I Guess Teetering On The Perpetual Brink Of Death Can Really Work Up An Appetite
It might not be evident or apparent from the gregarious and shining personality that comes bursting out of your computer screens every time you fire up the Bucket, but I don't like people. Not any one person in particular; particular persons I like fine. It's people I can't really tolerate. I'm speaking of the nameless, faceless masses that confront you every time you go anywhere or do anything, all of them waiting just outside your door to see how many ways they can fuck up your day.

So really, even though I'm physically able and over-educated, I don't mind not working a whole whole lot. I do miss the activity and the product of work, but mostly that's because my last "job" was graduate school. Unless you count my summer temp job working for a company that was essentially a ponzi scheme. Which I don't.

When you're a teenager and you need--need--money to buy CDs and burritos and gas, you really can't avoid people. Being unskilled labor, you really have no choice. There are times when I wish I were a woman, then I could have hopped on the stripper-pole for a few years to pay for my education right after I paid off my implants. Sure, there are people there too, but you can make six-figures. Any social anxiety can be slept off on a bed stuffed with money.

Being a doughy, bookish, slightly pasty (but still devastatingly handsome) male my main options were food service or video store. Recognizing my own limitations--did I need the temptation of spitting in people's food or, say, being in close proximity to very throwable hot french fry grease should the situation call for it--I went video store.

I quit that eventually after one of my coworkers was tied up and pistol whipped in the course of being robbed just before he closed the store one night. My before-tax $4.25/hour suddenly didn't seem quite worth it.

It's quite a resumé, innit? You'd hire me in a second, wouldn't you? Video store, ponzi scheme, grad school. All I need do is find something that combines all three of those elements... I'm thinking State Senate.

I'm considering home-schooling the kids. That way I can hide here forever. And think of how much we'd all benefit from the corporal punishment regimen.

Considering all this, yesterday then I was completely unprepared for my Monday Night Bingo Kitchen Volunteer experience.

Each family at my kid's school is required to volunteer one night to work the church's Monday night bingo. You can either work the kitchen (4-8:30) or "the floor" (6-10). Being none too keen on the idea of directly dealing with really old people armed with various walking implements and their deadly-serious bingo cards, I chose kitchen.

My vast video-store experience, you will be surprised to know, did me absolutely no good. Nobody once asked me where the new releases were or if they could reserve a copy of Last of the Mohicans.* Not one! Instead they kept asking me for hamburgers and fries and made me do math in my head.

I did find out alot about myself last night, though. For instance, I never knew that I had an irrational fear of the Deep Fat Fryer. Even if I had wanted to, there would be no spiteful greas-throwing. Every order of fries was a paralyzing moment of existential doubt and self-loathing. You see, it's really really hot all the time in there. And you put the fries in this basket and then lower it right into the really really hot grease and it... I don't know, it kind of explodes. There's all this noise and spitting and crackling... and no lid, thanks very much. There's no way that's safe.

There were two others in there, the kitchen regulars. Then there were the two volunteers, me and this guy Rick. Rick had done this "four or five times" already. So with all the panache and swagger of a doomed Homeric hero, he was on Fries Detail. And a good thing too as I was able to avoid what would have no doubt been a very embarrassing panic attack otherwise.

With help then, I survived. No one ever complained, which meant I had no opportunity to spit in anyone's food. But we have to do this at least once per year, so there will be other opportunities. In the meantime it's all microwave food for me if I need it warm. And the doors stay locked and the blinds drawn and the shotgun on top of the bookcase, all to keep the people safely outside.


This post on the Narcissus Scale: 9.5


Pops


*="I will find you!" Man, that was a good movie. Whatever happened to Madeleine Stowe, anyway?

- posted by Pops @ 9:42 AM