"I have measured my life out in coffee spoons."
--- T. S. Eliot
In a few short weeks I've gone from quoting Eddie Van Halen to T. S. Eliot. Don't panic, a colleague of mine gave me The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations for Xmas a few years back, said it would help me score with chicks ... you know ... pretending you're smart and stuff? So tonight as I look at the Van Halen quote I'm thinkin' ... is this going to be the set in cyber-stone forever? Like, the handful of people that actually read the Mud will go "Oh there it is, the weekly intro that never changes but makes me feel safe, comfortable and warm, there's nothing like tradition." well, I don't know ... if I were James Lileks I'd have you email me and tell me how to do my job but I'm not, I'm Gather T. Swanson, "Senior Styrofoam Circle Cutter" by day, "Cyber Bard" by night.
I could almost hear the gasp over the world-wide fiber optic cables as I revealed my actual day job title. Let's get a few things straight. We had almost a hundred hits last week on the Mud page and most of those were from me checking to see where the odometer was at. I'm subleasing server space from a rock band that hasn't had a gig in 8 months. Unlike that particular band I'm not about to jump on the self-deprecation vibe and try to to make a joke out it. I'm here to make money and lots of it. I don't know exactly how, but that's the plan.
In the meantime, the day job is what I still need to focus on to keep food on the table and Rugrats licensed paraphernalia in the kids' toy box. Hey, maybe cutting Styrofoam circles doesn't sound like much to you but that's my gig, I take it seriously and by the way ... I'm damn good at it! When I first started in the biz, I'll have to admit, I wasn't a natural. We're not talking about any automated process here either, this is nothing but one man, one sabre saw .. and a big hunk of Styrofoam. My first day on the job I was cuttin' octagons and ovals left and right and I nearly lost the job right there. A wise old vet named Everett Spencer (they called him Spence) saw me struggling and walked over to my station.
"Kid, you want some advice from an old goat like me? I ain't smart but I been cuttin' Styrofoam circles ever since they invented the stuff and prior to that, I cut circles straight out of balsa trees with a keyhole saw and before that we used to use honeycombs. Cuttin' them was a bitch cos' we were so busy, we didn't have time to chase the bees out first."
It was like I was listening but not really, I was eying the break room and couldn't help but notice a brand new Proctor Silex coffee pot. "Huh?" I said.
He pulled a pipe out his back pocket and it reeked like stale cherry blend tobacco, he clamped down on the pipe stem with his small corn colored teeth, fished a Zippo lighter out of his pocket and puffed up a series of clouds that that were so disgustingly pungent that my shoulders went into a series of uncontrollable spasms although I felt perfectly fine otherwise. I noticed a swarm of bees hightailing it up the stair well. Then he picked up my sabre saw, held it shoulder high and stared at the hunk of Styrofoam.
He said "Kid, the funny thing about a circle is ... it has no beginning, and it has no end , I suppose that makes all of it the middle then but I never thought'a that till right now. This hunk'o Styro may look like a square to you but when I look at it, I see a circle that just wants out. What you have to do is shift all of your energy to the Styro's heart, it's inner self, free your arms of their physical connection to your body and let them float like elegant swans in nature's finest ballet, and most important of all ..."
Now I was hanging on every word "What, what, what's most important of all?"
"Do you have any other job prospects?"
"Not a one."
"OK, gotch'ya ... Kid, you gotta approach each circle as if it were entirely different from the last. Though they may look the same, each one is different, just don't let the Q.A. Engineer know that. At the end of the day, you'll have a big pile of circles and that will be a monument for your honest toil."
I couldn't help but notice that the Proctor Silex had an automatic drip-stop on it so you could pull it off the burner while it was still brewing. "Huh? Oh, yeah, honest toil, gotch'ya gotch'ya ... say Spence, what do they do with all these circles anyway?"
He took a couple puffs off his pipe, shrugged his shoulders and said "Kid, I just work here, I ain't gettin' paid to ask questions."
He hobbled back to his work station, tapping the pipe against his hip then putting it back in his pocket. He walked no more than three more feet when he mysteriously vanished! Disappeared right before my very eyes, I'm not talking metaphorically or anything like that. This was pure Star Trek transport stuff.
Funny thing is, when I asked around, nobody had ever heard of Spence. There was no record of him on the payroll system and he had for sure never been to any of the after work happy hours. It worked out ok for me though because I copped his coffee mug and since he had left the keys for his car, I took that too. It wasn't the greatest, a '78 Plymouth Volaré wagon but it got me around for a few years.
One day, while I was sipping a fresh cup of mud on my morning break I caught a faint aroma of cherry blend tobacco. I got up and walked over by the time clock where they had photos from company picnics from years past on a bulletin board full of OSHA info that no one ever read. I just about spilled my sacred cup of mud as I looked at the photo from 1915. There, in the back row, was Spence! Then I heard a faint voice in the air, a whisper with a little reverb added, no, more like digital delay I suppose.
"They look the same but each one's different."
Someone was shaking my shoulder.
"Huh?"
I turned around and there was the QA Engineer with a micrometer and one of my Styro circles.
"Gather T., these circles, they look the same, but each one's different."
"Oh yeah." I said. "I'll umm, I'll be more careful."
I was still a little shook up from seeing Spence in that old photo and when I looked back at the bulletin board, there weren't any pictures at all, just a bunch of postings with OSHA rules and regs. I had a few minutes left on my break and I'd read all the People magazines in the break room so I thought I'd read the OSHA stuff.
"Blah, blah blah ... blah, blah, blah ...blah, blah, blah" that's when I saw the signature at the bottom of the page, Everett "Spence" Spencer, Chief Guy at OSHA. Below it in the finest fine print I've ever seen it said this...
"Kid, the QA Engineer's gonna be out sick on Friday, you been workin' hard and ya gotta give yourself a day of fun here and there .... cut a couple ovals for me...
...Your gruff but lovable guardian angel, Spence ... oh, and how's the car runnin'? Those slant-sixes'll run forever, have a good weekend!"
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Now that I'm getting writing assignments from my internet landlords it's helped me focus and find a center. It was suggested that I do so to keep from ranting and swearing (which is what I do when given free reign).
I just had my first performance review with my sponsors, The Rough Fish World Empire, and it was suggested that either I take a vacation or check into a treatment center. Seeing as it's only my 3rd week they were worried I may not make it to the end of my 52 week contract without somebody getting hurt.
It was also suggested that I write only when the sun is shining and only when the strongest substance running through my bloodstream was a succulent blend of earthy red corpuscles, gleaming white platelets and a nice hearty base of the finest plasma.
Naturally I had a problem with those demands because who can truly express themselves when the sun is casting its unnatural spell by illuminating everything equally? No my friend, expression is best carried out under the cover of darkness when all is hidden until singular elements are unveiled one by one by the artist's uncertain source of inner light. Some by design, others by chance, which is of the utmost importance; premeditated acts of revelation will unveil nothing but a vacant housing for the soul.
So we worked out a deal where I'm allowed to write until midnight.
As far as running a purifier on my blood supply? I was issued one of the green cans of MJB and it's supposed to last till the end of the contract.
Now, I'm not one to complain but I gave the green MJB a chance and the experience was really quite awful. I could tell right away by the aroma that I'd been duped in this deal. And the taste? My paranoid suspicions began to gel. I turned the can around and around and around in a frenzy looking for the dreaded word "decaffeinated." My head was pounding at 120 BPM and my tongue felt like a synthetic instrument of sensory laboratory analysis.
Maybe they altered the label. This was all an experiment to mess with my subconscious, a placebo conspiracy of sorts. I checked my watch, it was 9:30, I had 2 1 /2 hours to finish writing for the day and I was damned if I was going to do it on a bad batch of disguised decaf.
The security guard was at the front desk reading an old issue of the Catch O' the Day, sipping a demitasse of Jäger and laughing uncontrollably so it was easy to slip by him.
-----------
I walked into Lunds with the green can under my arm.
"I'd liked to exchange this for real coffee please!" I told the scoliated hostess.
"Oh but sir, dis is real coffee don'cha know?" She talked just like the Mom from Bobby's World.
"Ma'am?" I said "I know real coffee, I've tasted real coffee, I've undergone aroma therapy with real coffee and this Ma'am ... is not real coffee!"
"But it sez right' chere on da label .... COFFEE ... dis really is real coffee."
She seemed a little snippy and told me to follow her to Aisle 1 where we looked at the entire MJB line.
"Now looky here" she said in a disgusted tone "Now I've helped you many times in dis here store and I've never, NEVER let you down Mister. Remember when you needed Lemon Grass? I found you Lemon Grass and I'm sorry it didn't have the effect you tot it would! Remember when you didn't know da difference between turnips and parsnips? I set you straight big time and your dinner party went wit' out a hitch. Oh yah, remember da time yuh almost purchased doze unlubricated ribbed watch'ya' muh callits? Well I'm sure I saved somebody from a rough ride that night I'll tell yah!"
She pointed her bony finger toward the 3rd shelf from the floor and said "What does it say der on dat can Mr. Smarty Pants?"
My head was hanging low as I stared at the perfect wax job on the pristine tiled floor. I mumbled "Decaffeinated"
"What Mister? I can't hear yah, could'ja speak up der please."
I raised my head up and shook it from side to side with each syllable and in a loud sing-songy voice said "DE - CAF - FEIN - AT - ED!!!"
"And does it say "decaffeinated" on dat der can yuh got under yer arm?"
"No, it does not say decaffeinated."
"Well den, what's da problem?"
"Look, I don't have much time, if MJB's gonna @%*$ with me and try to pass this off as the real thing they've just started a war. I think we all know that green is the international color indicating decaf don't we"
She glared at me through decades of eyeglass amendments and said "What does ampersand percentage-sign asterisk dollar sign mean?"
I said, "Look, I've been paying your inflated prices for years just because you make me feel warm and loved but I think I'll be taking my business to Cub from now on."
"Oh Mr. Swanson, you won't last 2 minutes over at Cub believe you me!"
"Oh yeah, I have friends that are doing just fine over there!"
"Did they tell yah about bagging yer own?"
"Yes, I'm quite familiar with the concept, I used to shop at Rainbow before I became a writer."
"And how about da sheer size a da place, do yuh know about dat?"
"Hey, I've got a good pair of shoes and a new GPS locator."
"OK Mr. Smarty Pants, if yuh tink yah can do it, be my guest, but don't come crawling back to Lunds because we don't tink you're a nice guy anymore."
I was heading toward the door but stopped dead in my tracks then slowly turned around. "Excuse me?"
"Oh, we know all about you, we been reading Monday Mud on our breaks and we just don't tink yer a nice guy anymore what wit all dat swearing and yokes about da President."
"Well, it was only one."
"Yah, and you took dat right out of Der's Something About Dat Der Mary so yer a plagiarizing tief as well, yuh know."
I gazed into her innocent eyes and said "Do you really talk that?"
She let out a heavy sigh, pulled a pack of Luckys out of the pocket of her green apron, tapped the pack against her knuckles and put the end with the imprint to her ancient cracked lips. With a graceful sleight of hand she produced a large wooden match out of nowhere, ran it across the stainless-steel edging of the shelves until I heard the snap of combustion followed by the whooshing sound of a hungry flame gobbling up any neighboring pockets of oxygen within its powerful perimeter and brought the dazzling flame to the end of the Lucky Strike as her cheeks exercised their hollow chasms of concave muscularity and billows of smoke filled the sterile atmosphere of Aisle #1.
"No Honey, I don't." She said in a low Kathleen Turner-like voice and exhaled a cancerous cumulus cloud in my direction. "You see, ever since our manager Ken, by the way, all grocery store managers are named Ken or Kenny, saw Fargo he thought it would be cute to have a hostess with that accent thing going, thought it would be good for business. That stupid little ^#!@(*#!"
"But, how?"
"It worked for you didn't it?" It's very "in" to have that image now, it instills a naiveté and a comfort level for the customer who feels protected and taken care of, and speaking of protected, how'd your date go the other night? Man, we laughed about that for a while after you took off ... non-lubricated oh boy! Anyway, when people shop here they feel so good they don't even notice that our cole slaw sucks and that we charge $5.49 for blister pack of 4 Anacins. Man, what where you thinking Dude?
Well, we hugged and she swapped my green can of MJB (which she admitted was an inferior blend of a decaffeinating process that went south and was boosted with some cheap trucker's speed) for a more reliable can the "oh so fancy sounding" European Roast. Then she told me to reach up and cup my hand over the camera hidden inside a fake jar of herring and she crammed a fresh carton of Camel Lights, soft pack, down the front of my coat, slapped my ass and told me to scram and use the exit by the gumball machines and, "Oh, yeah, put a rush on it."
I left feeling good, my faith restored in the darkness of human nature and feeling confident that I would soon be enjoying a fruitful night of writing.
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Somewhere in the Eastern Time Zone Last Wednesday
"Honey, it's almost 9:00, can you switch to Drew Carey?"
"Babe, I don't think it's on tonight."
"Why not? Is there some special on instead?"
"Oh, ah don't know, probably some news crap with Sam Donaldson, I get enough'a that at work."
"What else is on? Where's the TV guide?"
With a panic stricken face, he tries sliding the TV guide under the couch with the back of his foot.
"Oh, I don't know Babe, I haven't seen it all week!"
"That's funny, it was just here, it had a picture of George Wendt as Tweedle-Dum on the cover."
"Oh that guy is great as Norm isn't he? Damn, I sure wish Cheers was on ... right now, damn woman, why don't we get cable?"
"You said there was too much coverage of current events on cable."
"Yeah, that's right Babe, hey let's check out Party of Five or Quinn, Medicine Woman."
"You told me that you hate that show."
"Damn Baby, I used to but it really cleaned up on the People's Choice Awards."
"Where's the remote?"
"Ah don't know, I saw Sox batting it around earlier, damn cat's always takin' stuff!"
"Well get up off your Arkansas !$$ and turn the channel!"
"Hey Baby, I got an idear, how 'bouts if I play the sax for yuh?"
"Oh, not the damn sax, why can't you play the guitar or something?"
"Babe, I tried to learn, I got the Roy Clark instructional thing but I just don't have time these days."
He opens the closet and fishes around up on the top shelf for the saxophone case. About a hundred small books come down in an avalanche, hitting him in the head and landing on the floor. His eyes bug out as he starts scooping up all the copies of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass and throwing them back into the closet.
"What are all those books doing there? What are they?"
"Nothing Babe, just a bunch of songbooks that I had up by my sax!"
She gets up and walks toward the TV to turn the channel. He leaps across the room and lands right in front of the TV before she gets there and starts jamming on Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow."
"God, you know I hate that song!"
She pushes him out of the way and turns to the local ABC affiliate but the screen is solid blue with big letters that say "CHANNEL BLOCKED."
"What the hell is going on here???????????????????"
Hey, I'm sorry to break in the middle of another
story but I just checked my word count and I've gone way, way over!
So, that's it for this week, see you next Monday!
Hey! Now We Have Archives!
Monday Mud 02/15/99 Orientation
Monday Mud 02/22/99 Smoke on the Water, Billy
Ocean & EBay
Monday Mud 03/01/99 Dream Weavin', Sgt Snorkel's
Secret Code, Ruby Tuesday's
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