Our Dumb Blog

“You want to get the mail?”

“Sure!” I took the huge janitor ring of keys Ken was holding out. Getting the mail is one of the highlights of my workday. Not much of one, but when you have a job with negativestress levelslike I do, any variation in the normal scheme of data entry or book packing is welcome. It’s not like the rest of the day is awful, just… uneventful.

The first day I took a solo trip to the post office, Ken asked me if I wanted to take my reliable (for the most part) automatic sedan or his stall-prone, beatup, stick shift pick up. I chose the truck, of course. I’ll take my thrills any way they come. “Now the gas gauge,” Kencommented on my first expedition, “It’s a little funny. It goes up all the way to full, then comes down to E, but it’s not really empty. It’s on the second time down that you have to start worrying.”

I went out to the truck and cranked it up, watched the gas gauge climb to E, then shifted into reverse and let out the clutch, backed a few feet and performed my first customary stall. When I’d backed out sufficiently, I maneuvered over to first and completed my second obligatory stall. One final crank, let out the clutch, gun the gas, spew gravel, and I was down the driveway. I flipped on the radio to the classical station Ken always listens to. It seems like sacrilege to listen to anything else in that old pick up. Got the mail out of the P.O. Box and stalled a couple of bonus times, not required, on the way back.

I was back at my desk pecking book titles into the computer when Ken came in again with the keys. After my two stalls and gravel-shooting tire spin, I was back out on the road, this time breaking my rule and listening to the alternative station as loud as Ken’s speakers would allow.

First stop was the printers. I asked for Matt and handed him the check Ken had given me. Matt picked up a box of paper and followed me outside. He stopped at the black sports car parked out front, but I continued to the white, beat up truck parked in the lot. “Oh,” he said, realizing his mistake, “I thought that was yours.” I laughed and opened the passenger side door of the pickup for him.

Next stop was the liquor store. I’m becoming a familiar face there, stopping a couple of times a week. I think everyone who works there recognizes me now, the kid who comes in and asks, “You got any boxes?” Then I walk back out and around to the side, where they roll out stacks of empty cardboard vodka containers and I toss them into the bed of the truck. Some days I get less than a dozen, but Monday is a great day. One of the guys brought out stack after stack of boxes, and I kept loading them higher and higher in the truck. “That should do it,” I said as he brought out one last pile. Then I thanked him as he nodded and disappeared behind the closed door.

This was more boxes than I’d ever gotten before. I took the tarp from where I’d brought it inside the cab and tied it down over the boxes as tight as I could. It took extra twine thistime, and I spent as while cutting and tying. A car drove up beside me into the loading area, and a lady walked from it around to the front of the building. I finished up as she came back and knocked on the door. The man’s voice came from the other side. “What?” she said, “That’s all? But I called this morning!” I climbed into the cab and took off (without stalling) before anyone could say anything to me. This seems to happen all the time. I clean out the place just as someone comes up and starts pleading with an apologetic ABC employee. But I don’t want to share my boxes. They’re mine!

I drove back with the window down and the radio up, using the mirrors on either side of the truck to manipulate lane changes, since the center rearview mirror was full of green tarp. I wondered if the needle leaning up against the E was for real or not, then shrugged and gunned my way to fourth. It’s a long drive from Powhatan to Chesterfield, where the nearest liquor store is located, about 20-25 minutes… IF I drive the speed limit, which also seems to be a sacred law of Ken’s truck. It’s also generally a good idea on Route 60, which leads directly from Ken’s driveway to the liquor store and of which most of my drive to work consists. There always seems to be a cop coming or going or parked out to catch speeders. So I just set the cruise in my car to 55 or try to keep there abouts in Ken’s truck. Picked up the home mail at the end of the driveway, spewed more gravel, and reluctantly turned off “Sixth Avenue Heartache.” Then I remembered, turned the key back on, and reset the radio to the classical station.

Tonight, as I sat at the piano after dinner but before coffee, Ken came breathlessly in after popping out to get some anti-itch cream for his poison ivy. “I’m sorry!” he exclaimed, “I should have checked. You were out of gas!”

“I was?”

“Yeah, I thought I had a 16 gallon tank, but when I filled it up just now, it took 16 and a half gallons. You were driving on negative gas!”

Sometimes you never know just how exciting your life really is.

I took King’s X out of the CD player and am now listening to Bach. Let’s see, it’s Concerto for Two Violins. Before I left to come to Virginia, I ransacked my family’s collection of CDs on a whim for everything there by Bach. Which evidently was two CDs, because that’s all I found when I went searching through the box I brought them in just now.

I’m listening to Bach, instead of George Winston, Matthew Sweet, or King’s X, for a specific reason. Today was Thursday and so staff dinner night. Bart, the other intern, gave an “oral report” on Brahms this evening. In discussing the composer, he played a few seconds of Bach, a classical composer who’s name starts with S (and which, obviously, escapes me), and then some Wagner. Then we listened to a string quartet thing and Brahms’ 4th symphony. I’ve never had any formal training in classical music, so this was a real learning experience for me. Now I possess a big mental hook on which to hang the name “Brahms”.

Bart usually comes over on Thursdays for the whole day. Today, Jenna came with him to do some audio editing for Ken. Yours truly completed labelling THE LAST book today (yes, thank you, that’s quite enough applause) and, in fact, ran out of things to do. Ken remedied that by assigning me the packing of the books into boxes.

But because so many staff personell were here in this corner of Virginia today, Ken took us out to lunch. Actually, he took Jenna to get the mail on the way to the place we were going to eat and instructed Bart to take me in a few minutes to Cajos in Flatrock, basically a single stoplight between where he lives and where I live.

I was entering the lastfew books into the computer when Bart finally said, “Uh, we were supposed to have left five minutes ago.” So we got in his vehicle and rolled slowly down the driveway. “Ugh,” groaned Bart, “Gravel. I hate gravel.”

“What’s this?” I asked, “Here you are driving a quasi all-terrain vehicle,” my eyes searched and came to rest on the word “Jeep” emblazoned on the glove compartment door, “a Jeep, in fact, and you’re complaining about a non paved road?”

By now we’d reached the end of the driveway and were picking up speed down highway 60. “Well, you see,” Bart replied, “I have these new tires with deep grooves, and just about now all the gravel that’s gotten stuck in them is getting kicked up…” Metallic clinks resounded from the base of the jeep. “…and chipping the paint.”

“So you have a Jeep and yet you don’t like to drive on anything other than pavement,” I surmised. “How superficial! What a reflection of your identity!”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Sometimes, it’s fun to take it out and get it dirty. But gravel’s not good. Mud good. Gravel bad.”

“So, we’re going to Flatrock?”

“Huh? I don’t know.” He paused before admitting, “I have a tendency not to listen when people are giving me directions. I’ll just automatically nod and say ‘uh huh’ as if they’re telling me about theirdaughter getting braces, when actually they’re giving me vital information.”

“So you don’t know where we’re going?”

“Some restaurant?”

“Cajos?”

“Yeah, that’s it!” He looked around. “There’s supposed to be a stoplight up here somewhere.”

“Yeah, it’s coming up.”

“Is there a McDonalds there?”

“Uh huh. Do you just remember key words like ‘light’ and ‘McDonalds’?”

“And ‘left’,” he answered, changing lanes. “Are they here yet?” he asked as we pulled up into the parking lot. Ken was standing on the front porch. Bart got out and immediately blamed me for something. I never did find out what.

As I was replying to a message from one of you lucky corresponders last
night, my hostess came and tapped me on the shoulder. She had to perform
this motion because I had my earphones on listening to George Winston at a
rather high volume because there was some “light” jazz junk on in the room
and I hate “light” junk. Perhaps because it reminds me of waiting in waiting
rooms to see doctors or dentists. Not that I don’t like doctors or dentists,
I just don’t enjoy the inevitable wait for them.

So as George Winston was drowning out whatever “light” junk that happened to
be playing, I felt my hostess try to convey something to me. Removing my
earphones, I heard her say, “Alice isn’t home yet, so don’t turn out the
lights or lock the door or anything.”

“Okay,” I said as I put the headphones back on. I hadn’t been planning on
locking the door anyway, but now I’d be sure NOT to. Alice, btw, is my
floormate. She has a bedroom at the opposite end of the upstairs. We see
each other occasionally, but not too much. Alice seems like a very sweet
person, which makes me very uncomfortable. For some reason, obnoxious people
appeal to me much more, until I get to know them and learn to hate their
guts. “Nice” people make me ill at ease. I’m constantly worried I’m going
to say something insensitive or rude or offend them in some way. I can hold
my own at insults, cutting wit, or perverting statements, but be nice back?
[shudder]

Alice also has this really sweet voice, which makes me laugh whenever I
overhear her saying “Oh, dammit!” though I doubt she knows I’m in earshot.
During most of the conversations we have, she’ll just be polite. “How are
you?” she’ll ask. “Fine,” I say, since I’m afraid anything unorthodox will
cause offense somehow. Then there will be an uncomfortable silence in which
I’ll smile and leave or just stand there until Alice says something like,
“Wow.” She has a tendency to say that whenever words run out. And since I’m
not exactly a conversation wiz, she has the opportunity to say it a lot.
“Wow.”

By the time I was getting ready for bed last night, she still hadn’t returned
home. Not that I was concerned. She comes home late from time to time, and
I greet her if I see her. In the meantime I brushed my teeth and put in my
retainer and TMJ splint. Then I dumped some mouthwash in and went to change
into my pj’s, swishing the stuff around in my mouth.

At this point, an alarm clock went off in Alice’s room. Why it was going off
at that time of night, I don’t know, but I knew I wasn’t going to be able to
go to sleep with it blaring down the hall. Not that it was that loud, but
there’s just something contrary to the laws of nature when it comes to GOING
to SLEEP while an alarm clock, no matter how far away, if still audible, is
beeping. My alarm clock at home will beep for an hour before shutting up,
and I certainly didn’t want to wait that long. No telling when my fellow
boarder would show up, so I went into her room to shut it off.

I’d never been in her room before. It’s at the head of the stairs, so I’d
ventured a couple of glances inside at her habitually unmade bed from time to
time but never set foot inside. It took me a while to find the clock. I
followed the beeping to the bedside table, but the clock was invisible. I
finally spotted it UNDER the bed, pulled it out, and hit something that
looked like OFF. Just then, I heard the door slam. Alice was home. Her
feet sounded on the stairs. And I was in HER room. It’s not like she’s got
a big sign on the door that reads, “KEEP OUT ON PAIN OF DEATH” or anything
like that, but still, to come home and find someone messing around in your
room… it’s just… well, you know. So I shoved the clock back UNDER the
bed and got to the doorway of the room the same time Alice did. Our eyes
locked. She looked tired and surprised but simply said something like, “Oh,
hi.”

My mouth was still full of mouthwash, the retainer, and the TMJ splint.
Speaking was quite difficult, but I somehow mananged to get out, “Uh, your
alarm clock went off, so I turned it off.”

“Oh, thanks,” Alice replied. “Wow.”

I stopped in at the bathroom on my way to bed to spit.