commences, V.P. and I compare our PDAs. (Yes, I bought a PDA. Yes, I’m sorry that I did. No I’m not returning it. No, so far I’m not becoming one of those people. I’m just halfway there, like I’m halfway to crack addiction every day I live.) I bought a Palm Z22, he bid for and won a Dell Axim x50 from eBay. Damned if his didn’t give me PDA envy. His color screen was larger than my PDA was. He had so many cool options on there. I only felt it necessary and just to record a task on there for him (“make love to men”). In return, he called my PDA “cute” and wondered why it was so scratched. J.L. tried to stab his finger through my PDA in an attempt to activate it sans stylus. Damned if he wasn’t almost successful.

Much of the night is a blur, as it tends to be when you’re unused to drinking and having fun. I do recall looking at my cell phone at one point and realizing three hours had passed. What follows is a pastiche of what I recall: G.B. once extruded feces for two minutes straight after a four-day constipation binge. K.C. has roughly fifty bosses at work, and all of them are jockeying for his time. I yell and wave my hands much more when intoxicated. K.C. likes touching V.P. inappropriately, going so far as to throw his arm around V.P.’s shoulder and sway to the music, whatever it was, some of the popular music the kids are listening to now. K.C. likes punching G.B. The drunker J.L. is, the more he sounds like an intelligent three-year old, still able to string together coherent sentences, but unable to articulate even the most basic words. Trying to comprehend him to any great extent is impossible, and nodding is a good method of interpretation. A.T. loves speed drinking contests. I exist to provide others with entertainment while they are killing time at work. Salt will not stick to my dry forearm. If you bang a table hard enough, beer glasses will tip over and spill on you. Yes, we still laugh at someone that looks like they pissed their pants, even though not ten seconds ago, we saw the glass fall that wet them. The Astros beat the Cardinals in game 6, spurring an incoherent rant from J.L. about how all the analysts had erred when predicting the Astros demise, though they were ahead three games to two in the series. If I mock anyone, A.T. will kill me. If I mock A.T., A.T. will kill me. If I mock myself, A.T. will not kill me, because he will make my life so miserable I will kill myself. A.T. can fit an entire piece of pizza into his mouth at once. I will teach G.B. how to write, but not about poop. In exchange, he will teach me about computers, though presumably not about computers cooled with poop. J.L. thinks I am fat, and took every opportunity to make a hog-snorting sound. I am a girl when it comes to people calling me fat, calling them out at every perceived slight, no matter how far away from the truth. If everyone thinks I am fat, I must be fat. I don’t know why I ate all those wings, it’s time to throw up after I finish writing this. Damn I hate being fat, I wish I was skinny like all the girls in magazines. Then again, I wish I was with the girls in the magazines, so I don’t know how that’s going to work out. We all approve of lesbians, and encourage them in all aspects of life. Finally, none of us can really go back to Galaxies.

Such a shame, not being able to go back, but none of us will sit easy should we do so. The problem is A.T.’s quaffing copious amounts of beer. A.T. got real pale real fast, and asked G.B. for a glass to vomit into. G.B. immediately sent A.T. off to the bathroom, and commented that if A.T. was going to vomit, it would be better in there than out here. In retrospect, I beg to differ.

Five minutes pass, then another two. I get worried about A.T., and my bladder strains and stretches from the five Pepsis I have downed at this point (“Oh Hardcore!” F you J.L.). I get up and go to the bathroom. Mistake number one.

Opening the door, the most sour smell greets me, of wasted bile and chicken fingers and half-digested pizza and Satan knows what else, so rank was the odor. A.T. is by the urinal at the back, wiping up his sick and dropping paper towels into the urinal itself. He looks at me, a strange glaze in his eyes. “The stalls were locked, I couldn’t get in.” He continues to wipe the inside and the top of the urinal, such was the force of his vomit. I walk over to the stall, and pull outward. The door swings like a thirties dancer. “F*ck.”

A.T. is paler, and I’m sure his skin would be clammy if I dared go near and touch his bare skin. He goes over to the sink, rinses his mouth out, wipes his forehead a few times, then goes to the stall to sit down. Fair enough, compose yourself before going back into the bar.

A few more minutes pass, and I get worried. I revisit the bathroom, open the door, and all I see before the door swings back shut is A.T.’s faded blue jeans and his tennis shoes in a kneeling position, still inside the stall.

The third visit, I had to look through the crack between the door and the stall wall. (Have you ever had a B.M. in public, and you stare through that tiny slit, and you think someone is staring back at you? It is quite disorienting, because how do you call them out when you’re at your most vulnerable? You just have to suck it up and let it go. Taken the wrong way, both those phrases are disgusting.) A.T. is slumped on the toilet bowl. This is not good. I knock and he manages to get to his feet. He must have vomited into the toilet at some point, then fell forward into a stupor, for when he arises, his forehead is bright red, in the shape of the back of the toilet seat where his head came to rest. A.T. walks over to the sink, leans over on his arm, breathes in the sink fumes.

I walk over to the paper towel dispenser to get him some towels, and when I look back in, the running water is now pink, brackish, like leftover milk from a pink flavored kid’s cereal. The swirling water only adds to the effect. A.T. vomited into the sink, without a peep. I go grab even more towels, and he remains slumped over the sink, afraid to show anyone. I looked in later, and the water level was rising. In another five minutes, he might have drowned if he hadn’t moved. Apparently, A.T.’s pizza wasn’t chewed into a manageable size, so it came back out much as it went in. Admittedly, for this pizza, it might have been an improvement, but I didn’t want to test the waters.

We all took turns visiting, and as time passed, we knew we had to get going before an employee went in there. V.P. goes to get the bill, and as we’re all settling up, I reach into my pocket, and pull out none other than the keys to the storage bays at work that I forgot to return. So much for my plan of sleeping in tomorrow.

I revisit the bathroom again, and J.L. is keeping A.T. company. As soon as I walk in, I know, just know, know as much as I know my own name which I am not telling you, that A.T. has thrown up. Again. Sure enough, the wall paper towel dispenser/waste disposal is no longer virgin. A priest may have to come to sanctify it. J.L. missed it (he was pretty gone by that point), and was whispering like a three year old, so I had even less chance of understanding what was going on. My best guess, A.T. stood up, walked over to get his own towels, then projectile vomited while standing upright, because the splash pattern started at about his head level. Given that some of it had actually stretched past the extended trash basket and pooled around the floor, it had some force behind it, and must have been an explosion worthy of a building implosion. Through, little white strands, like maggots, lay unwrithing in the now orange-flavored sick.

We finally manage to roll out. Consider the urinal covered in sick with paper towels jamming it, the sink choked with uneaten pizza, the paper towel dispenser that dispenses evil, and you see why we will not be going back anytime soon.

The best part of the night was the return train, as we had to get A.T. home. G.B. and J.L. drove A.T.’s car, while I followed behind. When we got him to his house, I would take those two back to the parking garage, where they could mount their own mechanical steeds and ride home.

Well, the ride back from A.T.’s house was nothing short of amazing. J.L., now completely in his cups and incoherent, is freezing because I need the window down to keep me awake. Thank goodness I had all those Pepsis earlier, I had a feeling something like this might happen. I tell him to put on my jacket, which is about as successful as telling a dog to put on a sweater. He is rolling in the backseat with my jacket, stuffing his hands repeatedly into the pockets, sticking his head into the sleeves, and muttering the entire time. Then, he takes to slapping me and G.B. with the sleeves, because he can’t operate the damn coat. Finally, at one point, his left hand reaches forward and starts groping my leg. Forward and forward it goes, freaking me out, until he manages to reach the window button, and raise the window. I was surprised he was that coordinated while drunk and tired. Later, for no reason, he opened the back door while on the highway. Also, there was alternating talk from him of dying alone/with us dying with him, and killing as many people driving on the road as we could.

I finally dropped them off around one thirty ante meridian, made it back here around two ante meridian, and have been typing for the past ninety minutes or so. In five hours, I will have to stop at work to drop off two tiny keys, before returning here to try to get some sleep before class and work in the afternoon. I will be tired and cranky all day afternoon, and I’m sure the day will suffer, especially with the alcohol I drank. I hope there’s no hangover.

And you know what? It was worth it.

Story to Tell

Judge J.F.: “Give me an example of contributory negligence.”

K.T.” “Okay. Well, let’s say you’re driving a car, and you drive it into a building, and you sue the building owner. Since it was your negligence that caused your accident, you’d be barred from recovering.”

Judge J.F.: “A bit extreme, but I see your point.”

Most people give plausible hypotheticals. I relive Twisted Metal.

***

M.N. and I were talking about paper writing and research. He took the stance that much of the available research on many topics has been done, so it would be difficult to come up with something new. Instead, the key in writing a research paper is to tell a story, and throw in as many details as possible. From there, he came to the conclusion that few people could actually be good at writing papers, because people aren’t storytellers anymore.

I come in with my irrational “anyone can do anything” attitude and posit that if they’re properly trained and motivated, people can become storytellers. I don’t know if this is true, there are some really stupid people out there, at all levels of society. However, I’d like to believe that buried in our genetic heritage is the capability to tell a story, and tell it well.

It comes down to finding a topic you’re passionate about, and just letting that energy flow through your story. So, there is a possibility that people can’t tell stories, if they are dead inside, and have no passions to follow. Look at burned out crackheads. I wonder if there’s enough in them beyond the lust for that next hit off the crack pipe to string together any passion, much less a sentence, much less a story. Then again, you wonder if they’ve forsaken their base humanity to follow their animal instincts.

I’ve probably mentioned this point way too much by now, but it stands near or at the core of my basic beliefs about humanity. We are all giant bundles of potential, blessed and cursed with the capability to do anything and everything. Whether we actually succeed or not depends on the outer stresses and strains that lean on us, but there remains within us that possibility, that x-factor, that allows for wonder.

Big Money, No Whammies

K.R.: If it’s in my mind, I got it.

One of the most concise, profound arguments for legalizing music downloads.

***

G.B. works in the I.T. field, computers, networking, the like. We were talking on IM, and he told me how he got C.T. a job at A.O.I. as technical support. Then, G.B. told me that he could probably get me the same position, as I need a job within a year or so. I responded that I was looking into becoming a paralegal, as that would let me use my law degree without having to deal with all the stress of being a lawyer. G.B. suggested I look up the median salaries for paralegals on salary.com. The median salary is around forty thousand dollars a year, not bad at all. Then, we looked up C.E.O. median salaries, around six hundred seventy thousand dollars a year. Not bad, both he and I will look into obtaining such positions in the near future. Then: “Look at a lawyer’s salary, see how much you could make.” Hmm…. Eighty-five thousand dollars.

Oh God.

Eighty-five thousand dollars.

Wow.

I sat at the laptop for a few seconds, dumbfounded. Then, a strange feeling flooded my body. Intense greed, avarice beyond belief, absolute longing for every material possession I could get my hands on, gripped me. I had to get up and go get some Chick-fil-a.

Eighty-five thousand a year. Starting salary. Damned if that didn’t look nicer than a glass of water in the desert. I still can’t believe how greedy I got then, or how even now, I can feel it crushing my last vestiges of selflessness. I’ve never felt that selfish before in my life (I hope). I’ve never wanted that much money, just enough to get by. Forty thousand as a paralegal wouldn’t be easy, what with the built in law school loan, but I also wouldn’t be suffering. But, that eighty-five thousand. Damn. Can’t even really find the right words to describe how tempting it is.

I can count on my fingers the few times during this law school experience that I’ve wanted to become a lawyer. One, Constitutional Law II: Individual Rights. Professor M.M. worked in public advocacy in his younger days. He went to prisons, to slums, to places where the disadvantaged and disenfranchised had no voice, and he spoke for them. He lifted them up. Professor M.M. geared the class towards a public advocacy slant. On the last day of class, he told us what he had done, and how he hoped that we could see that what we did extended beyond the classroom, beyond the courtroom, how real people were being affected, how we could help others, how we could make that proverbial difference. For a few moments, I got caught up in his soft-spoken words, and I would have followed him into the slums and jails of the world to help these people. I probably would have followed him into Hell to represent the damned, such a chord he strummed on my heart strings. Hell, even now, there’s a chance I might do some public advocacy stuff, a desire I’ve suppressed for a long time, for fear that I’d become a lawyer. Damn you Professor M.M., damn you for making me care.

Two, Tobacco Control: Legal Theory and Practice. Calling Big Tobacco evil is calling a monsoon a spring shower. They peddle sickness and death to the masses, then hook them younger and younger to replace the dying legions all hacking in tune to their evil leader. Those coughs and wheezes signify nothing less than the almighty dollar to Big Tobacco. Despite the Master Settlement Agreement, they continue on their path. As I stumble through this class, as I realize that it is the most work I will ever do for what is essentially three credits, I wonder whether or not Big Tobacco will ever fold. Yes, once they hook kids young enough, they will die before reproducing, and one of the most effective human-made viruses will kill itself off, having massacred its food source. Until then, they juggernaut onwards. During our weekly meetings, I watch Professor K.D., and how much she cares about this, partly for her young son and his health. There are a lot of people that are passionate about this, ready to help, ready to throw their hearts and souls into this cause. I want a cause, I want to help. I want to drink the Kool-Aid.

Three, my parents. My dad is old enough to retire, but can’t because his medicine is expensive. My mom shouldn’t work so much, but she needs to make ends meet. It doesn’t matter what I do, I’ll help them any way I can, but being a lawyer would make it much easier to help them.

Four, salary.com. I explained that above.

There’s nothing wrong with working a forty hour work week and taking home forty thousand a year. Respectable, pedestrian, safe and secure. There’s everything wrong with working an eighty-five hour work week and taking home eighty-five thousand a year. Stress, burnout, frustration, mindblowing.

So why am I starting to run out of fingers on my left hand to count reasons on?

Get in Line

A.L.: Alright, so I’ll email you or call you on October 25^th about the results of the meeting.

K.T.: Cool. I should have dropped out of law school by then, so I’ll be free.

A.L.: What? No. Are you serious?

K.T.: No. Sorry.

A.L.: Okay, you’ve said it so much over the past few years, I almost thought it was true.

You’d think I’d learn by now that belaboring a joke leeches the humor till it hangs lifeless from your damned repetitive tongue.

***

Grocery shopping, ten items or less aisle, people up front had flatbed full of shit. Why do we all agree to follow the rules, when we ourselves can benefit if we do not? Modified version of the prisoner’s dilemma. Compare grocery stores and malls to prisons somehow.

Warehouse clubs are the greatest invention ever. Who doesn’t want to buy thirty-six rolls of toilet paper at a time, or eighteen giant rolls of paper towels? Seventy-two fluid ounces of bath soap something you need? Visit a warehouse club. Ten pounds of oranges to repel that pesky scurvy outbreak on your fourteenth century sailing vessel? They got you covered. Need remaindered books at low low prices? Hit them up. I bought four pounds of butter more than a year ago, and there’s still at least two pounds left. Clearly the height of western society and capitalism, without those annoying plastic bags to carry your stuff in. Note that you’d never be able to fit most of these giant items into plastic bags anyways.

I went for supplies a few days ago, obtaining 192 fluid ounces of orange juice, among other things. The great thing about Sam’s Club is that the cigarette sales area (all cartons at low low prices) also doubles as the express lane. Somewhat oxymoronic, since the very nature of beast almost requires you to spend at least two hundred dollars per visit every three weeks, but really, didn’t you need ten pounds of precooked shrimp? Now, the express line only works if you really do have ten items or less. I have no problem if you’re one or two things over. After all, its one of the few places that have new video games cheaper than the requisite $50/$60 price break points.

But, this dark Saturday, this dark dark Saturday, a nice couple with their toddler were making a purchase in the express lane. Lo and behold, they did not have ten items, they did not have eleven items, they certainly did not have twelve items. No, their flatbed shopping cart was stacked higher than the toddler herself. This cart had the same footprint as a forty-inch television, and was stacked full of boxy items, twenty-four packs of soda, sponges, various boxes I could not identify. They exceeded the tolerance of the express lane. If Sam’s Club were the Enterprise, Scotty would be calling out to the bridge that the warp core would be about to breach.

They broke the unspoken rule. Let me repeat that. They Broke The Unspoken Rule.

Based on past experience, I am prone to irrational and unpredictable bouts of anger and hatred (see trip to Vegas when I woke up mid-flight and started semi-berating the flight attendant). Thus, it shouldn’t come as a surprise when I shot those two (not the child, no, never the child) fiery-hot gazes, gazes which would wither redwoods, which would subdue stallions, which would convey my anger at their breaking the rule. Perhaps a rule they didn’t know, sure, but even more insidious, a rule they knew and chose to violate.

Willing violation. Oh dear heaven above, what sort of monsters are we dealing with here? Someone bring me my holy water, we’re going vampire hunting.

What does it matter? Let’s say it was a willful violation. What was lost? My time, and the time of everyone else behind them in the queue. If they’d paid me five dollars, fine. According to Cecil Adams, writer of The Straight Dope, picking up a penny, a five second act, balances out to making upwards of $7 an hour when you calculate it out. So, for an extra ten minutes, that five dollars would more than reimburse me. So pay me next time.

Moreover, it angers me that they just didn’t give a damn about others. As Prof. D.G. taught us, the law is blind to moral obligations. I can’t sue them for being inconsiderate (and the fact that that crossed my mind means I’ve been in school too long). I can get mad at them. Like the age-old Prisoner’s Dilemma, you work together, both of you go free. Or, you can be greedy, and get yourself out, screw the other guy over. I know that there’s no need to help others, and if you want to maximize your own enjoyment, f the other person unless it can help you directly.

Still, that’s a horrible way to go through life, at least in the aggregate. Sure, your life is great, but what about the lives of everyone around you? Look at Bill Gates. Yes, he is head of Microsoft, wealthy beyond avarice’s deepest dreams, and considered by many the head of an evil empire. What never gets any burn in the media is his philanthropic work, especially the funds he sinks into his charity foundation. Does he have to do that? No, he can continue to wipe away his feces using hundred dollar bills, then flush them down the toilet. But he’s giving back in his own way, helping others, rather than keeping all his money to himself.

Not all of us can drop billions into our own charities. Hell, most of us don’t want to spend money on charity. Fine, no one says you have to (see earlier reference to impassive Lady Justice). But at least be a little kinder to others. Think about others before you do whatever it is you are going to do. It doesn’t have to be profound, it doesn’t have to be earth shattering.

Just stay out of the express lane if you have twenty-nine items.

Hope, Sweet Hope

A.G. “Hi, This is Charlie from WKYS. If you can complete the sentence with the word I’m thinking of, we’ll give you two tickets to a concert of your choice. Are you ready?”

Random woman: “Okay.”

A.G. “My *blank* is big and hairy.”

Random woman: “Okay, your penis is big and hairy?”

A.G. “I’m sorry, I was thinking of ‘dog.’ My dog is big and hairy.”

Nextel two way plus random numbers equals mass hilarity.

***

Is it all in your mind? Unofficial studies point to yes. At work the other day, I was expecting to leave at five o’clock. Really, I should have seen the signs, since the work backlog had finally cleared up, and we were ready to start production and shipping again. Four forty P.M., twenty minutes till we left, I thought it was going to be a piece of cake, until we had to prep for shipping. Another two hours, the longest two hours of my adult life. Longer than any class. As we continued completing crating, the only pseudo-thought drifting through my mind was some primal “urgh,” some need to not be there. It was more excruciating than class.

Was it really that bad? No, we’ve crated before, and its never lasted that long. The problem was in expecting to leave, then being denied that. If you want to torture someone, promise them food in an hour, then slowly drag out how much longer each day you give them the food, and always make sure its never within an hour. This would drive me crazy. Also, not giving the food you promise, even if its still good food, would be horrendous. For example, Salisbury steak instead of porterhouse steak, or buttered mashed potatoes as opposed to mashed potatoes and gravy. Besides showing I am hungry right now, this also shows the power of expectation in your mind, the power of hope in your heart.

Damned if it isn’t the case that hope, harnessed or unbridled, under the right circumstances, can make you unstoppable. Who hasn’t hoped? Who hasn’t dreamt for something so deep that they do everything in their power to make it happen? Who hasn’t grasped onto a glimmer of hope, and kept on going, even in the face of undeniable futility, just for that hope? Hope, the pure oxygen which ignites human souls. Hope, when someone is dying, that they hold on for another day, or maybe even get better. Hope, which keeps us working when we should have left an hour ago. Hope, which keeps us going even when the inevitable approaches, and we dare not face it head on. Hope, hope, hope.

***

Despite requests, I will not update daily, because not enough happens in my life to give me material, and I'm not imaginative enough to come up with something new every day. Its a miracle I'm shooting for (and hitting) a twice-a-week schedule.

We're Playing Now

"How much do you think punitive damages were in this case [against the tobacco companies]? Come on, someone take a guess."

"One hundred....billion dollars." I hold my pinky to my mouth.

"Good guess. I like the style there." Professor K.D. holds her pinky to her mouth. "Try one and a half times that. One hundred and forty-five billion."

Damn.

***

Major League Baseball's playoffs started today. The New York Yankees and the Anaheim Angels met in California today for game one. Now, what I know about baseball, you could fit into a fairly short paragraph. Abner Doubleday created the game during the American Civil War. Throughout the years, various changes have been made not only to the ball's composition, but also to the height and distance of the pitcher's mound, in order to increase or decrease offense, depending on the era. Steroids have become a problem, though many assert that amphetamine usage during the sixties was just as big a problem. There are nine innings. There is no salary cap.

Normally, I wouldn't care one whit about the game, but my roommate S.P. is a Yankees fanatic. As I understand, the current trend is to abbreviate it to "fan." Such is his love for the team that he refers to them in the royal "we" on a regular basis. As I type this, the Yankees hold a 4-0 lead, and S.P. is dying that the lead isn't 40-0. In the second inning. His team, his feelings.

Despite commentators and analysts referring to the fans as the sixth, tenth or twelfth man in basketball, baseball and football, I have never understood this close association with a team. You are a fan, no one questions your loyalty. That is all you are, a fan. You don't actually play on the team (unless you actually are on the active roster, in which case I say congratulations, and can I have some money?). While it would be nice to be part of the team, that is but a dream. I question whether you've earned the right to refer to the team in the royal "we."

The difference cuts closer for college sports, especially when rooting for your school's teams. Despite the commercialization of college sports, and the recruiting practices which cut too close to business practices, these players are supposed to be undergraduates just like you, all at the same institution. There, you have much closer ties to the team, and I can understand identifying yourself with your crazy mascot.

If you went to college, and you don't root for your school's teams, close the browser tab/window now and never revisit this blog.

Then, there are fantasy sports, where you compile teams from individual players, diluting the ideal of teamwork in favor of (generally) offensive production. Now, I can really understand identifying with your team. You drafted the rights to use X player's statistics during the year, you've compiled a team full of players, its your team, they're your players. Some people take this identification to admirable highs; D.C. and M.C. have fantasy team shirts that they wear with pride.

Why the need to identify oneself with a team? Is our society so amped and diffuse that we need to latch onto something to believe in? Has the nuclear family structure broken down traditional family values so much that rather than strong father figures, we look towards completion percentages and on-base percentages? Is it just fantasy, taken to an extreme? Where does it go too far? If you skip an important event to watch your team play, have you lost grasp with reality, or is it just a natural obligation, such as attending the birth of your child (Note that I'm stereotyping sports fans as predominantly male here, since women have little choice but to be present for the birth of their child. This does not take into account surrogate mothers, but if you find a surrogate, chances are you have your priorities straight and will not leave the poor woman alone to usher your scion into this world alone.)?

Why should I care if someone affiliates themselves with a team? I affiliate myself with a geographic location, if not a country. Then again, I'm an American, I take advantage of America's benefits, and will hopefully contribute back to America at some point. Funnel my tax moneys back into the nation, which in turn will be returned to me directly or indirectly. Just as fans funnel their money into their team, purchasing memorabilia and tickets and insane networking packages which allow them to follow their team on television. So, can you buy the right to affiliate yourself with a team? Or does that have to be earned? In our capitalist society, how much is it worth to you to say you're a New York Yankee?

Poo

Late night poker leaves me disoriented the next day. Its like I went to see a stripper, in that I got f***** for money. In addition, I can never sleep late, which is annoying when I wake up on the same schedule that I do during the week, 7 AM. Of course, I had to set my alarm for 7:30, an emergency precaution since I always wake up at 7 AM. I hadn’t heard my alarm sound for three months before this morning, when that incessant ripping beep made me stumble out of bed and hit every button on the alarm clock, dimming it, turning on the radio, resetting the alarm time, knocking my desk into increased disarray, until it shut off. Damned box.

When I left the apartment, I wasn’t in the clearest state of mind. Sure I knew that it was time to go to the doctor, but beyond that, it was mostly autopilot and reflex that got me going to the car, putting the keys in the ignition, driving away.

As I got going on I-95, the unmistakable foul stench of feces assaulted my nose. As I drove, it got stronger, much as some horses get faster during the latter stages of a race. Was it me? I started sniffing my armpits, but to no avail. The smell was everywhere. Had someone taken my car keys and used my backseat as a toilet? I looked in the backseat, but couldn’t see anything.

Had I soiled myself?

I thought that it was pretty impossible, but stranger things had happened. I hadn’t felt anything release, and yet, the stench of waste lingered like a bad memory. I started squirming in my seat, waiting to see if it squished back, to confirm my fears. For about thirty seconds, I rocked to and fro in my car, waiting for a slushy slide. Then, I looked up. Damned if up ahead, there wasn’t a tractor trailer with an open trailer, tarp-covered. I was so happy I hadn’t messed myself I almost messed myself.

I pushed the S.S. (my car) past the tractor trailer, rather pleased with my intuition and deduction. Of course, the smell gets even worse, as if I was sitting in a bathroom on bad shrimp night. Up ahead, a second tractor trailer, with an open trailer, tarp-covered. Damn. Push the S.S., get ahead of that, and the smell gets even worse.

I had to have soiled myself.

At last, up ahead there was a dump truck with a tarp on it. The landscaping company advertised mulch delivered right to your door. They also advertised by offering free aerated samples to anyone within a half mile radius. I got upwind of the bastard, and the smell receded.

If only there were some greater lesson to take from this incident, or some interesting thought to mull over. Maybe, be sure you’re awake before you go forth from your house, so you can be aware of what’s going on. Instead, I give you feces. I apologize.

Clarification

Hello. Some of you have expressed concern at my heavyhanded censoring of Writ. Please note that any comments I delete are nothing more than spam. Thus far no one has made any comment that would make me even consider editing for content, and I see no reason to do so. If however you start making a fool of yourself, I will commence with the giant trash can deletey thingy.

As for actual content, I reserve the right to edit/censor all posts to exclude any information I deem fit. Examples of such include points needlessly embarrassing to others or myself, information that would cause legal problems down the road, etc. etc. etc. Words words words.

I'm quite amazed at how many people read this. We may be up to the double digits, a thousand percent increase from the original estimated audience (one J.L.). Note that since I must go to the doctor in six hours, I will endeavour not to post now, and to make a more substantive post sometime during this weekend.