| Frogger |
[21 Jul 2006|12:19am] |
While returning to work in my car (after a lengthy three-town chase to get the license plate on a vehicle full of thieves, but I digress...), I was caught off guard by a bullfrog who was trying to cross four lanes of traffic. I swerved to an immediate halt, looked in my rear-view mirror, and breathed a sigh of relief.
Now, as unclear as I was about the frog's suicidal tendencies, I knew he needed a friend to talk some sense into him before he took another hop. (For any creature large enough to be positively identified from a car windshield would surely look less impressive when two-dimensional.) So I did what any rational man would do:
I got out of my car, stopped traffic in both directions, and waved the frog safely across the street.
People, who had been waiting patiently, cheered from their car windows once it was safe to proceed.
Feels good to do the right thing every once in a while.
Be kind to your web-footed friends.
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|
| Jeff is 24. |
[12 Jun 2006|08:18pm] |
He hates the French for reasons known only to him.
He is on probation for some alcohol related charge.
He will tell you your car sucks unless it's German.
But he has a heart of gold.
* * *
In late February, while still living in Boston, I drove out to the Berkshires to search for an apartment.
Target hadn't yet opened to the public, but after I found a place to live, I still wanted to see the building that would house my future employment, so I drove to the mall. It was snowing heavily, which is to be expected in mountains in winter. I definitely wasn't interested in staying very long. I parked, looked inside a few of the surrounding stores, and then returned to my car.
* * *
Jeff is 24.
He hates Cuban refugees for reasons known only to him.
He was once so drunk he crashed his truck through a porch at a restaurant.
He talks to you as though he is the only one there.
But this weekend he will walk 24-hours straight for charity.
* * *
My car didn't start when I turned the key.
It was Saturday morning and I didn't have anywhere I needed to be, so I took a breath and conjured a plan. I walked back into the mall and down to Sears to see if they could jump my car battery. I was encouraged to call "AAA" to have my car towed into the Sears garage, which I did. I was assured a quick diagnostic, which naturally pointed to an expensive new battery, but I was ready to be on my way, so I gave the go-ahead.
As is the way with cars and garages, the problem was not so simple. But as a patient man, I told Sears to do what they had to do so I could be on my way. I was ready to pay whatever sum to get things moving along.
I spent nine hours walking aimlessly in the mall that day. I swear, if there hadn't been exhibition chess matches to play in and blood donors to watch, I don't know what I would have done.
I finally got the call and returned to Sears. Enter "Jeff," stage right.
* * *
Jeff is 24.
In all my years of driving, I have never heard a mechanic tell me that my car could not be fixed. And when those words came from Jeff, just as the mall was closing on a Saturday night in the middle of nowhere, I felt rooked something hard. No amount of chess had prepared me for this endgame: Sears apparently did not have the equipment needed to fix my Japanese car.
I really had to rack my brain for options at this point: No rental car places were open until Monday. No buses were running until Monday. No garages that worked on foreign cars were open until Monday...
However, Monday was the day of my summons to appear for Federal Jury Duty on the other side of the state.
I was in a real bind.
But just when all hope seemed lost, Jeff stepped right up to the plate:
He offered to drive me to a hotel and did. He gave "AAA" directions to a garage that could help my car and it was towed once again. He had the chance to let me sleep in my car, in a mall parking lot, in a blizzard, but didn't.
* * *
Jeff is 24.
Until today in the Target parking lot, I hadn't seen him around. He remembered my tale and even my name.
We talked for a good hour about manly stuff such as cars, bars, beer... even golfing. We also hit upon the topics of life and family and friends, which struck me as deeper than your average parking lot talk. I couldn't put my finger on it at first, but there was a certainty in his tone that was well beyond his years, and it threw me off a little.
The topic came up that he was walking in a charity event for his cousin who has Leukemia. He explained how he was going to be the captain of a team for the event and how excited he was. I wished him well, made a donation, and was about to head off when I overheard him accidentally switch "he" with "I" in a sentence related to receiving medical treatment. The investigator in me doesn't like discrepancies, so I asked questions that allowed him to level with me.
And level he did:
Jeff found out in November that he also has cancer.
* * *
Jeff is 24.
Jeff thought about driving his truck into a tree.
Jeff is refusing chemotherapy until he is sure it's necessary.
Jeff said the demons he faced were the toughest he's ever known.
But he will live his final days "Not being a rotten bastard. Those days are done."
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| June Bug |
[02 Jun 2006|10:15pm] |
Autumn has always been my favorite season, but June is definitely my favorite month.
JUNE 1st: Woke up, read, relaxed, surfed the net, caught up on email, showered, ate... the basic, enjoyable beginning of a day off from work. But far be it from usual, on this day I attended a wine tasting class about 40 minutes south of my home, located past miles of early-1900's architecture and sequestered glens.
I arrived first and got a great seat. I was tempted to pig out on the cheese, crackers and strawberries laid out with precision before me, but refrained. I probably would have had a cute girl not sat right down beside me. (As a side note, I was beginning to wonder where all the cute girls were hiding out here. I mean, girls with three children from three different men by age 20 and girls with no teeth are everywhere... not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just... well, let's just say they're not my type. Anyway.) The event was about two hours and was a ton of fun. And the girl? She actually asked for my number! And then called me! The new Superman isn't even out yet and I'm already thinking it's Bizzaro World.
June 2nd: No, I didn't make anyone any breakfast, but I did spend the better part of the day making balloon animals for children! With other Target team members, I volunteered to help out with the town elementary school's "summer-fun" event all afternoon.
I wasn't in the door two minutes before some woman pulled me aside and taught me how to make swords, dogs, and hats out of balloons. Well, I must have found my calling in life... because I was cranking them out! Oh, sure, children tried to throw me curve balls with "make me a dinosaur," or "make me a horse," but I just turned them out grossly misshapen swords, dogs, and hats. I twisted together this mess I called the "Double Cat Hat," hoping children would flee, but once the kids saw it, they all wanted one! This other little girl stared at me intensely holding red, orange, and yellow balloons in her hand. She was on a mission and I knew I was in for trouble: "Make me a butterfly, only the right wing *must* be orange, the left wing *must* be yellow, and the middle *must* be red!" I'm pretty sure she thought the octopus I made was a butterfly because she seemed thrilled with the outcome. Whew!
All in a day's work!
Oh fabulous June, what have you in store for me next?
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| June Bug |
[02 Jun 2006|10:15pm] |
Autumn has always been my favorite season, but June is definitely my favorite month.
JUNE 1st: Woke up, read, relaxed, surfed the net, caught up on email, showered, ate... the basic, enjoyable beginning of a day off from work. But far be it from usual, on this day I attended a wine tasting class about 40 minutes south of my home, located past miles of early-1900's architecture and sequestered glens.
I arrived first and got a great seat. I was tempted to pig out on the cheese, crackers and strawberries laid out with precision before me, but refrained. I probably would have had a cute girl not sat right down beside me. (As a side note, I was beginning to wonder where all the cute girls were hiding out here. I mean, girls with three children from three different men by age 20 and girls with no teeth are everywhere... not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just... well, let's just say they're not my type. Anyway.) The event was about two hours and was a ton of fun. And the girl? She actually asked for my number! And then called me! The new Superman isn't even out yet and I'm already thinking it's bizzaro world.
June 2nd: No, I didn't make anyone any breakfast, but I did spend the better part of the day making balloon animals for children! With other Target team members, I volunteered to help out with the town elementary school's "summer-fun" event all afternoon.
I wasn't in the door two minutes before some woman pulled me aside and taught me how to make swords, dogs, and hats out of balloons. Well, I must have found my calling in life... because I was cranking them out! Oh, sure, children tried to throw me curve balls with "make me a dinosaur," or "make me a horse," but I just turned them out grossly misshapen swords, dogs, and hats. I twisted together this mess I called the "Double Cat Hat," hoping children would flee, but once the kids saw it, they all wanted one! This other little girl stared at me intensely holding red, orange, and yellow balloons in her hand. She was on a mission and I knew I was in for trouble: "Make me a butterfly, only the right wing *must* be orange, the left wing *must* be yellow, and the middle *must* be red!" I'm pretty sure she thought the octopus I made was a butterfly because she seemed thrilled with the outcome. Whew!
All in a day's work!
Oh fabulous June, what have you in store for me next?
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| What I like about me |
[27 May 2006|11:29pm] |
Hi.
So, you know how it supposedly takes a long time to die from a gun-shot wound to the stomach?
Well, I found out... and I mean this purely as an analogy... that it's true: I shot a girl in the stomach this past Monday and it took her until Friday to die. The ironic part? Her last name was actually "Bullett."
See, in my line of work, I slave over the details that lead to easy decisions about a person's guilt or innocence. After sifting through cold, hard facts, I turn around and impose black and white on otherwise colorful people. (Or, in keeping with the macabre gun theme, my investigations on employees lead to one-shot, one-kill solutions.)
But last Monday, I had an opinion.
This was my first mistake.
I had written-off an email from an area investigator that implicated Miss Bullett in a fraudulent scheme. The report attached to the email itemized gift cards being loaded and redeemed under her team member number. I looked at it too quickly, not taking the time to understand it fully, perhaps because I was busy... or perhaps because Miss Bullett didn't strike me as the mastermind type.
Either way, I wrote off the implication and went about my daily routines. Later, while having a discussion in her presence, it struck me that I should ask her about gift cards in general. It was a quick talk, focused on how strange it was that the guest service area has people loading and passing around gift cards to pay for lunches, sodas and such.
*BANG!*
I had completed my investigation by Thursday and assembled evidence on the $800 she had stolen. I sat her down for formal interrogation on Friday and fired her that day. I came to find out (well after the realization that I had lodged a second bullet in my own foot) that the "stomach wound" I had inflicted caused her to lose sleep and throw up for days, racked with nerves and guilt.
It wasn't intentional, but I must admit I lost a little sleep myself after learning that.
Am I an awful human being?
How about if I tell you all that I rewarded myself with ice cream?
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| Weekend Warrior |
[11 May 2006|01:38pm] |
Ok, so it's Thursday now, and I'm going to talk about events that took place Sunday through Tuesday, but anyway...
So my brother and his wife totally had a baby boy!
And I totally made an unrelated three minute movie about why the Travel Channel should send me around the world!
And I found out my old boss from the Gap has somehow magically become my new boss at Target! What are the odds!?
And the Fam3K BBQ date has been set!
And I have to go to work now!
Bye!
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| Ghost Hunters! |
[06 May 2006|10:16pm] |
Even on my day off, I was at the mall.
BUT!
I had a good excuse: Jason, Grant, and Brian from Sci-Fi's "Ghost Hunters" were in signing autographs.
FUN!
BUT!
I am not a paying subscriber to LJ anymore, so I can't post the picture I had taken of us.
Does anyone know another way to post a pic on LJ that is only on my desktop?
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| Silvertongue |
[03 May 2006|11:30pm] |
Recently, I drove 2 1/2 hours back to Boston to fight a speeding ticket.
Short of one violation that I shall refer to as "the seatbelt incident of 2001," my driving record is flawless. It's had to be clean for employment purposes, which really says nothing of my driving...
Thankfully, this trip turned into time well spent, resulting in my third victory to date. It goes down as the most difficult, though, due to an encounter with a unique form of classism. I play a good game in court, fighting the good fight, saying the right things, dressing for success, etc. But on this day, being early and being professional in appearance and demeanor meant nothing to the South Boston district clerk magistrate. He's seen it all, heard it all, done it all, and when the hot air is blown, he knows who can afford to pay and who cannot.
White defendant + nice suit = guilty as charged. Next case.
I was there two hours early, was sworn in twice, and sat amongst one of the northeast's finest melting pots. It was because of these two hours that I was able to calculate percentages of victories and defeats, build trends, take bets, and come to my aforementioned conclusion.
100% of the defendants who either showed up late, looked like they found their clothes in a dirty puddle, or who could be considered a social minority met with the clerk for a minute and left cheering. 100% of those people who appeared they could afford to pay met with the clerk for no less than ten minutes and held crumpled papers and angry faces when they left.
I knew when my name was called it was a no holds barred, steel cage match. I thought better of taking in my folding chair, however...
The state trooper sat me down, read me the details of my speeding offense, and introduced me to the clerk. I threw my first punches, calling them each "sir," respectively. This was followed by a nice round of "speak only when spoken to," and "I have been sworn in twice since 9 AM." He kicked me in the junk with: "So you think that makes my police officer doubly wrong?" But I managed a nice dodge with a "I will gladly go over the facts of the evening if you would like, sir." I didn't flinch or spin a tale and I always looked him in the eye. He tried another trick, trying again to get me to transfer blame, but I didn't fall for it. When the ten rounds were up (sorry to have mixed pugilistic metaphors), he let me go with a "pass." This didn't stop his knock out punch:
"If you ever get another ticket around here, bud, you pay it off."
Good times.
Oh, and "the seatbelt incident of 2001?" Well, I was pulled over for having a headlight out, and before the cop had made it to the window of my car, I had undone my seatbelt to reach over and get my registration from the glovebox. I thought I was doing a good deed getting my papers in order when, in fact, I was slapped with a fine for having my seatbelt off...
I would have won that day in court, too, but I was sleeping in my car on the side of the road in some other state when my trial date came.
Ah, life. You vixen, you.
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| Sucked right in. |
[24 Apr 2006|09:39pm] |
Wow. I just spent the better part of an hour in a time machine.
Enough has been said about Myspace and Friendster to fill a very long and boring book. Yet, I cannot fully comprehend what just happened: I fell right into a black hole of nostalgia, losing all sense of time and... well, "space."
It started with an alert in my hotmail account. We've all seen it before:
"Jason would like to be added to your Myspace friends list."
Sure. No problem. I haven't been on in months, but I'll jump on to add in an old pal.
Then it happened.
His friends became my friends in a big internet orgy. Names and faces and lives I hadn't seen in at least a decade were suddenly front page news:
"What the? He's moving where? She went back to school? My ex is getting married? He's gay now?"
I had no interest in resurrecting the dead with a "Hey, how are ya?!" It just didn't make sense. The last words of Proximo (from the movie Gladiator) come to mind:
"...shadows and dust."
And if Myspace is a vacuum...
Hmm.
Well, I may never get back the time I spent looking, but documenting my foibles certainly does ease the pain.
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| The Hamburger Hop. |
[20 Apr 2006|10:29pm] |
A day off. But just barely.
Complicated calculations for my company have started to seep into my stream of conscience on vacation days.
Is that like working for free?
* * *
It was so beautiful outside today. I finally took the opportunity to check out this little road-side burger shack that just re-opened for the season. On any other day, I would pass by its tacky pastel picnic tables and giant umbrellas, but today was different somehow...
Oh, yes. I was directionless and needed a place to go.
The savory aromas crept into my car window, filled my nostrils with purpose, and my wheel began to turn.
"They couldn't reeeeeally have 10 types of burgers... could they? And does that say... 60 flavors of ice cream?! I'll be the judge of that."
A sucker for a good diversion, I spent a good 15 minutes looking at the menu before settling on "Open-faced Chili Burger." Like a child, I acted surprised when they told me it came with french fries:
"Is that so?! This is my lucky day after all!" I said with absolutely no sarcasm.
Despite what should have been considered "fast food," this burger meal took no less than 30 minutes to prepare. In that time, people came and went. Children dropped their ice cream cones and looked perplexed. And I sat at the hot pink table under a rainbow umbrella twiddling my ambiguously gay thumbs.
When the burger finally arrived, it wasn't so much a burger as it was... stew.
"Uh, can I have a spoon for this?"
It was a soup sandwich. I had requested a burger that I needed to drink and didn't know what to do.
Birds started to laugh at me and I cried.
I guess it wasn't my lucky day after all.
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| Jonathan and Joshua |
[15 Apr 2006|11:24pm] |
I'm not much of a babysitter, but I serve when called to duty.
Recently, perhaps in exchange for facilities to do laundry, I looked over my two nephews, Jonathan and Joshua. It was only for a few hours, but even those few hours felt like forever when the 2-year-old crapped his diaper the second his father left for work.
The television seemed to be keeping them entertained for the most part, which helped. They seemed particularly fond of the plug-n-play Sega Genesis joystick. (The one with such pre-programmed classics as "Ecco the Dolphin" and "Sonic the Hedgehog 2.") The most popular title of the afternoon was called "The Ooze," where the player became this skull surrounded by a pool of toxic slime.
"You have to get the HEAD with the EYES so you can GET ANGRY and FIGHT!" Jonathan would scream whenever looking for power-ups. It was certainly hard to argue with him there.
Lunchtime requests were for "Only one chickie, with ketchup. And Twizzlers with the green drink." A seemingly simple request on the face of it, but I learned that children have rituals that mustn't be tampered with:
"Why didn't you FLIP it!?! AAAAAAAARRRRRARARRARAAAA!!! You have to WARM on BOTH SIDES!"
There was similar rage involved with placing Skittles and Goldfish in the same cup. A mistake I will never make again.
The most horrid moment of the afternoon came when Joshua insisted on using his hands to find out what had made his pants so heavy. I knew I had to learn to change a diaper fast, or he was going to start making Thanksgiving turkey hand-print art on every flat surface of the house. I did my best, but really had no clue how to make the new one stay on. I must have done a good enough job, though, because he said "Thanks!"
His appreciation was a little too surreal for me, I'm afraid.
I don't think I'm parent material. At least not yet.
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| Dave |
[15 Apr 2006|01:09am] |
"If another one of those Goth kids tries to steal a God-damned Squeeze-Peep..."
-Dave, age 59
Dave is one of the door guards I oversee at work. Dave is a funny, funny man.
On Friday nights, you will find Dave at our store's mall entrance. He protects the assets of our company from the likes of children who became something else entirely the day Hot Topic came to town.
For reasons known only to them, podunk-town night-crawlers love Easter paraphernalia. Furthermore, they really love Peeps. Especially the new, oversized plush-toy version of the classic sugar fluff-puffs. And Dave will "be damned if these punks think they're gonna get one for free."
I don't think I've ever laughed at work until today.
Listening to this man, who at one point helped the C.I.A. stop a spy at General Electric from selling energy secrets to the Russians, go on and on about "Squeeze-Peeps..." Well, that just did me in.
"What a country!" -Yakov Smirnoff
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| Apprehension Basics |
[11 Apr 2006|11:26pm] |
I had to be re-certified to apprehend people when I switched companies not long ago.
Several of the people in the class were new to the profession, so the teachers really had a ball with them.
This one girl had to apprehend the teacher in a professional manner who had just stuffed condoms, K-Y warming goo, and a King Kong DVD in his bag while running towards the exit. "My boyfriend lifts weights!" the teacher screamed, perhaps hoping to dissuade her, but to no avail.
I just thought I would share this amusing anecdote with you all.
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| Everything but the kitchen sink... |
[11 Apr 2006|01:26pm] |
Spring is here.
And for every tweety-bird and sprouting plant, there is a buzzing beast and crawly critter. In fact, a hornet family has just moved into my kitchen, and they have already begun to unpack.
They took advantage of the buyer's market and purchased real estate about a week ago. "Somewhere with a view," was Queen Hornet's only request. In hornet speak, this means "a strategic vantage point in a hard-to-reach place by the window."
I really wouldn't have cared so much if they stayed on *their* side of the window, but they have insisted on building an upside-down playground in their backyard / on my ceiling. I spent an hour last week negotiating with the surveyor hornet before throwing balled-up socks at him. He eventually landed on a flat enough surface to use my new double-seal Gladware as a maximum security cell.
I let him go a few days later for good behavior, but he developed a nefarious plot, and returned last night with a vengeance.
Here is the itemized list of things I threw at the hornet before recapturing him:
4 neckties
10 plastic shopping bags
1 button down shirt
1 hospital gown
7 cups of water
And though no kitchen sink was thrown, he did land in it before his second capture.
Massachusetts isn't a three-strikes state, so I'm really not sure what his sentence should be.
Any advice, cruel world?
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| The meat of the matter... |
[10 Apr 2006|08:05pm] |
This weekend I went on an adventure to a far away place called Philadelphia in the land of make-believe. While there, I saw one of the most visceral, soulless, and immortal (or, to the protesters in the rain, certainly "immoral") exhibits this world has ever known:
Gunther von Hagens' Body Worlds.
http://www.fi.edu/bodyworlds/
(May not be appropriate for office viewing.)
It still isn't clear to me why I wanted to visit the Franklin Institute's main hall, but I did, and I probably learned something. I probably learned that the human body is the most amazing machine ever. How it is perfectly adapted to walk a soul through this world until that soul is sick of learning lessons.
And I say this because, for two hours, I was shown that we're meat and guts and bones and blood and strings all strung together if we're not something else, and I don't know if I'm ready for that to be the sum of my being. Or of our beings.
Boy-howdy.
I mean, if I'm not smiles and jokes and smarts and good-looks whistling down the street in my underpants, then what's the point?
And speaking of underpants, I had to wear a bathing-suit to work today because I didn't do any laundry.
Wait, no one else has done that?
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| Casket and Flagon |
[04 Apr 2006|08:56pm] |
My new place is the top, front apartment in an old farm-house in the middle of nowhere. It's just the way I like it: No crack-house across the street; no pot smoke seeping through the floor boards.
Nice and peaceful.
On the first floor lives a 70 year-old woman who, after I walked in the main door today, exclaimed:
"Ah-HA! Caught you! Join me for some wine, or perhaps a Manhattan, yes?"
A moment went by and I conceded. Some company would be nice, I thought. Especially since I'm in my third job in a row where I'm not allowed to make any friends and I know absolutely no one out here...
Unlike the overwhelming emptiness of my abode, her place was well lived in. I could hardly believe we were even living in the same house. A Himalayan cat trounced up to my foot an sniffed.
"That's Geoffrey," she said.
We sat down and enjoyed a plate of cheese and crackers and some of the hardest alcohol I've ever tasted.
We talked about our lives, jobs, and about the early death of her husband, Charlton (who was cremated with their other cat not long ago. They were interred in a big urn and little urn, respectively).
She started farting after about an hour of talking which I took as my cue to leave.
Good times, overall.
This neighbor is Mr. Rogers approved.
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| I went to a museum one Saturday... |
[03 Apr 2006|10:21pm] |
It's called the P.E.M. (Peabody-Essex Museum)
There happened to be a live world-music event, which was rad. Especially when the Eskimos sang a song about "the feeling of drinking a Coke in the springtime."
This ancient, indigenous song made me want to jingle change in front of a vending machine so as to get a Coke of my very own.
Later, in the bathroom, a full-feathered Native American peed next to me.
What a day!
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| The first six things I put in the fridge at my new place were: |
[02 Apr 2006|11:09pm] |
(1) A Cadbury Creme Egg
(2) Chocolate Milk
(3) Orange Juice
(4) A Starbucks bottled Frappaccino
(5) A Hershey's Take Five bar
(6) Cranberry Juice
Note to self: There is no food.
You should really buy something to eat that will keep you alive.
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