12:28 AM. OK, I reason, I can get 8 solid hours, wake up at 8:30 refreshed and ready to go; I can eat breakfast, run errands, go to the gym, make lunch, and still have leftover time for productivity. Groggy and highly anticipating my overdue lapse into the realm of the subconscious, I climb stiffly into bed, annoyed at the disproportionate area of the mattress my spouse has claimed. Her cacophonous, throaty sleep noises are no picnic either. While trying to get comfortable I “accidentally” jostle her; a temporary solution. I remember to set the alarm. And then, as is often the case, I don’t drift off to sleep but something closer to being slammed into it, abruptly and violently. In minutes, three hours dissipate.
3:33 AM. My reproductive efforts arrives in the bedroom equipped with her binky, reserve binky, Lamby, pillow pet, and water sippy cup. Uninvited, she clambers on to the bed, arranges her belongings, and makes herself comfortable – as if that was exactly what was supposed to happen. This is a damn outrage. My condensed sleeping area is now reduced to the size of a Kit Kat. And not the full thing, but a single bar. Mmm, Kit Kat… It occurs to me that I’m very hungry.
3:35 AM. Standing in front of the refrigerator in a zombie-like half-state of consciousness, I inhale a cheese stick in two bites, cram something else in my mouth (it was in a bag, further details are murky), and then chug down some Ocean Spray cran-something or other juice from the bottle. God I was thirsty. I then squeeze back into my estrogen steeped bed. Move the fuck over, Lamby.
6:30 AM. Roused slightly as wife and child leave for the day. Suddenly the queen-sized opens up fully, proffering a royal, luxurious expanse of space on which to feast. Fantastic! I stretch out, reposition the comforter, and greedily attack some more wonderful sleep; I gobble that sleep up.
8:32 AM. Alarm goes off. Oh damn it. Mired in a potent, inescapable vortex of slumber – and having good dreams to boot – the thought of waking up seems like the absolute worst thing in the history of the universe. What do you want for more sleep? Money? My wife? My soul? It’s yours! I thump the snooze button with perhaps more urgency than the situation calls for. Just a couple more minutes.
8:41 AM. Alarm goes off. I should get up. REM stage 3 vociferously commands another whack of the snooze. Who am I to disobey REM stage 3?
8:50 AM. I think to myself that I really ought to get up. I’ve had enough sleep, and there’s still time to salvage a productive morning. Just get out there, old fella. Throw off the blanket and seize the day! But that’s not what I do. What I do is, I wrench an eye halfway open and reset my alarm to 9:55. Work pants can stay un-hemmed for another day. How often do you get to splurge on some delicious, deeply nourishing sleep? I can still get to the gym. Justifying… Sacrificing the greater good for immediate pleasure… sleep is like being drunk.
9:55 AM. Alarm goes off. It must be getting pretty annoyed with me at this point. What the hell’s gotten into him? It’s probably thinking. What an asshole, this guy. I need to get up. Sublime, narcotic grip of sleep is unyielding. Ok, so I’ll skip cardio. Another half hour of sleep. But that’s it. No more.
11:15 AM. Surface from sleep, glance at the time. Wow, I just vaulted over most of the morning… almost 11 hours…. what a sleep! Feelings of restfulness and tranquility permeate my being. That was a whale of a sleep. Ready to get up and take on the world; I feel unbelievable. I can do anything! And if I hurry, there’s still time for an abbreviated workout. Before clambering out from the pleasant amniotic warmth of the comforter, however, I pause for a beat, eyes closed, relishing the moment and...
…it’s now 12:49 PM. Oh my god, it’s too late! I’ve slept well over 12 hours, more than half of an entire day. I’ve gorged on sleep.
Wasted morning or time well spent? I'm voting for the latter. To each his own.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Pumping Irony
Growing up, my father owned a small weight set that he kept in the basement of our twin family home outside of Philly. Every so often he would head downstairs and, after quickly crushing the teams of big black bugs that ran frantically for cover at the flush of light, would go to work with his weights.
I watched him with a vague sense of confusion. It was explained to me that weightlifting affected muscle growth, which made sense, but what did a medical student need with bigger muscles? This was valuable time he was squandering, stupidly lifting those weights up and down, up and down; grimacing and sweating, breathing violently. What was wrong with him? His face would redden and contort ghoulishly – not unlike the frequent occasions when his children managed to cheese him off with our own brand of idiocy – and I’d wonder, if he was so intent on laboring, why he didn’t just rake leaves or clean the garage (like it was suggested when our parents mistook our detective agency for idle time). At least then a goal you could put a figure on would be accomplished. But this, this was pointless. Had he been training to compete in a sport or for some cinderblock hauling job you could understand, but what was he doing at the hospital all day, lugging around corpses? There was only so much strength you needed to squash big black bugs, although since my habit was the shriek in terror at the sight of them and hysterically flee the scene, I suppose I can really only offer that belief in theory.
Years later, of course, I would find myself not only physically exerting myself just as he had, logging otherwise precious time straining and sweating and repeatedly raising and lowering metal plates for no real quantifiable reason outside of vanity, but paying money for the privilege. Being a type of person generally averse to manual labor, investing a solid portion of my meager coffers into a gym membership that enabled me to bust my hump on a regular basic was a textbook study in irony.
Then came a cruel, unfortunate pairing: my late twenties and nouveau fatherhood. The former dialed my metabolism all the way back from Supercharged: wash 5-topping pizzas down with buckets of beer and lose weight to Why are you eating that cupcake you know it will go straight to your gut you fat ass… and the latter ensured any scant free time I chanced upon was spent on phone ordering take-out, as my wife and I were too perpetually exhausted to even consider the logistics of putting together a healthy meal. When you have a new baby, you tend not to sit down to meals so much as you stand in front of the refrigerator and swallow whole the first thing your shaky hand reaches, savaging leftovers like a zebra carcass on the African plains. In no time I went from being in great shape to being in shape to being a shape. Like a six foot, two inch pear.
After knocking one too many objects over with my distended ass, I realized I had to do something about the situation before my daily routine was continually punctuated by demands for the Truffle Shuffle, and I lumbered back to the gym.
* * *
Maybe it was because of the hiatus, and I was seeing things with new eyes. Maybe it was because I was older and crankier. Whatever the case, my return to the gym brought to my attention an assortment of maddening fitness center idiosyncrasies. Some I had always been annoyed by, while others I’d never noticed – probably because I was guilty of them myself; still others, formerly parked on the periphery of my radar, became glaring. There they were, a catalogue of etiquette abominations irritating me at each workout. So, as I ever so slowly worked my way from the ranks of the obese, I began to catalogue these gym peccadilloes. The following represents an open list (contributed to by Tom):
1. How, during the first couple weeks of working out, the excruciating agony that tears through each muscle fiber in your body with even the smallest movement is such that you want to either break down and sob or obtain a morphine drip. Or both.
2. When people don’t allow a buffer elliptical machine when affording one is possible. There’s a string of 50 empty Precors, and they select the one right next to you.
3. Excessive nakedness in the locker room. Being disrobed as a consequence of heading to or from the shower is one thing, but let’s not overdo it. Is it necessary to freely parade around in all your splendor, genitalia flapping this way and that, with no endgame in sight? The old man who rigorously toweled off his nether region one day in the manner most people floss their teeth – six inches from my face – was unpleasant, to say the least.
4. People who spend two hours in the gym yet accomplish no apparent work aside from the occasional lackluster set of curls or five-minute treadmill stroll, and instead busy themselves walking around aimlessly, looking at themselves in the mirror and striking up unwanted conversations.
5. Overhearing a personal trainer tell a client, “A common mistake people make is to perform the exercise this way…” and reflecting on the fact that I am currently executing the common mistake.
6. Using gym mirrors to spy on people, and making eye contact with someone who is spying on me.
7. When someone asks for a spot, forcing me into a choice between awkward silence and insincere, uninspired encouragement while the person strains mightily . “You can do it” – sigh – “C’mon.”
8. When I use a weight machine after a smaller guy who I naturally assumed I could dominate, but then having to reduce the weight he was using.
9. The fact that I sweat like a typhoon; and the potent, cloying aroma of my unwashed gym clothes two hours after a workout. (And the theatrical face Carolina makes when getting a whiff of me or my clothes.)
10. When I’m leaving the gym and wave goodbye to the person at the desk, but the person isn’t paying attention and only notices as I’m awkwardly retracting the wave.
11. People who do supersets, using two or even three machines simultaneously, causing me to feel reluctant to jump in on one of the machines they’ve monopolized – even though they might not be present at the time. Really have the bicep area cornered, don’t you? Should the rest of us just clear the gym so you can have free reign over everything?
12. Meatheads who growl, groan, and grunt when lifting. Quiet down, meatheads. This is neither a zoo nor a brothel. Are you in child labor?
13. Meatheads who casually leave weight stacked on the equipment after use. Who do you think is going to replace that, you stupid meatheads?
14. Meatheads in general.
15. People who use more weight than they should, demonstrating terrible form as they struggle through a whopping two reps, then look around to see who was looking. Great job.
16. Dying of thirst and waiting for the meathead to fill up his gallon jug at the water fountain.
17. Because of ill-placed equipment, you’re forced to look directly at someone else while lifting, thus causing your set to be extremely less productive and extremely more awkward and uncomfortable.
18. The one girl who works out in the barbell area glowering at you when you steal a peek at her, and then catching her menacing glare again when you turn and see her in the mirror.
19. Feeling a measure of pride and satisfaction at your noticeably improving physique, then seeing some tanned, strapping Adonis with zero percent body fat strut by, and knowing you will need a strict diet, a tanning bed, 6 workouts a week, liposuction, and the actual fountain of youth to look that good.
20. The guy who needs to change straps/hooks/levers/etc to do some bizarre pro-level, twisting action weight pull that works his quadratus plantae muscle. (Hated on general principle but also frustrating as you have no idea how to put it back to normal, thus the machine is rendered useless.)
21. When you’re on the elliptical and the nitwit who had just finished beside you is wildly spraying disinfectant directly into your breathing zone.
22. The guy who finishes his 20 minute cardio cycle and stands there panting ferociously like he’s just completed a triathlon, taking an occasional violent slurp of water. Settle down, Balboa.
Perhaps I could go on. I suppose I could fatten the list by a few pet peeves. But isn’t that how it starts? A little more here, an unnecessary extra there, and the next thing you know…
I watched him with a vague sense of confusion. It was explained to me that weightlifting affected muscle growth, which made sense, but what did a medical student need with bigger muscles? This was valuable time he was squandering, stupidly lifting those weights up and down, up and down; grimacing and sweating, breathing violently. What was wrong with him? His face would redden and contort ghoulishly – not unlike the frequent occasions when his children managed to cheese him off with our own brand of idiocy – and I’d wonder, if he was so intent on laboring, why he didn’t just rake leaves or clean the garage (like it was suggested when our parents mistook our detective agency for idle time). At least then a goal you could put a figure on would be accomplished. But this, this was pointless. Had he been training to compete in a sport or for some cinderblock hauling job you could understand, but what was he doing at the hospital all day, lugging around corpses? There was only so much strength you needed to squash big black bugs, although since my habit was the shriek in terror at the sight of them and hysterically flee the scene, I suppose I can really only offer that belief in theory.
Years later, of course, I would find myself not only physically exerting myself just as he had, logging otherwise precious time straining and sweating and repeatedly raising and lowering metal plates for no real quantifiable reason outside of vanity, but paying money for the privilege. Being a type of person generally averse to manual labor, investing a solid portion of my meager coffers into a gym membership that enabled me to bust my hump on a regular basic was a textbook study in irony.
Then came a cruel, unfortunate pairing: my late twenties and nouveau fatherhood. The former dialed my metabolism all the way back from Supercharged: wash 5-topping pizzas down with buckets of beer and lose weight to Why are you eating that cupcake you know it will go straight to your gut you fat ass… and the latter ensured any scant free time I chanced upon was spent on phone ordering take-out, as my wife and I were too perpetually exhausted to even consider the logistics of putting together a healthy meal. When you have a new baby, you tend not to sit down to meals so much as you stand in front of the refrigerator and swallow whole the first thing your shaky hand reaches, savaging leftovers like a zebra carcass on the African plains. In no time I went from being in great shape to being in shape to being a shape. Like a six foot, two inch pear.
After knocking one too many objects over with my distended ass, I realized I had to do something about the situation before my daily routine was continually punctuated by demands for the Truffle Shuffle, and I lumbered back to the gym.
* * *
Maybe it was because of the hiatus, and I was seeing things with new eyes. Maybe it was because I was older and crankier. Whatever the case, my return to the gym brought to my attention an assortment of maddening fitness center idiosyncrasies. Some I had always been annoyed by, while others I’d never noticed – probably because I was guilty of them myself; still others, formerly parked on the periphery of my radar, became glaring. There they were, a catalogue of etiquette abominations irritating me at each workout. So, as I ever so slowly worked my way from the ranks of the obese, I began to catalogue these gym peccadilloes. The following represents an open list (contributed to by Tom):
1. How, during the first couple weeks of working out, the excruciating agony that tears through each muscle fiber in your body with even the smallest movement is such that you want to either break down and sob or obtain a morphine drip. Or both.
2. When people don’t allow a buffer elliptical machine when affording one is possible. There’s a string of 50 empty Precors, and they select the one right next to you.
3. Excessive nakedness in the locker room. Being disrobed as a consequence of heading to or from the shower is one thing, but let’s not overdo it. Is it necessary to freely parade around in all your splendor, genitalia flapping this way and that, with no endgame in sight? The old man who rigorously toweled off his nether region one day in the manner most people floss their teeth – six inches from my face – was unpleasant, to say the least.
4. People who spend two hours in the gym yet accomplish no apparent work aside from the occasional lackluster set of curls or five-minute treadmill stroll, and instead busy themselves walking around aimlessly, looking at themselves in the mirror and striking up unwanted conversations.
5. Overhearing a personal trainer tell a client, “A common mistake people make is to perform the exercise this way…” and reflecting on the fact that I am currently executing the common mistake.
6. Using gym mirrors to spy on people, and making eye contact with someone who is spying on me.
7. When someone asks for a spot, forcing me into a choice between awkward silence and insincere, uninspired encouragement while the person strains mightily . “You can do it” – sigh – “C’mon.”
8. When I use a weight machine after a smaller guy who I naturally assumed I could dominate, but then having to reduce the weight he was using.
9. The fact that I sweat like a typhoon; and the potent, cloying aroma of my unwashed gym clothes two hours after a workout. (And the theatrical face Carolina makes when getting a whiff of me or my clothes.)
10. When I’m leaving the gym and wave goodbye to the person at the desk, but the person isn’t paying attention and only notices as I’m awkwardly retracting the wave.
11. People who do supersets, using two or even three machines simultaneously, causing me to feel reluctant to jump in on one of the machines they’ve monopolized – even though they might not be present at the time. Really have the bicep area cornered, don’t you? Should the rest of us just clear the gym so you can have free reign over everything?
12. Meatheads who growl, groan, and grunt when lifting. Quiet down, meatheads. This is neither a zoo nor a brothel. Are you in child labor?
13. Meatheads who casually leave weight stacked on the equipment after use. Who do you think is going to replace that, you stupid meatheads?
14. Meatheads in general.
15. People who use more weight than they should, demonstrating terrible form as they struggle through a whopping two reps, then look around to see who was looking. Great job.
16. Dying of thirst and waiting for the meathead to fill up his gallon jug at the water fountain.
17. Because of ill-placed equipment, you’re forced to look directly at someone else while lifting, thus causing your set to be extremely less productive and extremely more awkward and uncomfortable.
18. The one girl who works out in the barbell area glowering at you when you steal a peek at her, and then catching her menacing glare again when you turn and see her in the mirror.
19. Feeling a measure of pride and satisfaction at your noticeably improving physique, then seeing some tanned, strapping Adonis with zero percent body fat strut by, and knowing you will need a strict diet, a tanning bed, 6 workouts a week, liposuction, and the actual fountain of youth to look that good.
20. The guy who needs to change straps/hooks/levers/etc to do some bizarre pro-level, twisting action weight pull that works his quadratus plantae muscle. (Hated on general principle but also frustrating as you have no idea how to put it back to normal, thus the machine is rendered useless.)
21. When you’re on the elliptical and the nitwit who had just finished beside you is wildly spraying disinfectant directly into your breathing zone.
22. The guy who finishes his 20 minute cardio cycle and stands there panting ferociously like he’s just completed a triathlon, taking an occasional violent slurp of water. Settle down, Balboa.
Perhaps I could go on. I suppose I could fatten the list by a few pet peeves. But isn’t that how it starts? A little more here, an unnecessary extra there, and the next thing you know…
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Apples, Wives, and Staring Etiquette
How do you like this apple
“I have an apple for you,” a coworker named Gary told me a few days ago. Gary, an eccentric Russian in his late fifties, is known for his oftentimes unconventional behavior. He’s one of those people who can be fathomlessly entertaining if you’re in the mood for him, but just as annoying if you’re not. He told me, “I picked it.”
“Huh… you say you picked it?” I asked, my spirits lifting. Nothing like a fresh-picked autumnal apple, is there?
“Oh yes! Yes, apple picking,” Gary said, kissing the tips of his fingers the way Italian chefs do when detailing a particularly succulent dish. “Crisp and delicioso.”
“Cool. I actually could go for one.”
“You want it now?” he asked, around a mouthful of his own apple.
“Sure. What kind of apple?”
“From a tree,” Gary said, as if that explained everything.
“You don’t say? I think they usually-”
“In Massachusetts!”
“Massachusetts? You mean like Western Mass?” I asked, puzzled. I’m not sure why I pressed him on it; on the surface everything seemed legit. A picked apple: nothing more, nothing less. And yet I had the vaguely unsettling impression that something was awry. Maybe it stemmed from the brand of apple I was about to enjoy being the kind that came from a tree.
“Here in the city,” Gary cheerfully clarified, reaching into his backpack and producing my apple – a fairly undersized specimen. He added, “Near the bus stop.”
I frowned. “The… bus stop?”
“Yes, yes, where the crazy people live. Try it.”
“Crazy people?”
“Try your delicious apple.”
Examining my delicious apple, I noticed what closely resembled bite marks imprinted upon its skin… most likely left by the mouth of a nutcase: either from the insane asylum or the one standing before me.
Gary looked at me hopefully. “Aren’t you going to eat it?”
“I think I’ll save it for later.”
Do You Remember the Time…
“Guess what’s four weeks from today?” I said to Carolina the other day.
“I don’t know. Thanksgiving?”
“No,” I said with a frustrated sigh, making her count the weeks on our kitchen calendar. “Look!”
She ticked off the weeks while I stood there, brimming with excitement. Eventually she arrived at the day I was indicating. “November ninth,” she said, unimpressed. “Okay… What’s November ninth?”
I looked at her.
I am so not getting Carolina a wedding anniversary present this year.
(Sorry Wife, but you had to know this was going public.)
The Staring Contest
Today someone was staring at me on the subway. A skinny, middle-aged bald guy. It really irritated me. Outwardly, he looked respectable – well-dressed and groomed – not the kind of person you would associate with abnormal social behavior. What was his problem? I hate when people on the T stare.
At first I pretended not to notice, but eventually couldn’t take it anymore and looked back at him. When we made eye contact, rather than glance away, his line of vision continued to bore into mine. It did not waver. I offered an expression of vaguely confused annoyance and averted my gaze. After a minute I glanced back, and this screwball was still staring at me.
What are you doing you unimaginable jackass? Determined to win this brazen challenge, I stared back in what I hoped was a severe, threatening manner. Like maybe I was crazy, or a hoodlum. Not somebody to be messed with. I couldn’t be the one to look away. He was breeching etiquette! Breeching is too soft a word; it was a categorical abomination of etiquette.
Unfortunately, after a while my eyes started to water as our awkward staring contest continued unfettered, and I had to avert them. I felt deeply embarrassed and violated. I stared at my feet for a long while, burning with shame.
When he eventually got up, I noticed he employed one of those walking sticks for blind people.
“I have an apple for you,” a coworker named Gary told me a few days ago. Gary, an eccentric Russian in his late fifties, is known for his oftentimes unconventional behavior. He’s one of those people who can be fathomlessly entertaining if you’re in the mood for him, but just as annoying if you’re not. He told me, “I picked it.”
“Huh… you say you picked it?” I asked, my spirits lifting. Nothing like a fresh-picked autumnal apple, is there?
“Oh yes! Yes, apple picking,” Gary said, kissing the tips of his fingers the way Italian chefs do when detailing a particularly succulent dish. “Crisp and delicioso.”
“Cool. I actually could go for one.”
“You want it now?” he asked, around a mouthful of his own apple.
“Sure. What kind of apple?”
“From a tree,” Gary said, as if that explained everything.
“You don’t say? I think they usually-”
“In Massachusetts!”
“Massachusetts? You mean like Western Mass?” I asked, puzzled. I’m not sure why I pressed him on it; on the surface everything seemed legit. A picked apple: nothing more, nothing less. And yet I had the vaguely unsettling impression that something was awry. Maybe it stemmed from the brand of apple I was about to enjoy being the kind that came from a tree.
“Here in the city,” Gary cheerfully clarified, reaching into his backpack and producing my apple – a fairly undersized specimen. He added, “Near the bus stop.”
I frowned. “The… bus stop?”
“Yes, yes, where the crazy people live. Try it.”
“Crazy people?”
“Try your delicious apple.”
Examining my delicious apple, I noticed what closely resembled bite marks imprinted upon its skin… most likely left by the mouth of a nutcase: either from the insane asylum or the one standing before me.
Gary looked at me hopefully. “Aren’t you going to eat it?”
“I think I’ll save it for later.”
Do You Remember the Time…
“Guess what’s four weeks from today?” I said to Carolina the other day.
“I don’t know. Thanksgiving?”
“No,” I said with a frustrated sigh, making her count the weeks on our kitchen calendar. “Look!”
She ticked off the weeks while I stood there, brimming with excitement. Eventually she arrived at the day I was indicating. “November ninth,” she said, unimpressed. “Okay… What’s November ninth?”
I looked at her.
I am so not getting Carolina a wedding anniversary present this year.
(Sorry Wife, but you had to know this was going public.)
The Staring Contest
Today someone was staring at me on the subway. A skinny, middle-aged bald guy. It really irritated me. Outwardly, he looked respectable – well-dressed and groomed – not the kind of person you would associate with abnormal social behavior. What was his problem? I hate when people on the T stare.
At first I pretended not to notice, but eventually couldn’t take it anymore and looked back at him. When we made eye contact, rather than glance away, his line of vision continued to bore into mine. It did not waver. I offered an expression of vaguely confused annoyance and averted my gaze. After a minute I glanced back, and this screwball was still staring at me.
What are you doing you unimaginable jackass? Determined to win this brazen challenge, I stared back in what I hoped was a severe, threatening manner. Like maybe I was crazy, or a hoodlum. Not somebody to be messed with. I couldn’t be the one to look away. He was breeching etiquette! Breeching is too soft a word; it was a categorical abomination of etiquette.
Unfortunately, after a while my eyes started to water as our awkward staring contest continued unfettered, and I had to avert them. I felt deeply embarrassed and violated. I stared at my feet for a long while, burning with shame.
When he eventually got up, I noticed he employed one of those walking sticks for blind people.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Driving Me CrAzY
1
It’s curious, the way life unfolds. Take fear. Of my two great terrors in life, the first – going down in a plane crash – seemed a likely outcome one frostbitten January night when an airline jet in which I was a passenger began emitting fiery explosions from its rear as we made our descent into Logan International. Returning to Boston after a week in the Caribbean, my initial thought as fire trucks, ambulances, and other emergency crews swiftly advanced upon our airborne inferno was that at least I’d spent my last week of life in a state of daiquiri-fueled bliss on a tropical island. The comfort was minimal, given the circumstances, but that’s the thought to which I clung in what I’d assumed were my last moments on earth.
My second prevailing terror was sampled during a leisurely dip in the Gulf of Mexico one year with my best friend Tom, when, feet from my tasty flesh, a black fin emerged and sliced through the water with shocking speed. As a ghastly horror overtook my body, I hazily speculated on the odds that the great white would eat Tom first. Turned out the fin belonged to a porpoise, not Jaws, and so while neither of my fears technically came to fruition, that wasn’t the point. As far as I was concerned, they may as well have; what mattered was I’d had a taste of the very things I most dreaded.
During the summer of 2000 I had a job as the assistant account manager of a security staff at a downtown Boston communications college. The work was fairly undemanding, amounting mostly to giving bathroom breaks to the posted guards and filing paperwork. However, one particular aspect of it, as my boss explained on my first day, was that it would be my responsibility to cover a post in the event a shift ended and the incoming guard was late or, as was often the case, simply failed to show up. This wasn’t a big deal to me if I had to cover a desk post – a minor inconvenience, really – but it was with sickening dread that I learned about one other function our crew performed: to run an afterhours escort van. The van began operating after 10 P.M. as a service to students hoping to traverse the downtown campus without the risk of being mugged, raped, stabbed, having to walk past a homeless man, or otherwise imperiled in any way.
At this time in my life I could count the number of miles I’d driven on one hand, and thus the prospect of not only driving, but driving in the city positively terrified me. And if the crotch of my uniform pants wasn’t already damp at that thought, factor in the other peccadillo: driving an escort van that teemed with students. It was enough to send boundless, overwhelming waves of fear crashing upon the very core of my being.
I’d have preferred a rendezvous with a great white.
“You’ll never have to drive, though,” my boss reassured me, seeming to note the distinct look of abject terror that had frozen on my face. “There aren’t many calls during most weeknights, and Darnell – the regular driver – is very reliable. Always on time.”
How she came to this misapprehension, I later learned, was due the previous assistant account manager and Darnell being chums, and thus the former tending to cover for Darnell during the countless occasions when the latter omitted work from his schedule and instead opted to catch up on his sleep.
“Hey, is this Darnell?” I rasped into the phone in a panic-stricken voice. It had taken all of two nights for Darnell to fail to show up for his shift, and I was on deck to drive the shitmobile.
“Mmmm,” he murmured sleepily on the other end.
“Listen, are you on your way in?” I asked tersely. It was an obviously ridiculous question to be asking, seeing as I had called him on his home landline, but there are few ways to berate someone while simultaneously motivating him or her to help you out.
“Be in soon,” he drowsily grumbled. An excruciating hour passed, during which time there was no sign of Darnell. What was more, he stopped answering his phone.
Then the escort requests started coming in.
2
Just don’t answer them, I thought, panicked. Leave and don’t look back! What can they do?! This really crossed my mind as a plausible solution, to just abandon the whole situation; get the hell out of there and let someone else sort it out. Tomorrow I could come up with some sheepish “miscommunication” type excuse, and even if my boss didn’t buy it, what was the worst that could happen? I’d be fired? It wasn’t like I worked in the secret service. I was pretty sure I could land another mediocre security guard job. That was infinitely more desirable than the unthinkable task before me.
In the end, I’m not sure what impelled me into the van. The thought of my conscience being burdened by a would-be passenger who was instead raped and mutilated in the Boston Common, perhaps, or maybe it was simple laziness, not wanting to have to find a new job. Whatever the case, I grudgingly took the keys and climbed into the big, old, dirty van. I slid the key into the ignition and turned, and the vehicle rumbled to life. Shit, here we go, huh? I thought. Maybe it won’t be as bad as I think… Then I backed up and instantly plowed into a light post.
“Oh my God!” I shouted.
This was an absolute nightmare, and I hadn’t even started yet. I shakily got out to assess the extent of the damage. The good news was that the back of the van was pretty dinged up already, so some additional minor damage was likely to go unnoticed. The bad news was that the rear taillight was lying in pieces on the ground. It was that moment of sinking realization when you understand you’ve committed a bad faux pas for which there exists no way to brush it under the rug. How the hell am I going to explain this?
My walkie-talkie squawked to life in the van. It was the dispatcher, wanting to know why I hadn’t picked up the two kids from Brimmer Street yet. And she just received third call from Beacon Hill.
“I’m on my way,” I groaned, feeling overwhelmed and vaguely suicidal.
Take two. The van had a surprising amount of pickup, something I learned as I steered out onto Tremont Street and promptly shot across three lanes of light traffic, accidentally cutting off several cars in my attempt to get over to the right lane. Horns blared, and I felt deeply ashamed of myself.
To make matters worse – if that were possible – it was a muggy summer night, yet I had the van’s heat gusting at full blast. None of the controls seemed to be working. I didn’t understand it; the heat knob was pointed at off. If was OFF, damn it. What the heck was going on? Was there some trick meant to be obvious but that I was stupidly missing? Was it broken? Why was I so confused? Fumbling around with the dashboard climate knobs at a now heavily trafficked intersection was pretty much the last thing I needed to be doing. That is, of course, discounting the circumstance of being in this predicament in the first place.
Sweating profusely, I aimed the vents in the other direction so at least they weren’t blowing directly at me and tried to think how to get to Brimmer Street. Saying that Boston is a very complicated city to navigate gives a bad name both to the words complicated and very. It’s essentially a tangle of winding, one-way roads inhabited by predatory, usually drunk drivers, buses, and at this time of night, street cleaners. There are a few dead-ends thrown in for good measure, as well as some surprise streets where it seems like you’re on a normal backstreet until – surprise! – you get emptied onto a highway; this later scenario being exactly what happened to me.
Having circled the block before heading toward Beacon Hill on Charles Street, I took a left on Beacon Street. I knew I was approaching Brimmer, but with my stress levels and the dark, ended up missing it. “Damn it all,” I moaned with an audible sigh. “Can anything go right?”
Taking my next right, my hope was to circle back around, or at least to make a U-turn and backtrack, but to my unimaginable horror found that, not only could I not turn around, but the street I’d turned onto was a one-way ticket to Storrow Drive – the Boston expressway that runs along the Charles River.
A dismal turn of events this was. “Oh no,” I whispered balefully.
Scared, lost, bathed in sweat from my roasting furnace of an escort van, and suddenly stuck on a busy, unfamiliar parkway, I felt the crushing weight of having been assigned an insurmountable task that was nonetheless essential to complete. It just seemed so inconceivably futile.
I ended up taking an exit that deposited me in the neighborhood of Mass General Hospital, swore out loud, and continued pressing onward. My misguided hope was that I’d turn a corner and miraculously stumble upon Brimmer Street. Unfortunately, I ended up in Government Center, which, if you’re familiar with Boston, you know to be nowhere in the vicinity of Brimmer. This had somehow gone from bad to worse; the students were probably livid by now. Assuming they weren’t too preoccupied being held up at gunpoint and subsequently disemboweled.
I hadn’t cried in quite a few years, but after working my way to the waterfront and getting angrily honked at again, this time for going straight in what was evidently a left turn only lane, a good cry seemed like my only sensible course of action.
3
“Can you smoke in here?”
By a combination of basic city knowledge, determined driving, and dumb luck, I had eventually worked my way back to Charles Street and consequently – finally – found Brimmer. During the time it took me to get there, the number of prospective fares had swelled from two to four; temporarily dropped to zero; then ticked back up to two. My first accounted for charges were Clint and Bobby; respectively a pale, effeminate blond kid and a bearded, self-described pothead.
“No,” I said of Bobby’s query, hearing the snap of his lighter. “The van is school property.”
“The van is a piece of shit,” Bobby said, as though this fact somehow negated the no smoking rule. He took a long drag of his cigarette and exhaled so that a cloud of smoke drifted over the dashboard, ricocheted off the windshield, and eventually found its way into my face. “Dude, it’s like a fucking oven in here. Do you have the heat on? It’s the middle of summer!”
“Took you long enough,” Clint chimed in.
“Oh yeah… sorry, had some… technical difficulties,” I said with a stiff laugh. Now the stakes were raised: there were live spectators aboard my vehicle of annihilation. Though I couldn’t guarantee for how much longer live could be considered an accurate description.
“Yo man, you ever bang a chick who’s a lot older than you?” asked Bobby from the passenger seat. Clint sat sullenly in the back, evidently put out by the wait.
“What?” I asked, waving the smoke from my face while at the same time swerving to avoid a double-parked taxi. Clint yelped.
“An older broad,” Bobby repeated, flicking some cigarette ash out the window. “You ever bang an older broad? I’m not talking about an eighty-year old, bro, just like, a cougar, you know?”
It was clearly the type of question people ask when they’re not genuinely interested in your response but instead trying to create a lead-in for their own story. Bobby waited a beat, and when no reply came, said, “Yo, so get this… I was banging this chick, you know, and she was like a fatty or whatever, right? But I’m all wasted, so I don’t give a fuck, but in the back of my mind I’m goin’, ‘yo, this is fucked up, this honey is like in her forties.’ Like, you know? That’s like my mom’s age and shit.”
“Oh yeah?” I chuckled nervously.
“Hey guy, do you know where you’re going?” This from Clint, who had apparently noticed and taken issue with the seven point turn I was conducting in the middle of a one-way street. It was not an unreasonable question, yet I wasn’t about to have my credentials undermined by McCauley Culkin here.
Having expected such a question, I had my noncommittal response ready. “Hey, I’m the driver,” I barked. “What do you think?”
Bobby went on, seemingly unaware of Clint’s aspersions, “Yeah dude, so this chick was like a beached whale, man, if we had a kid together that’d be-”
It was around that time that the van jumped a curb. We were all jostled hard as it careered up onto the walkway for one wild minute before lurching violently back onto the street, bouncing up and down as if equipped with hydraulics. If this sounds a little like I’m blaming the van, as though it suddenly seized control and drove itself onto the sidewalk, it’s because this was also the impression I was also hoping to give my fares.
“Damn automatic transmission,” I muttered loudly, as if that explained everything. My ears were ringing from Clint having screamed in the back seat.
“Jesus Christ, man, you know how to drive?” Clint asked, clearly shaken. It occurred to me that the screaming was a bit overdone, and so when our eyes met in the rearview mirror I glowered darkly at him, thinking to myself that this would be the last time I ever ferried around someone who majored in theater. Though in retrospect, I supposed I couldn’t really blame him. Here you are, just hoping to get safely back to your dorm room, and the campus escort – after having arrived over an hour late – proceeds to take you on a death-defying hell ride. And then lobs you a toxic glare when you have the audacity to object.
Bobby, clearly having the time of his life as he roared with laughter, clapped his hands together. “This shit’s the bomb, dude.”
Bobby then resumed prattling on with his story, completely oblivious to my manic fixation with the road before me. I’ve never quite understood this. When I’m telling a story, the millisecond that my audience betrays even the slightest clue that I have anything short of rapt attention, I will be instantly both aware and dejected. But then there are people like Bobby, who blather on incessantly no matter how blatantly preoccupied or uninterested you appear to be. I had the sense that my head could detonate right there in the driver’s seat, explode into a million little pieces, and Bobby would continue gabbing to my headless torso.
To be continued…
It’s curious, the way life unfolds. Take fear. Of my two great terrors in life, the first – going down in a plane crash – seemed a likely outcome one frostbitten January night when an airline jet in which I was a passenger began emitting fiery explosions from its rear as we made our descent into Logan International. Returning to Boston after a week in the Caribbean, my initial thought as fire trucks, ambulances, and other emergency crews swiftly advanced upon our airborne inferno was that at least I’d spent my last week of life in a state of daiquiri-fueled bliss on a tropical island. The comfort was minimal, given the circumstances, but that’s the thought to which I clung in what I’d assumed were my last moments on earth.
My second prevailing terror was sampled during a leisurely dip in the Gulf of Mexico one year with my best friend Tom, when, feet from my tasty flesh, a black fin emerged and sliced through the water with shocking speed. As a ghastly horror overtook my body, I hazily speculated on the odds that the great white would eat Tom first. Turned out the fin belonged to a porpoise, not Jaws, and so while neither of my fears technically came to fruition, that wasn’t the point. As far as I was concerned, they may as well have; what mattered was I’d had a taste of the very things I most dreaded.
During the summer of 2000 I had a job as the assistant account manager of a security staff at a downtown Boston communications college. The work was fairly undemanding, amounting mostly to giving bathroom breaks to the posted guards and filing paperwork. However, one particular aspect of it, as my boss explained on my first day, was that it would be my responsibility to cover a post in the event a shift ended and the incoming guard was late or, as was often the case, simply failed to show up. This wasn’t a big deal to me if I had to cover a desk post – a minor inconvenience, really – but it was with sickening dread that I learned about one other function our crew performed: to run an afterhours escort van. The van began operating after 10 P.M. as a service to students hoping to traverse the downtown campus without the risk of being mugged, raped, stabbed, having to walk past a homeless man, or otherwise imperiled in any way.
At this time in my life I could count the number of miles I’d driven on one hand, and thus the prospect of not only driving, but driving in the city positively terrified me. And if the crotch of my uniform pants wasn’t already damp at that thought, factor in the other peccadillo: driving an escort van that teemed with students. It was enough to send boundless, overwhelming waves of fear crashing upon the very core of my being.
I’d have preferred a rendezvous with a great white.
“You’ll never have to drive, though,” my boss reassured me, seeming to note the distinct look of abject terror that had frozen on my face. “There aren’t many calls during most weeknights, and Darnell – the regular driver – is very reliable. Always on time.”
How she came to this misapprehension, I later learned, was due the previous assistant account manager and Darnell being chums, and thus the former tending to cover for Darnell during the countless occasions when the latter omitted work from his schedule and instead opted to catch up on his sleep.
“Hey, is this Darnell?” I rasped into the phone in a panic-stricken voice. It had taken all of two nights for Darnell to fail to show up for his shift, and I was on deck to drive the shitmobile.
“Mmmm,” he murmured sleepily on the other end.
“Listen, are you on your way in?” I asked tersely. It was an obviously ridiculous question to be asking, seeing as I had called him on his home landline, but there are few ways to berate someone while simultaneously motivating him or her to help you out.
“Be in soon,” he drowsily grumbled. An excruciating hour passed, during which time there was no sign of Darnell. What was more, he stopped answering his phone.
Then the escort requests started coming in.
2
Just don’t answer them, I thought, panicked. Leave and don’t look back! What can they do?! This really crossed my mind as a plausible solution, to just abandon the whole situation; get the hell out of there and let someone else sort it out. Tomorrow I could come up with some sheepish “miscommunication” type excuse, and even if my boss didn’t buy it, what was the worst that could happen? I’d be fired? It wasn’t like I worked in the secret service. I was pretty sure I could land another mediocre security guard job. That was infinitely more desirable than the unthinkable task before me.
In the end, I’m not sure what impelled me into the van. The thought of my conscience being burdened by a would-be passenger who was instead raped and mutilated in the Boston Common, perhaps, or maybe it was simple laziness, not wanting to have to find a new job. Whatever the case, I grudgingly took the keys and climbed into the big, old, dirty van. I slid the key into the ignition and turned, and the vehicle rumbled to life. Shit, here we go, huh? I thought. Maybe it won’t be as bad as I think… Then I backed up and instantly plowed into a light post.
“Oh my God!” I shouted.
This was an absolute nightmare, and I hadn’t even started yet. I shakily got out to assess the extent of the damage. The good news was that the back of the van was pretty dinged up already, so some additional minor damage was likely to go unnoticed. The bad news was that the rear taillight was lying in pieces on the ground. It was that moment of sinking realization when you understand you’ve committed a bad faux pas for which there exists no way to brush it under the rug. How the hell am I going to explain this?
My walkie-talkie squawked to life in the van. It was the dispatcher, wanting to know why I hadn’t picked up the two kids from Brimmer Street yet. And she just received third call from Beacon Hill.
“I’m on my way,” I groaned, feeling overwhelmed and vaguely suicidal.
Take two. The van had a surprising amount of pickup, something I learned as I steered out onto Tremont Street and promptly shot across three lanes of light traffic, accidentally cutting off several cars in my attempt to get over to the right lane. Horns blared, and I felt deeply ashamed of myself.
To make matters worse – if that were possible – it was a muggy summer night, yet I had the van’s heat gusting at full blast. None of the controls seemed to be working. I didn’t understand it; the heat knob was pointed at off. If was OFF, damn it. What the heck was going on? Was there some trick meant to be obvious but that I was stupidly missing? Was it broken? Why was I so confused? Fumbling around with the dashboard climate knobs at a now heavily trafficked intersection was pretty much the last thing I needed to be doing. That is, of course, discounting the circumstance of being in this predicament in the first place.
Sweating profusely, I aimed the vents in the other direction so at least they weren’t blowing directly at me and tried to think how to get to Brimmer Street. Saying that Boston is a very complicated city to navigate gives a bad name both to the words complicated and very. It’s essentially a tangle of winding, one-way roads inhabited by predatory, usually drunk drivers, buses, and at this time of night, street cleaners. There are a few dead-ends thrown in for good measure, as well as some surprise streets where it seems like you’re on a normal backstreet until – surprise! – you get emptied onto a highway; this later scenario being exactly what happened to me.
Having circled the block before heading toward Beacon Hill on Charles Street, I took a left on Beacon Street. I knew I was approaching Brimmer, but with my stress levels and the dark, ended up missing it. “Damn it all,” I moaned with an audible sigh. “Can anything go right?”
Taking my next right, my hope was to circle back around, or at least to make a U-turn and backtrack, but to my unimaginable horror found that, not only could I not turn around, but the street I’d turned onto was a one-way ticket to Storrow Drive – the Boston expressway that runs along the Charles River.
A dismal turn of events this was. “Oh no,” I whispered balefully.
Scared, lost, bathed in sweat from my roasting furnace of an escort van, and suddenly stuck on a busy, unfamiliar parkway, I felt the crushing weight of having been assigned an insurmountable task that was nonetheless essential to complete. It just seemed so inconceivably futile.
I ended up taking an exit that deposited me in the neighborhood of Mass General Hospital, swore out loud, and continued pressing onward. My misguided hope was that I’d turn a corner and miraculously stumble upon Brimmer Street. Unfortunately, I ended up in Government Center, which, if you’re familiar with Boston, you know to be nowhere in the vicinity of Brimmer. This had somehow gone from bad to worse; the students were probably livid by now. Assuming they weren’t too preoccupied being held up at gunpoint and subsequently disemboweled.
I hadn’t cried in quite a few years, but after working my way to the waterfront and getting angrily honked at again, this time for going straight in what was evidently a left turn only lane, a good cry seemed like my only sensible course of action.
3
“Can you smoke in here?”
By a combination of basic city knowledge, determined driving, and dumb luck, I had eventually worked my way back to Charles Street and consequently – finally – found Brimmer. During the time it took me to get there, the number of prospective fares had swelled from two to four; temporarily dropped to zero; then ticked back up to two. My first accounted for charges were Clint and Bobby; respectively a pale, effeminate blond kid and a bearded, self-described pothead.
“No,” I said of Bobby’s query, hearing the snap of his lighter. “The van is school property.”
“The van is a piece of shit,” Bobby said, as though this fact somehow negated the no smoking rule. He took a long drag of his cigarette and exhaled so that a cloud of smoke drifted over the dashboard, ricocheted off the windshield, and eventually found its way into my face. “Dude, it’s like a fucking oven in here. Do you have the heat on? It’s the middle of summer!”
“Took you long enough,” Clint chimed in.
“Oh yeah… sorry, had some… technical difficulties,” I said with a stiff laugh. Now the stakes were raised: there were live spectators aboard my vehicle of annihilation. Though I couldn’t guarantee for how much longer live could be considered an accurate description.
“Yo man, you ever bang a chick who’s a lot older than you?” asked Bobby from the passenger seat. Clint sat sullenly in the back, evidently put out by the wait.
“What?” I asked, waving the smoke from my face while at the same time swerving to avoid a double-parked taxi. Clint yelped.
“An older broad,” Bobby repeated, flicking some cigarette ash out the window. “You ever bang an older broad? I’m not talking about an eighty-year old, bro, just like, a cougar, you know?”
It was clearly the type of question people ask when they’re not genuinely interested in your response but instead trying to create a lead-in for their own story. Bobby waited a beat, and when no reply came, said, “Yo, so get this… I was banging this chick, you know, and she was like a fatty or whatever, right? But I’m all wasted, so I don’t give a fuck, but in the back of my mind I’m goin’, ‘yo, this is fucked up, this honey is like in her forties.’ Like, you know? That’s like my mom’s age and shit.”
“Oh yeah?” I chuckled nervously.
“Hey guy, do you know where you’re going?” This from Clint, who had apparently noticed and taken issue with the seven point turn I was conducting in the middle of a one-way street. It was not an unreasonable question, yet I wasn’t about to have my credentials undermined by McCauley Culkin here.
Having expected such a question, I had my noncommittal response ready. “Hey, I’m the driver,” I barked. “What do you think?”
Bobby went on, seemingly unaware of Clint’s aspersions, “Yeah dude, so this chick was like a beached whale, man, if we had a kid together that’d be-”
It was around that time that the van jumped a curb. We were all jostled hard as it careered up onto the walkway for one wild minute before lurching violently back onto the street, bouncing up and down as if equipped with hydraulics. If this sounds a little like I’m blaming the van, as though it suddenly seized control and drove itself onto the sidewalk, it’s because this was also the impression I was also hoping to give my fares.
“Damn automatic transmission,” I muttered loudly, as if that explained everything. My ears were ringing from Clint having screamed in the back seat.
“Jesus Christ, man, you know how to drive?” Clint asked, clearly shaken. It occurred to me that the screaming was a bit overdone, and so when our eyes met in the rearview mirror I glowered darkly at him, thinking to myself that this would be the last time I ever ferried around someone who majored in theater. Though in retrospect, I supposed I couldn’t really blame him. Here you are, just hoping to get safely back to your dorm room, and the campus escort – after having arrived over an hour late – proceeds to take you on a death-defying hell ride. And then lobs you a toxic glare when you have the audacity to object.
Bobby, clearly having the time of his life as he roared with laughter, clapped his hands together. “This shit’s the bomb, dude.”
Bobby then resumed prattling on with his story, completely oblivious to my manic fixation with the road before me. I’ve never quite understood this. When I’m telling a story, the millisecond that my audience betrays even the slightest clue that I have anything short of rapt attention, I will be instantly both aware and dejected. But then there are people like Bobby, who blather on incessantly no matter how blatantly preoccupied or uninterested you appear to be. I had the sense that my head could detonate right there in the driver’s seat, explode into a million little pieces, and Bobby would continue gabbing to my headless torso.
To be continued…
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Wild Fire
Given a list of choices, like the salad dressing inventory in a restaurant, I invariably opt for either the first option or the last, which has nothing to do with the dressing itself and everything to do with those two being the only selections my brain will have managed to retain. When the waiter begins rattling through the choices in rapid-fire monotone, I’ll immediately lock on to the first – the last is recalled because it’s freshest in my mind – but the middle of the set tends to swirl together in a nameless sea of ambiguity. I’ll wind up with something like crème de rhubarb and spend the next 10 minutes choking back bile and fawning over the much better choices of everyone else in my group.
So last night when I ordered my chicken wing flavor, despite there being a half dozen or more appealing options, the two I was left with were wild fire and teriyaki. If this were San Antonio I might have harbored reservations about the wild fire, but in pizza places around Boston hot doesn’t usually get much beyond Tabasco Sauce. So I decided on that.
“Are you sure?” asked the man taking my order over the phone.
I paused. “I… uh, think so…?” I replied cautiously, suddenly not so sure at all. How often do you order food and have the restaurant worker openly question your selection?
“Oookay!” he said in a singsong tone, the way people do while meaning to imply, Don’t say I didn’t warn you!
“Wait, should I not get… that flavor?”
“No, you should.”
“Is it too hot?”
“Not for me.”
“What about for other people?”
“You’d have to ask them.”
“Well that’s not really an option,” I pointed out, trying to be polite but angrily thinking that this was a stupid conversation to be having with someone taking your food order at a pizza joint. Was he being purposely vague?
He told me, “It’s just… not everyone gets it.”
I honestly wasn’t sure if he meant this as, “not everyone orders it” or “not everyone understands it” – like how an elitist friend is always telling me that I might listen to jazz, but I don’t get jazz. The latter seemed sort of silly, seeing that we were talking about chicken wings, but judging from our liaison so far I wasn’t about to put it past him. I asked, “Because it’s too spicy?”
“Well, it is spicy,” he unhelpfully said. I wanted to tell him that I was clued in to at least some spice from its name wild fire. I also sort of wanted to punch him in the face.
I was pretty hungry by the time my wild fire chicken wings arrived. Unwrapping them in the office, I wolfed down two immediately. In retrospect, this was a very bad idea.
It was really only a bit prickly at first, with my mouth heating up little by little. By the time I started in on my third wing, the heat had quickly accelerated to full tilt. My mouth, lips, tongue, and throat ascended into a raging inferno of unbelievably scalding, fiery hell. It felt like I was eating chicken-flavored lava directly from a volcano. My tongue had surely disintegrated. With a yelp I chugged down some diet soda, which turned out to be like attempting to put out a blazing fire with gasoline. Desperate, I began sweating profusely, wiping my tongue with a wad of napkins as tears streamed down my face and I writhed in agony.
Gobs of wild fire sauce splattering my boss’s keyboard, I charged into the bathroom, tripping in the process, and jammed my head beneath the sink faucet. I wrenched the knob and let cold water bathe my blazing tongue. I had to stay like that, because every time I removed my mouth from the faucet, the eighteen-alarm firestorm roared back to life.
No doubt this was my comeuppance from earlier in the night. Thinking it would be funny and extremely mature, I froze a coworker’s sneakers in the freezer. As the clap of his frozen solid feet echoed throughout the hall as he gingerly left work, yours truly howling with laughter, he promised retribution. Turns out karma took care of it for him.
So last night when I ordered my chicken wing flavor, despite there being a half dozen or more appealing options, the two I was left with were wild fire and teriyaki. If this were San Antonio I might have harbored reservations about the wild fire, but in pizza places around Boston hot doesn’t usually get much beyond Tabasco Sauce. So I decided on that.
“Are you sure?” asked the man taking my order over the phone.
I paused. “I… uh, think so…?” I replied cautiously, suddenly not so sure at all. How often do you order food and have the restaurant worker openly question your selection?
“Oookay!” he said in a singsong tone, the way people do while meaning to imply, Don’t say I didn’t warn you!
“Wait, should I not get… that flavor?”
“No, you should.”
“Is it too hot?”
“Not for me.”
“What about for other people?”
“You’d have to ask them.”
“Well that’s not really an option,” I pointed out, trying to be polite but angrily thinking that this was a stupid conversation to be having with someone taking your food order at a pizza joint. Was he being purposely vague?
He told me, “It’s just… not everyone gets it.”
I honestly wasn’t sure if he meant this as, “not everyone orders it” or “not everyone understands it” – like how an elitist friend is always telling me that I might listen to jazz, but I don’t get jazz. The latter seemed sort of silly, seeing that we were talking about chicken wings, but judging from our liaison so far I wasn’t about to put it past him. I asked, “Because it’s too spicy?”
“Well, it is spicy,” he unhelpfully said. I wanted to tell him that I was clued in to at least some spice from its name wild fire. I also sort of wanted to punch him in the face.
I was pretty hungry by the time my wild fire chicken wings arrived. Unwrapping them in the office, I wolfed down two immediately. In retrospect, this was a very bad idea.
It was really only a bit prickly at first, with my mouth heating up little by little. By the time I started in on my third wing, the heat had quickly accelerated to full tilt. My mouth, lips, tongue, and throat ascended into a raging inferno of unbelievably scalding, fiery hell. It felt like I was eating chicken-flavored lava directly from a volcano. My tongue had surely disintegrated. With a yelp I chugged down some diet soda, which turned out to be like attempting to put out a blazing fire with gasoline. Desperate, I began sweating profusely, wiping my tongue with a wad of napkins as tears streamed down my face and I writhed in agony.
Gobs of wild fire sauce splattering my boss’s keyboard, I charged into the bathroom, tripping in the process, and jammed my head beneath the sink faucet. I wrenched the knob and let cold water bathe my blazing tongue. I had to stay like that, because every time I removed my mouth from the faucet, the eighteen-alarm firestorm roared back to life.
No doubt this was my comeuppance from earlier in the night. Thinking it would be funny and extremely mature, I froze a coworker’s sneakers in the freezer. As the clap of his frozen solid feet echoed throughout the hall as he gingerly left work, yours truly howling with laughter, he promised retribution. Turns out karma took care of it for him.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
The Case of the Missing Shoes
Arriving at work one otherwise unremarkable day about a week ago, I was greeted with the completely puzzling discovery that my work shoes were gone. They were neither where I had left them nor anywhere else in sight. They just... weren’t there.
Imagine returning home one day after work to discover your house is absent - not destroyed, just missing - and you'll have an idea of my befuddlement. While I periodically change styles, I have left my work shoes in precisely the same place for over seven years without incident. My current pair is – or was – nondescript black and beginning to show the signs of a year’s worth of near daily use. Bought on the cheap at Payless, these were not exactly the pricey, stylish type of footwear that might whet the covetous appetite of some brazen work shoe bandit, yet neither were they so dilapidated that someone would confuse them for junk – not that anyone would single them out in the first place. We all have our shoe storage locations, and everyone adheres to the system. And while my coworkers are a satchel of characters that would likely be rejected as too unbelievable were they ever collectively pitched as a potential TV sitcom cast, I just couldn’t bring myself to consider theft as a plausible explanation.
Being the victim of a prank orchestrated by my friend Alex was another story. I’m always dousing the lights in areas he will subsequently have to traverse in the dark. My preferred location is the vast, intimidating boiler room. Buzzing with the din of machinery and freighted with danger, this area is not one you want to navigate without the benefit of sight. I get a good chuckle after my shift, thinking about Alex inching through the inky blackness with his tentatively outstretched hands, cursing my name while hoping the next thing he touches isn’t 5,000 degrees. You can call it juvenile - and you'll be right - but that’s our brand of humor.
So I began searching the break room, hopeful that I'd imminently find my missing shoes lodged somewhere nearby, have a laugh, and begin plotting my revenge. Yet I became increasingly discouraged by my lack of success.
What the hell…?
Staring blankly at the wall (an activity in which I am well-practiced), I heard the sound of approaching footsteps, and a moment later Floyd appeared. While not exactly my supervisor Floyd does outrank me, both in terms of status and seniority. Fortunately he’s not the kind of person who throws his weight around, but he does brandish the three Bs of intimidation: Blackness, Baldness, and Brawniness.
“Hey Mark,” Floyd greeted me happily, his shaven head gleaming beneath the fluorescent break room lights. We’ve worked together for over seven years, yet Floyd has never learned how to correctly spell my name.
“What’s up Floyd,” I said. “Hey, this is weird, but- well, I can’t find…” I started, my voice trailing off as my eyes dropped to Floyd’s feet, which were positioned squarely in my shoes.
“What…?” he asked, confused.
“Hmm. Do you…” What do you mean, ‘What’? You know ‘what’! “Um… nothing… forget it.”
“Okay.”
Floyd then began talking about this and that as he changed out of his uniform. No explanation or even a mention of the shoes was offered. Instead, I watched with a combination of bewilderment and horror as, one by one, he extracted his big smelly feet from the confines of my shoes. Judging by the sound made when his socks slopped onto the floor, I gathered his feet had been soaking wet.
Saturated, rancid Floyd feet had spent eight hours in my shoes.
Predictably, I was deeply disturbed and on several levels. I’m not the kind of person who hits the ceiling when somebody borrows a clothing item, but I tend to prefer lending out things like sweaters and scarves, maybe a seldom used jacket; not shoes that I wear daily. Also, call me old-fashioned but I do like to be asked first – or at least provided with a justifiable excuse after the fact. Thirdly, there was the obvious atrocity of Floyd’s feet being disgusting.
In the end I decided to put it past him; it wasn’t important enough to cause a big fuss over, just an isolated incident. Probably he needed a pair in a pinch, forgot his own, or something along those lines - I was willing to overlook the fact that my shoes now represented a biohazard zone.
Except that wasn’t the end.
The next day upon my arrival Floyd came to meet me again, and again I was horrified to see he was wearing my shoes! I thought, Jesus, WTF Floyd?! Again no explanation was offered. Nothing other than his maddening nonchalance. Furthermore, when he released my shoes from the horror that was his feet, this time he didn’t even return them to my area... but to his.
So now he’s completed the takeover, I thought. He’s officially stolen them! I was shocked into speechlessness. What could I say? Excuse me… uh Floyd? Yeah, did you just, like, matter-of-factly steal my shoes?
After Floyd left that night, I collected my shoes from his area and moved them back to mine. I hoped – I figured – that this would at least send a message. MUST send a message. Whatever he had been thinking would halt. He would show up for work and see that the shoes he had left for himself would have been claimed by their rightful owner, and he would be embarrassed. He would realize his mistake.
Alas, my hopes went unfulfilled. The next day when I came to work, I was infuriated to see that Floyd had them on again. He rambled on casually while my gaze locked onto his feet. You sick bastard, I thought, you’re not getting away with this.
When Floyd left for home, I once again removed the shoes from his area and once again returned them to mine; but this time I wrote my name in big prominent lettering on two scraps of paper and inserted one into each shoe. Check! Your move, Floyd! Unfortunately, this chapter took place on a Friday night, so I was forced to wait out the weekend before arriving at the exciting conclusion.
The situation plagued my mind all weekend. It became an obsession; I'd be in my kitchen Saturday afternoon spreading cream cheese on a bagel or standing in the shower Sunday morning thinking, What is the meaning of this business with the shoes? What is Floyd's deal? Who does he think he is that he can just seamlessly annex my shoes into his wardrobe? Is it possible he is that obtuse?
When Monday finally rolled around, I arrived for work 15 minutes early and made a beeline for the break room. There was no way he'd have taken out my name tags! It was one thing to wear an article of clothing under the guise of ignorance, but to remove the name tags would have demanded a deliberate action. Either way, I figured, I would have my answer. Either the issue would be resolved, with apologetic Floyd having realized his mistake, or the name tags would have been discarded. There would be no more ignorance, genuine or manufactured.
What I neglected to consider was option C, which was exactly what happened: that Floyd would defy the odds and continue wearing the shoes, only with the name tags in them. It was unbelievable. The shoes were sickeningly parked in Floyd's area, with my name tags - the ink smeared as a consequence of being mashed by something heavy and wet (Floyd's hooves) - against the insole. Motherf-
FLOYD!!!
Having already left the premises, I couldn't confront thieving Floyd, which was my initial inclination. But the more I thought about it, the more I convinced myself that I had to beat him at his own game; I had to continue with the charade. It wasn't even about the shoes anymore - I could throw them away, for all they mattered. What concerned me was teaching Floyd a lesson.
Okay, let's take it up a notch! I snatched the shoes, placed them in a bag, and tied the bag. I made a bigger name tag with my name emblazoned in thick black magic marker and affixed it to the bag. And I waited.
To be continued...
Imagine returning home one day after work to discover your house is absent - not destroyed, just missing - and you'll have an idea of my befuddlement. While I periodically change styles, I have left my work shoes in precisely the same place for over seven years without incident. My current pair is – or was – nondescript black and beginning to show the signs of a year’s worth of near daily use. Bought on the cheap at Payless, these were not exactly the pricey, stylish type of footwear that might whet the covetous appetite of some brazen work shoe bandit, yet neither were they so dilapidated that someone would confuse them for junk – not that anyone would single them out in the first place. We all have our shoe storage locations, and everyone adheres to the system. And while my coworkers are a satchel of characters that would likely be rejected as too unbelievable were they ever collectively pitched as a potential TV sitcom cast, I just couldn’t bring myself to consider theft as a plausible explanation.
Being the victim of a prank orchestrated by my friend Alex was another story. I’m always dousing the lights in areas he will subsequently have to traverse in the dark. My preferred location is the vast, intimidating boiler room. Buzzing with the din of machinery and freighted with danger, this area is not one you want to navigate without the benefit of sight. I get a good chuckle after my shift, thinking about Alex inching through the inky blackness with his tentatively outstretched hands, cursing my name while hoping the next thing he touches isn’t 5,000 degrees. You can call it juvenile - and you'll be right - but that’s our brand of humor.
So I began searching the break room, hopeful that I'd imminently find my missing shoes lodged somewhere nearby, have a laugh, and begin plotting my revenge. Yet I became increasingly discouraged by my lack of success.
What the hell…?
Staring blankly at the wall (an activity in which I am well-practiced), I heard the sound of approaching footsteps, and a moment later Floyd appeared. While not exactly my supervisor Floyd does outrank me, both in terms of status and seniority. Fortunately he’s not the kind of person who throws his weight around, but he does brandish the three Bs of intimidation: Blackness, Baldness, and Brawniness.
“Hey Mark,” Floyd greeted me happily, his shaven head gleaming beneath the fluorescent break room lights. We’ve worked together for over seven years, yet Floyd has never learned how to correctly spell my name.
“What’s up Floyd,” I said. “Hey, this is weird, but- well, I can’t find…” I started, my voice trailing off as my eyes dropped to Floyd’s feet, which were positioned squarely in my shoes.
“What…?” he asked, confused.
“Hmm. Do you…” What do you mean, ‘What’? You know ‘what’! “Um… nothing… forget it.”
“Okay.”
Floyd then began talking about this and that as he changed out of his uniform. No explanation or even a mention of the shoes was offered. Instead, I watched with a combination of bewilderment and horror as, one by one, he extracted his big smelly feet from the confines of my shoes. Judging by the sound made when his socks slopped onto the floor, I gathered his feet had been soaking wet.
Saturated, rancid Floyd feet had spent eight hours in my shoes.
Predictably, I was deeply disturbed and on several levels. I’m not the kind of person who hits the ceiling when somebody borrows a clothing item, but I tend to prefer lending out things like sweaters and scarves, maybe a seldom used jacket; not shoes that I wear daily. Also, call me old-fashioned but I do like to be asked first – or at least provided with a justifiable excuse after the fact. Thirdly, there was the obvious atrocity of Floyd’s feet being disgusting.
In the end I decided to put it past him; it wasn’t important enough to cause a big fuss over, just an isolated incident. Probably he needed a pair in a pinch, forgot his own, or something along those lines - I was willing to overlook the fact that my shoes now represented a biohazard zone.
Except that wasn’t the end.
The next day upon my arrival Floyd came to meet me again, and again I was horrified to see he was wearing my shoes! I thought, Jesus, WTF Floyd?! Again no explanation was offered. Nothing other than his maddening nonchalance. Furthermore, when he released my shoes from the horror that was his feet, this time he didn’t even return them to my area... but to his.
So now he’s completed the takeover, I thought. He’s officially stolen them! I was shocked into speechlessness. What could I say? Excuse me… uh Floyd? Yeah, did you just, like, matter-of-factly steal my shoes?
After Floyd left that night, I collected my shoes from his area and moved them back to mine. I hoped – I figured – that this would at least send a message. MUST send a message. Whatever he had been thinking would halt. He would show up for work and see that the shoes he had left for himself would have been claimed by their rightful owner, and he would be embarrassed. He would realize his mistake.
Alas, my hopes went unfulfilled. The next day when I came to work, I was infuriated to see that Floyd had them on again. He rambled on casually while my gaze locked onto his feet. You sick bastard, I thought, you’re not getting away with this.
When Floyd left for home, I once again removed the shoes from his area and once again returned them to mine; but this time I wrote my name in big prominent lettering on two scraps of paper and inserted one into each shoe. Check! Your move, Floyd! Unfortunately, this chapter took place on a Friday night, so I was forced to wait out the weekend before arriving at the exciting conclusion.
The situation plagued my mind all weekend. It became an obsession; I'd be in my kitchen Saturday afternoon spreading cream cheese on a bagel or standing in the shower Sunday morning thinking, What is the meaning of this business with the shoes? What is Floyd's deal? Who does he think he is that he can just seamlessly annex my shoes into his wardrobe? Is it possible he is that obtuse?
When Monday finally rolled around, I arrived for work 15 minutes early and made a beeline for the break room. There was no way he'd have taken out my name tags! It was one thing to wear an article of clothing under the guise of ignorance, but to remove the name tags would have demanded a deliberate action. Either way, I figured, I would have my answer. Either the issue would be resolved, with apologetic Floyd having realized his mistake, or the name tags would have been discarded. There would be no more ignorance, genuine or manufactured.
What I neglected to consider was option C, which was exactly what happened: that Floyd would defy the odds and continue wearing the shoes, only with the name tags in them. It was unbelievable. The shoes were sickeningly parked in Floyd's area, with my name tags - the ink smeared as a consequence of being mashed by something heavy and wet (Floyd's hooves) - against the insole. Motherf-
FLOYD!!!
Having already left the premises, I couldn't confront thieving Floyd, which was my initial inclination. But the more I thought about it, the more I convinced myself that I had to beat him at his own game; I had to continue with the charade. It wasn't even about the shoes anymore - I could throw them away, for all they mattered. What concerned me was teaching Floyd a lesson.
Okay, let's take it up a notch! I snatched the shoes, placed them in a bag, and tied the bag. I made a bigger name tag with my name emblazoned in thick black magic marker and affixed it to the bag. And I waited.
To be continued...
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Six Feet Under
There’s a porter at my work named Rolando, and every time I feel overworked and cranky I think of him. Rolando works seven days a week. What’s more, he works a double shift every day. Imagine: that's sixteen hours of hard labor every single day, with no days off and no vacations. Month by interminable month, year stacked upon endless year. Just thinking about it completely exhausts me. And this is thankless janitorial work we’re talking about: plunging toilets congested with strangers’ shit; vacuuming vomit and scrubbing the resultant carpet stain with a toothbrush; cleaning the foul public restroom; schlepping countless rancid bags of trash from the buildings; lifting the occasional blood stain, etc., etc. Factoring his commutes, the amount time that Rolando gets to be away from vile filth each day of his life works out to roughly six hours, time he must use for eating, sleeping, and sucking back the occasional Corona.
But what is perhaps crazier than Rolando’s mindboggling workload is the fact that he appears to actually enjoy it. Rolando loves everybody and everybody loves Rolando. He is one of the friendliest people I’ve ever met, never complaining or even allowing himself a disgruntled sigh; to the contrary, he happily fields my complaints, always offering a sympathetic nod when I tell him I’m bushed after my eight-hour shift (on the precipice of my weekend). He tells me that people such as us work hard at our jobs, and I’ll agree, thinking about how I just woke up from my two-hour slumber, and how this conversation is eating into my web surfing time. His English is a work in progress (while my Spanish is downright pathetic), so our dialogue is usually halting and awkward. For this reason I always try to avoid friendly Rolando.
This past Sunday morning I ran into the porter as he was shoveling out the plaza between the two buildings, a light snowfall tumbling from the sky.
“Mucho trabajo,” I told him, apropos of the snow. “Donde esta tu amigos?”
“No friends,” he proudly announced. “Only me!”
“Too much trabajo,” I said of his task, which was apparently to shovel the entire grounds by himself.
“No, it’s okay! ¿Amigo, cuánto nevará?”
I paused, the way you do upon encountering a phrase you cannot comprehend but understand a question is being asked. This was exactly what I hated, these situations. “I-I don’t know… No se…”
“Nevará… how do you say… ah, snow,” he repeated. “Cuánto?”
“Oh, how much snow?” I said, tremendously relieved. “Well, I heard on the news between five and seven – cinco a siete.”
“¿Pies?” he asked with a jovial smile.
“Si. Yes, about six. Seis pies.”
Rolando’s smile abruptly faded. “No… No realmente? No seis pies…” He appeared borderline panicked.
“Yes, yes, I am sure of it,” I repeated. “Six. Seis pies of nieve!” What was so hard to believe about six inches of snow?
Rolando gaped at me, his carefree demeanor gone. It was a look with which I am intimately familiar; the hopeless, desperate countenance of a man suddenly realizing the cosmic weight of what he now understands to be an overwhelming task before him. But I was puzzled as to why he found this so incredulous. Maybe he was hoping for two inches of snow rather than a half dozen, but it wasn’t like a few extra inches should make the difference between doable and insurmountable.
“Seis pies… Dios mio,” he whispered balefully, surveying the quietly falling snow about the premises. “Yo me moriré…”
“Well, good luck!” I chirped, giving Rolando an encouraging slap on the shoulder before continuing on my way, leaving the porter staring into space with a forlorn hopelessness.
It wasn’t until later that I learned my mistake: what I had told Rolando, in all seriousness, was that he would be digging out the entire complex not from under 6 inches but from under 6 feet of snow.
No wonder he looked so distraught.
While he had to have been positively ecstatic when the snowfall finally petered out that afternoon – leaving behind merely those predicted six inches – I couldn’t help but imagine the bleak thoughts that trafficked through poor Rolando’s head during the preceding hours when he was charged with work that, even for him, must have seemed downright backbreaking.
But what is perhaps crazier than Rolando’s mindboggling workload is the fact that he appears to actually enjoy it. Rolando loves everybody and everybody loves Rolando. He is one of the friendliest people I’ve ever met, never complaining or even allowing himself a disgruntled sigh; to the contrary, he happily fields my complaints, always offering a sympathetic nod when I tell him I’m bushed after my eight-hour shift (on the precipice of my weekend). He tells me that people such as us work hard at our jobs, and I’ll agree, thinking about how I just woke up from my two-hour slumber, and how this conversation is eating into my web surfing time. His English is a work in progress (while my Spanish is downright pathetic), so our dialogue is usually halting and awkward. For this reason I always try to avoid friendly Rolando.
This past Sunday morning I ran into the porter as he was shoveling out the plaza between the two buildings, a light snowfall tumbling from the sky.
“Mucho trabajo,” I told him, apropos of the snow. “Donde esta tu amigos?”
“No friends,” he proudly announced. “Only me!”
“Too much trabajo,” I said of his task, which was apparently to shovel the entire grounds by himself.
“No, it’s okay! ¿Amigo, cuánto nevará?”
I paused, the way you do upon encountering a phrase you cannot comprehend but understand a question is being asked. This was exactly what I hated, these situations. “I-I don’t know… No se…”
“Nevará… how do you say… ah, snow,” he repeated. “Cuánto?”
“Oh, how much snow?” I said, tremendously relieved. “Well, I heard on the news between five and seven – cinco a siete.”
“¿Pies?” he asked with a jovial smile.
“Si. Yes, about six. Seis pies.”
Rolando’s smile abruptly faded. “No… No realmente? No seis pies…” He appeared borderline panicked.
“Yes, yes, I am sure of it,” I repeated. “Six. Seis pies of nieve!” What was so hard to believe about six inches of snow?
Rolando gaped at me, his carefree demeanor gone. It was a look with which I am intimately familiar; the hopeless, desperate countenance of a man suddenly realizing the cosmic weight of what he now understands to be an overwhelming task before him. But I was puzzled as to why he found this so incredulous. Maybe he was hoping for two inches of snow rather than a half dozen, but it wasn’t like a few extra inches should make the difference between doable and insurmountable.
“Seis pies… Dios mio,” he whispered balefully, surveying the quietly falling snow about the premises. “Yo me moriré…”
“Well, good luck!” I chirped, giving Rolando an encouraging slap on the shoulder before continuing on my way, leaving the porter staring into space with a forlorn hopelessness.
It wasn’t until later that I learned my mistake: what I had told Rolando, in all seriousness, was that he would be digging out the entire complex not from under 6 inches but from under 6 feet of snow.
No wonder he looked so distraught.
While he had to have been positively ecstatic when the snowfall finally petered out that afternoon – leaving behind merely those predicted six inches – I couldn’t help but imagine the bleak thoughts that trafficked through poor Rolando’s head during the preceding hours when he was charged with work that, even for him, must have seemed downright backbreaking.
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