floorpie

On my way to work They installed a traffic alert sign overhanging Venice Blvd. It’s a little odd, as you typically don’t see signs like this on mere streets, only highways. I assume that this sign will tell me if there’s an accident on the 405, or a back -up on the 10, or if there’s an Amber Alert I should keep my eye out for; but, for the last few weeks since its installation, the sign has only said one thing, flashing in yellow lights on black, drawing my attention upwards. The message reads:

Reader Mail

I’m not sure why, because it’s not solicited, but I get a lot of reader mail. Most of it is complete and utter adoration, as I’m sure you can identify with, but some of it is asking for advice. Advice about family, relationships, major purchases, taxes of all things, and whatnot.

Every now and again, though, I get questions that are un-catagorizable; lest that category be General Effluvia. If you know me at all (and you don’t so I’ll tell you), I’m the type of person that knows a little about a lot of things. Not, unfortunately, a lot about a lot of things, just enough to either get me in over my head or make me sound like a pompous asshole. In other words, just the right amount. More to the point:

To: DAK
From: Confused in Cali
Subject: What the...?

Dear DAK:

I have an old mattress that has seen it's last days. It's all worn out and has very obvious hills and valleys in it. I have another bed to replace it, but what do I do with the old one?

Thanks man,
Cletus

Well Cletus, normally when you buy a new mattress the store will haul away your old mattress for free. You indicated in your e-mail that you already have a bed, so alternative methods are necessary. If you were me in college, you would obviously burn it and do Ollie’s over it while spitting Everclear for visual effect. You would continue this until you got tired of it, which would roughly coincide with when the cops came.

If, however, you were me now, and you really just wanted to get the thing out of the house so you could get back to The Simpsons, you would drag the mattress out into the alley behind your apartment and sheepishly lean it up against the wall next to the dumpster. Then, when leaving for work in the morning, you would notice that said mattress was gone, yet the garbage remained, meaning that someone had actually snagged your old, yet clean, mattress and box-spring and had maybe (a) put it in their home or (b) burned it and was doing Ollie’s over it all night which you missed out on and can’t help feeling bitter about.

PS ewww, grody, someone took my old mattress!

In other news, I totally saw Jeffrey from The Fresh Prince of Bel Aire in the Santa Monica Staples parking lot.

It was a Sunday, which meant Staples unfortunately closed at 6:00PM instead of after the 6:08PM when Jeffrey, ADG, and I got there. He looked a little miffed, undoubtedly low on Post-It notes on which to write audition times, or which Hollywood starlet orgy was happening where and at what time. He didn’t seem too upset, though… certainly not “I’m Jeffrey from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Aire you motherfuckers! Let me in this instant!” upset. More like “I’m Jeffrey from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Aire and am therefore completely chill… it ain’t like I have to go to work tomorrow.” upset. Which, as far as levels of upset go, is a pretty good place to be.

I kept repeating the same thing to ADG in different inflections:
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I think that’s Jeffrey from The Fresh Prince of Bel Aire!
I think that’s Jeffrey from The Fresh Prince of Bel Aire!
I think that’s Jeffrey from The Fresh Prince of Bel Aire!
I think that’s Jeffrey from The Fresh Prince of Bel Aire!

She had tuned me out about 15 minutes prior to the sighting, though, so there’s not telling if any of that registered.

I waited to see what kind of car he climbed into, thinking that would either support or disprove my theory. It was a black VW Beetle (new style), which began to suggest that I was mistaken until I saw that it had really nice aftermarket wheels on it. “Hmmm, I thought to myself, that seems pretty appropriate. After all, it is just Jeffrey from The Fresh Prince of Bel Aire…”

From what I’ve been able to gather, pretty much everyone at my soon to be new company knows about my site. Not that this is necessarily a problem or anything, but it is something I’ve not experienced before.

The obvious drawback of anyone you know finding your site is that you tend to edit yourself when it comes to personal details. Say what you will about how you don’t give a fuck what anyone else thinks, but if you’re realistic with yourself you’ll realize that you at least consider editing yourself… an emotion not dealt with if comletely anonymous.
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For instance, I backed over that “fuck” up there a few times before going with it. I’m such a rebel.

To continue, not writing too much about myself isn’t going to be a very large problem for me, however, as I’ve been told by real-life friends that I don’t write that much about myself to begin with. Surface details, I suppose, but most of the stuff on here seems to be Seinfeld-ian observational fare: “Isn’t it funny how…?”, “Didja ever notice that…?”, “Who are these people…?”
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The other apparent drawback about your co-workers knowing about your site is that you can’t safely complain about them… not that I anticipate wanting to, of course, boss. When you especially consider that people like Heather can get fired over their sites, you have to be especially careful.

On the other hand, perhaps this will serve as a way to have confrontatios without the actual confrontation part:

There’s this guy at work… we’ll call him Bavid Bleeman, who totally smacks his lips while he eats a candy bar in the middle of the day. If he does that one more time, I’m going to scream!

Hopefully, Bavid will get the idea.

I’ve always had this theory that all of that “Back in my day, kids didn’t etc, etc” was just the golden hue of ill-remembered hindsight. There always has been crime, and murder, and rape, and incest, and lies, and horror; and most likely there always will be. For every time I shake my head in sadness and bewilderment while watching the news, there has been somone in the past doing likewise under the same or similar circumstance; no matter how much it doesn’t feel like it.
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And lately, it hasn’t felt like it much at all. Lately, it’s felt like it is worse now than it has ever been, with no respite in sight. Or, in the far better words of Peter Gibbons:

So I’m sitting in my cubicle today and I realized that ever since I started working, every day in my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every day you see me, that’s the worst day of my life.

What about today? Is today the worst day of your life?

Yeah.

Woah, that’s messed up.

Which is funny, but this memory really isn’t it. That memory being something I recalled after reading about the high school teacher sending love letters to one of her students. “Sick.” I thought to myself, “What is the world coming to when 32 year old teachers have to look for 17 year olds for dates?” But then, of course, I remembered, this had happened before…to me.

OK, not really to me, but I was feeling the dramatic tension, sorry.

This did happen, though, to one of my friends while I was in high school. The sex was the opposite, but I think the ages were about the same. The 30-something year old music teacher was apparently giving the 17 year old friend of mine “private lessons” for the better part of our senior year. I’m not sure how it was discovered, but I imagine something like, “I’m going over to Mr. Johnson’s for my lesson, I’ll grab something for dinner on the way back.” Followed by, “Oh dear, Susie forgot her music, we better rush it over before she notices.” Close-in shot of mom’s eyes widening as she looks through the window, fade to black and call it a wrap.
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Mr. Johnson disappeared the same day as the rumors hit campus, and poor Susie was never the same again. You could see the struggle going on within her, divided as she was between loyalty to the man she maybe loved and the anger she was supposed to feel at the teacher taking advantage of her. You could see it in her eyes, though, he wasn’t so much taking advantage as participating in something, no matter how inappropriate, they both felt.

It didn’t really strike me until today how unbelievably terrible that experience must have been for everyone involved. At the time, it was pure hilarity, but in hindsight it is sick and tragic.
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I’m not sure whatever happened to Susie. I know she finished out the year and must therefore not have eloped with Mr. Johnson, who was said to have left town forever. Did she get asked to prom? I don’t recall, most likely not. I hope she had the good sense to go to college (and she was college-bound) somewhere out of state where she could at least be an all-new Susie…
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And the wheels of the bus go ’round and ’round.

I’m spending $2.30/gallon for 87 octane and you don’t have a friggin’ squeegee to wash my windows with? You’ve got to be kidding me.

I can already see how’s it going to happen. I’ll walk in with a faint smile and will be greeted by a larger one. Lambs to slaughter, no idea of their fate. I’ve mulled over a number of opening lines and they’re associated reactions, and I am having difficulty in finding the one leading to the path of least resistance. The process, I imagine, is not unlike choosing baby names for their non-teasability.

Patrick?
Fat Pat
>Ray?
Gay Ray (not that there’s anything wrong with it)
Richard?
You’re kidding, right?

Unfortunately, each and every fantasy leads down the path of mouths open in shock, lamentations, eventual hatred, and inexplicably burning my desk while fashioning a voodoo effigy of me, all while chanting some kind of company mantra. I am not looking forward to it.

So far, I’ve gone through:

Hi _____, so… I have some bad news for you.
[laughter] oh really, what’s up? Are you quitting or something? [laughter]

Hi ____, uh, I need to talk to you about something.
Oh no, what’s wrong with The Project? Is everything OK? What, are you quitting or something? [laughter]

Hi ____. Um, you may have noticed that I’ve been pretty distracted, lately.
>Before you say anything else, congratulations, you’re being promoted!