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Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA
(Update Time!: For you Easter freaks, my latest Zolton Does Amazon piece over at ZuG.com tackles everyone’s eggiest holiday. Have a gander at Easter Fun-Day!, if you dare.
Also, if you’re in the Providence, Rhode Island area on Tax Day evening — that’s Sunday, April 15th, for you revenuer-dodgers — come down to the Cable Car Cinema for theSENE Film, Music and Arts Festival funny short film screening.
The 7:30pm session includes Viral Video — featuring moi! — so if you’ve never seen me humiliated, smack-talked, bad-mouthed and beaten with a broom… well, I don’t know where the hell you’ve been. But come see the movie. It’s a hoot.)
I’m currently preparing to jet off to that last-minute conference I mentioned earlier this week.
I don’t do a lot of “work-style” travel — which is to say, alone, lightweight and short-term — so the prep for this jaunt has been a little surreal. I’m staying over just a single night, and after weighing my options this morning, decided to pack in my gym bag.
And now, it seems really weird.
I keep staring at this bag, this sack, this thing that usually holds sweats and racquetballs and unspeakably sullied footwear, and I think:
“Of course, I’ll still get there and realize I’ve forgotten my hair, or left my legs at home or something.”
‘There’s a tie in there! An honest to god NECKTIE!‘
It doesn’t seem right. And it’s making me very paranoid that I’ve forgotten something. I don’t need much — nice pants, a shirt, some socks and undies, toiletries, my laptop, that just-in-case tie — but it’s just so light. And the wrong sort of bag. It’s impossible to fathom that even the bare essentials I need for this triplet are sitting in that little lump of plastic and mesh.
And yet. I open it up — and there they are. Uncanny.
Of course, I’ll still get there and realize I’ve forgotten my hair, or left my legs at home or something. But it’s not the bag’s fault. Oddly enough, it’s getting the job done.
In the spirit of “packing light”, I’ll share below the latest homework assignment from that RISD writing class my friend Jenn is teaching. This week, we’re writing a ‘newspaper-style’ column about something embarrassing that happened to us.
Seems like sort of a slam dunk. I write. I embarrass. The two tend to mingle.
Except! This being a ‘newspaper-style’ exercise, we’re pretending that this gasping medium of paper-related communication isn’t on its last legs, and limiting ourselves to the per-inch confines of a traditional newspaper write-up. As in, 600 words or less.
Ouch. I just spent 427 words on updates and introductions. And I haven’t even written anything yet.
(Yes, I counted. I’m OCD like that.)
(451.)
So we’ll reset the counter, and I’ll spend another few hundred — 599, to be exact, title included — on the latest mortifying misfortune to fall on my head. Meanwhile, I’m off to Chicago for the night with my gym bag full o’ goodies. Did I really pack that tie? I’d better check, just one more time.
I’ll be damned. It’s in there. Who’d have thunk it?
Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind. Other times, “kind” is the cruelest thing of all.
Take my job, for instance. We have a fantastic office assistant – helpful, knowledgeable and efficient. In other words, all the things I’m clearly not.
So I stay out of her way, lest I interrupt actual work being accomplished. It’s rare that I need something from her — and rarer still that I muster the nerve to ask. She’s busy with Serious Business Matters. I can always ask someone else where we keep the defibrillation paddles, or call the fire department myself.
One thing I did dare to ask concerns our ID tags. We have these nifty electronic keycards that we swipe to open doors, get into the building, or access the fridge drawer where they keep the good half-and-half. Each card has a handy retracting string and attaches to a metal belt clip.
Only, mine doesn’t. I keep breaking the clip, or tangling the string or accidentally mangling the retractor in the car door. I’ve gone through three of these doodads in a month, and our office assistant is the only person allowed to hand them out. It’s an important and solemn duty — and thanks to my special brand of clumsiness, I fear I’ve abused the system.
So I stopped asking for them. When my last clip broke – the string got caught in a ceiling fan; don’t ask – I sucked it up and went without. I’d taken enough of our long-suffering assistant’s time, and was determined to trouble her no further.
But life as a clip-less employee was difficult. Faced with a locked door or too-black coffee, I’d fumble in my pocket, jousting keys and fluff and sensitive anatomy to find the elusive card. People laughed and pointed. “Clip envy” became my constant companion, and growing shame.
Eventually, I wised up. I found the card would still work from inside my pocket – provided I got it close enough to a sensor. Huzzah! Now I could amble nonchalantly to a door, and with a quick flick of the hip – presto! Open, sez me.
The only door that resisted my trick was the side entrance near the assistant’s desk. That sensor is above waist height, making it tricky to pull off a “pocket swipe”. But not impossible. It just took more of a thrust, and a hop – or three — to work my magic. Finally, the monkey was off my back. Or belt. Whichever.
Frankly, I was proud of myself. I’d never need a belt clip again – and I’d done it without haranguing our beleaguered office assistant. Not only was I empowered, I was helping the company – and the assistant, to boot. Heck, she should be thanking me.
Maybe she would have, too, before Tuesday afternoon. I was returning from a long lunch, hoping to slip unnoticed through the side door. The sensor was especially tricky that day, and my jiggling gyrations just weren’t doing the job. That’s when the assistant came crashing through the door – right in the middle of a leaping pelvic thrust. And another. And one to grow one. I was on kind of a roll.
Now she won’t speak to me – or look me directly in the eye – and I still don’t have an ID clip. Also, I’m prohibited – per the restraining order – from thrusting of any sort within one hundred yards of the office. So I’m back to schlepping out my card at every door, to mocking laughs and downright cruel eyes.
And all because I tried – lord, help me, I tried – to be “kind”.
Permalink | No CommentsI’ve been invited to attend a conference this weekend.
When I say “invited”, of course, I mean that my boss’ boss’ boss’ boss’ boss at my new office came by and said, “hey, maybe you should go to this conference for us“.
I call that an “invite”. Or possibly, if he were another boss or two up the chain, an “offer you can’t refuse”. Either way, I’m packing a bag on Friday and shipping out to represent the group. It’s very exciting. I might have to get a haircut, or buy some new socks or something.
As it turns out, this trip comes with an extra perk. Before I left my old office, I actually submitted a proposal to present a poster at this same conference.
(For the record, I was also “invited” to write that proposal. I’m a pretty popular guy, when it comes to things that might ship me the hell out of town for a few days.
I never thought of it that way. And now I wish I hadn’t. Super.)
The poster was accepted — and soon after, I ran screaming out of the office to my new job. Which was completely unrelated, of course. Mostly completely.
So the kids who were left there have been tasked with putting the poster together, rather than me.
“Smirkers before ex-coworkers, and other stuff that rhymes like that.”
(I was “invited” to still prepare and present and explain the poster. But there are only so many hours in the day, you see. My debutante dance card was full. So with considerable regret, I politely declined.
Hey, polite declines can too end with the word ‘suckers!’. Can TOO.)
I’ve offered what help I could from afar, and even seen a preview of what will be the final product. But it looked like I wasn’t actually going to witness the poster “in action”, since I’d left the job and begged out of the meeting. That was before I was “invited” back in.
So now I’ll be at the conference. And with perhaps some free time to stroll over to the poster area to see what’s what. And therefore, there’s but one thing I can possibly do this weekend:
Find the poster. Pretend to read it. And ask LOTS of loud, pointed questions about everything on it, and not on it, and what should be on it but isn’t.
Because it’s fun to get out of a drudging construction job. But it’s waaaaay fun to also know where all the bodies were buried before they laid the concrete. The smart ass in me can’t resist sauntering by and nonchalantly remarking:
“Say, shouldn’t that number be a seven? I’m no expert, but where you’ve said four there, I believe it really ought to be a seven. Any right-thinking person would say so.”
You might think this would backfire. And it might, if the poster is close enough to a broom closet that they could drag me in there unnoticed and waterboard me in the mop bucket. But failing that, I’m actually in pretty good shape here.
If there’s something wrong on the poster, it’s probably my fault, from back in the day — I mean, I wrote down ‘four’ as the answer for just about everything I had to guess at; it’s just simple law of averages that one of those should probably have been a seven.
(Or so I’m told. The law of averages is too complicated for me to understand. I just assume the average of any set of numbers is — that’s right, four. See how handy?)
The thing is, even if I’m to blame, what’s going to happen? I’ve flown the coop. Cheesed the joint. Scrambled the omelet. Four. I’m in no position to fix anything; in fact, I can point out my own caused problems with near impunity. Why, I may just march right up to that poster and exclaim in a loud accusatory tone:
‘Who’s the drooling idiot who thought that part there would work? Yes, right there — between the beginning bit and the ‘four’. That part?‘
Even if they say, as they may well have reason to do:
‘YOU did. It was YOU what put that part there, even when we protested and shook our heads sadly at your wanton hubris!‘
What’s the consequence? Nobody else knows me at the conference. I can claim to be an innocent passerby and mark them all as delusional, and who’s going to prove me wrong? I’ll go give ’em hell and high water, and watch ’em squirm in the heat. It’s rare to so fully and completely have the upper hand. Even though I like those guys — and I do — I’ve simply got no choice but to rain on their poster parade. It’s what a smartass do. Smirkers before ex-coworkers, and other stuff that rhymes like that.
Oh. Wait.
I just got an email from those guys. They say they’re going to include my name on the poster, given the work I put in. Now if I harangue them, I’m not just busting other peoples’ innocent chops, but mine at the same time. That’d be MY good name I’m sullying. Crap.
So I guess I’ll just go to this thing, and go see the poster and be all polite and nice and lovey-dovey when I talk to the guys who put it together. I guess that’s how it should be, smartass compulsions or no. I want to stay on good terms, and not burn bridges, and think of this as a networking opportunity, and blah blah blah… Fine.
I just hope no jackholes come up asking smirky questions while I’m visiting over there, or we’re going to have words. Ain’t nobody gonna talk smack about MY poster, sparky — y’hear?
Permalink | 1 CommentI mentioned recently that I’m taking a writing class my friend Jenn is teaching at RISD. The nice thing about a writing class is that it keeps me writing. And the nice thing about writing is that whatever I manage to scrabble together for the class, I can double-duty here.
That’s a good thing. Some days, I barely manage half-ass-duty. Double-duty is, like, a dozen times better. Approximately. I sort of quarter-ass-dutied my way through math in school.
Anyway, this week’s assignment was as straightforward as they come. Write a story involving two people. Oh, and make them opposites of each other somehow. Also? They should be historical figures. Aaaaand they’re on a whale watch. And something goes terribly wrong. Go!
Right? Straightforward like a pretzel.
Still, class is class. And since this one has nothing to do with trig or algebra or when two trains leaving Omaha will meet in St. Louis if one is traveling at five-ninths the square root of the other’s velocity multiplied by the number of tons of coal it would take to heat fourteen packs of hot dog wieners in the dining car by thirty-six degrees centigrade, I’m obligated to not sleep through it. Much.
So I wrote a whale watch piece. It’s completely devoid of whalers — and nearly of whales, for that matter — and my ‘opposite’ characters turn out to both be health care professionals from the early part of the 20th century. Which is obviously what you’d expect, given the prompts. I just hope it’s not too cliche. That wouldn’t be fair to the whales.
The mostly completely absent whales. In the story about whale watching.
Damn. Maybe I should sleep through this class. Meh.
Sigmund at Sea
The ominous skies drove most of the tourists into the ship’s cabin. Sigmund alone remained near the bow, staring over the choppy surf. He was soon joined by a curious fellow with a gray parrot perched on his shoulder, sleeping.
“Spotted any?” asked the curious gent softly.
Sigmund startled. “Wha? Oh, nein. I vas merely musing.”
“Your mother vore an eyepatch, perhaps? Or had hooks for hands?”
“Remarkable creatures, the whales. Simply magnificent.”
“Quite. Say, vat’s with zat bird on your shoulder? You fancy yourself a pirate, ya?”
“Oh, Polly? No-”
“Your mother vore an eyepatch, perhaps? Or had hooks for hands?”
The curious man laughed. “How fanciful, sir! Nothing of the kind, I assure you. Polynesia here is my faithful companion and advisor.
“Advisor? You are saying you converse with zis bird, Herr…?”
“Doolittle. John Doolittle. And yes — it’s widely known that parrots can speak.”
“I am vell avare,” came the chilly reply, “of ze vocalization capabilities of ze African gray. My question is whezher you yourself answer in kind.”
“Naturally,” Doolittle shrugged. “To do otherwise would be rude.”
“Fascinating. A completely externalized superego, vith transference to a household pet.”
Doolittle chuckled. “Oh, Polly’s no pet. In fact, she’s the whole reason I’m here.”
“You identify zee bird as your very purpose in life? Ach!” Sigmund retrieved a notebook from his breast pocket and jotted a few lines.
“No, no — Polly’s the reason I’m on this ship. One of the whales is sick and needs my help.”
“Und how do you know zee whale needs help?” asked Sigmund carefully, taking notes.
“Dab-Dab told me.”
“And zis Dab-Dab — your manzervant, ya?”
“Don’t be absurd. Dab-dab is a duck. Polly talked to the whale and told Jip the dog, who told Gub-Gub the pig, who told Dab-Dab, who told me. Simple, really.”
Sigmund’s pencil snapped from the force of his furious scribbling. “I zay, Mister Doolittle-”
“It’s Doctor, actually.”
“My apologies, Doctor. Of… medicine?”
“Indeed. For animals, mostly.”
“Zank goodness for zat. Doctor, I should like to speak vis you further — much, much further — about zis veritable menagerie of delusions you harbor. If you would visit my clinic in Vienna, I believe zat just a few years’ of intensive psychotherapy would cure you of many of zese afflictions. Perhaps even most.”
Doolittle gaped. “Sir,” he managed, “you misjudge me. I’m but a simple Puddleby doctor who assists God’s creatures wherever I can.”
Sigmund scoffed. “God. Now I begin to underztand zese neuroses. Sir, please – accept my help.”
As Doolittle boggled, a rusty speaker overhead squawked to life:
“Attention, passengers. Due to inclement weather, we regret we shall have to abort today’s whale watch. We thank you for your patronage.”
Doolittle leapt into action, sprinting for the starboard lifeboat. Before Sigmund could stop him, Doolittle climbed aboard and hoisted the skiff down, paddling vigorously toward a distant pod of tail-slapping whales.
“Why always ze crazy ones come talking to me?” Sigmund sighed, as he ran to alert the captain of a deluded man overboard.
In the rowboat, atop Doolittle’s shoulder, Polly finally stirred. “You hear any of that wacko’s nonsense?” Doolittle asked as he rowed.
“Beardy?” replied Polly. “Yeah. Now there’s a guy who really needs to get laid. *squawk*!”
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