I was driving home from town the other night. Nice night, warm. Quiet. Kind of makes me think maybe everything is all right, after all. Not much traffic, but what there was was the considerate type: low beams and speed limits, all the way. Cruisers. Cool for it, far as I'm concerned. That Eagles mood didn't last the whole ride, though; almost never does, and that's fine too. About halfway home, I was on this stretch that curves and rises over this hilled sort of area, and the piece-o'shit-mobile is doing its usual coughing and wheezing as it struggled to make the climb, when this hot-rod wannabe comes tearing up behind me. Feels almost like he's gonna zip right through my tailpipe and pop up outta my engine instead of just passing me, but he stops almost dead on my tail lights. Rides behind me for a good three or four minutes. No big deal, I guess; probably just some kid just got his license, wants to see how good he thinks he is at precision driving. Nothing I never tried myself, so I give him his shot. He stays back pretty close, but not too dangerous. Thrill rider. Asshole. Part of me smiled.
But his headlights. Fucking high beams, slamming into my face through the rearview mirrors and almost blinding me. Not cool, man. I dim the top and turn the outer mirrors away, so now the light is just casting out over my car. It's like I've got extra headlights of my own, now, offset and illuminating spots on the road I don't usually get to see at night. It looks cool, seeing things like that. The extra light played on the bushes and the trees and the garbage bins and the house-number signs, and it felt like I was driving a completely different road than normal. Before too long, hot-rod boy pulls into the passing lane and motors on. The effect is lost. But for those few minutes, I was somewhere else. Just one of those rare treats in life, where something mundane turns into an adventure. Even for a few minutes.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
Rusty Chains
I used to work for Wal-Mart, not so long ago. Started the job in high school, as a cashier. By the time I graduated college -- the second time -- I'd moved up to working in the electronics department. I hated that job. I hated the structure, and the shifts. I hated putting on that damn vest, always a couple sizes too small because god forbid a fat guy work with the public. I hated my badge, this cheap little red white and blue piece of plastic with name, rank and bar-code number plastered on the back, my own little private shameful reminder that while I wore it, I was owned. Store property. I hated punching in at the time clock in the back, squeezing in between a dozen others in a cramped hallway that had no business being stuffed with so many fucking filing cabinets and still being so damn narrow.
I hated the busy work that so often filled our nights, straightening and refilling shelves with merchandise I more often than not couldn't afford. I hated having to stand at attention on that stupid red line near my register whenever I was actually caught up with all my work, on the off chance that one of the big-wigs came by on a surprise inspection. I hated the smile I was supposed to wear, cheerful and sunny and about as real as tits on a porn star and nowhere near as pleasant. I hated the fact that for six to ten hours a day, I had to chain myself down and pretend to be this tame, supplicating servant. 'Oh yes sir, that's one of our best models, you've got great taste.' 'Of course, ma'am, it's very easy to operate, I'll be happy to show you.' 'Yes sir, that can be a little complicated to figure out, let's just see if we can't get you set up over the phone.'
When all I really wanted to say was, 'Read the goddamn instruction manual.' Honestly, so many of the customers I dealt with, so many of the problems I solved were so damn stupid, I seriously wondered how some of these people could walk and breathe at the same time, let alone complete something so complicated as a financial transaction. Some were humorous, like the time a woman came in with a digital camera filled with nude photos of her boyfriend, desperate to have them erased before her, ah, 'other' boyfriend found them. Some were disturbing, such as the time a man asked how to delete his internet history so his wife wouldn't find out about his porn addiction (this was back in '02, when Googling wasn't *quite* so ubiquitous). And some were just downright stupid, like the woman who wanted to know where to find (I shit you not) the 'any' key on her keyboard.
After six years, I could count on two hands the number of times I was faced with a genuinely challenging problem, something that really required me to fire up a few brain cells and apply some critical thinking. I fucking loved those times. It felt like I was actually doing something, I was helping someone who really needed it. It felt good. And I actually wanted to be polite and helpful to those people, because they had proven themselves, in a way. They didn't just take the equipment out of the box and poke at it with a stick, like most of the primates that passed for my customers; they experimented, they read the manual, they showed a kind of simple, everyday courage and faith in themselves that I feared was fast becoming extinct in this world. They were problem solvers who found a new problem, an interesting one, and I was happy to join them, and sometimes guide them, on the path to understanding.
And then there were my coworkers. Most of them were alright, really. None of us really wanted to be where we were, but we were there, and we tried to help each other make the most of it. I'm pretty sure one of us would have snapped and brought a rifle to work eventually, if it weren't for our sense of humor, dark as it may have sometimes been. We made jokes about everything and anything. Stupid customers, broken equipment, sick family members, politics, religion, anything. Inside jokes and below-radar smartassery were the currency of our workday. I think we looked at ourselves as soldiers who'd been drafted into a war against stupidity, outnumbered and outgunned, just hunkered down in our foxholes passing the time until we got our chance to get out.
Well, I got my chance a couple years ago. I cleaned out my little cubby locker, left my vest and badge, and strolled out of that store for what I dramatically imagined would be the last time. And for a long time, it was. I stayed out for nearly six months, shopping almost anywhere else but there. But eventually, I wound up having to stop by to pick up a couple of necessities. It felt weird, as though something about the place had changed, just a little, but it didn't want you to figure out what. I shrugged it off, stopped and chatted with a couple of my old coworkers, then got my things and got out. Alright, that, surely that, would be the last time I went in there again.
And again, it was. For a long time, nearly a year this time. Then Thanksgiving went and snuck up on me last year, and I had to drop by to pick up a few things again. That feeling was back, a change in the air in the building. This time I realized what it was: some of the old guard were gone. People I'd known, worked with, joked with, argued and fought with, weren't there anymore. That felt...unsettling, a little bit. I had worked there for nearly seven years, and it had become a sort of unwanted but comfortably familiar monument of permanence in my life. Like a creepy old tree in your backyard that's been there for years, with its branches all gnarled and tangled in the powerlines above so you can't cut it down easily, and then suddenly one day you come outside and see that it's lost some of those branches.
I went there again today. First time in months. And again, I noticed there were more people missing. New people in their places. There were still some of the old people there, of course, the ones that deep down I always sort of knew would never leave, but today they were seriously outnumbered by the new folks. I didn't really talk to any of them today; they were all busy anyway, and so was I, and what do you say to someone you never really had very much in common with anyway? As much as I hated that place, I was a part of it, once. And as long as the others were there, I felt like I'd always be a part of it, whether I wanted to be or not. But now, they're gone, more every week, and I'm not a part of it anymore. I don't really know how I feel about that.
It really hit me when I was walking through the parking lot, back to my car, that things had really changed. One of those moments you realize all over again what they mean when they say 'you can't go home again'. There were these old, corrugated metal corrals that we used to use to hold the shopping carts, with this rusty old chain that ran across the center for a make-shift barrier. We used to race the carts, slam them together, and send them sailing as fast and hard as we could into that chain, and it made this oddly satisfying *clink-clank* sound. You can probably imagine. I looked over at the corrals as I was unloading my things today. No more chain. Now there was a bar, thick and sturdy-looking, criss-crossing the empty chutes. After I finished unloading my purchases into the trunk, I gave the cart a solid kick and sent it sailing into the corral, for old times' sake.
Clink-clank.
I hated the busy work that so often filled our nights, straightening and refilling shelves with merchandise I more often than not couldn't afford. I hated having to stand at attention on that stupid red line near my register whenever I was actually caught up with all my work, on the off chance that one of the big-wigs came by on a surprise inspection. I hated the smile I was supposed to wear, cheerful and sunny and about as real as tits on a porn star and nowhere near as pleasant. I hated the fact that for six to ten hours a day, I had to chain myself down and pretend to be this tame, supplicating servant. 'Oh yes sir, that's one of our best models, you've got great taste.' 'Of course, ma'am, it's very easy to operate, I'll be happy to show you.' 'Yes sir, that can be a little complicated to figure out, let's just see if we can't get you set up over the phone.'
When all I really wanted to say was, 'Read the goddamn instruction manual.' Honestly, so many of the customers I dealt with, so many of the problems I solved were so damn stupid, I seriously wondered how some of these people could walk and breathe at the same time, let alone complete something so complicated as a financial transaction. Some were humorous, like the time a woman came in with a digital camera filled with nude photos of her boyfriend, desperate to have them erased before her, ah, 'other' boyfriend found them. Some were disturbing, such as the time a man asked how to delete his internet history so his wife wouldn't find out about his porn addiction (this was back in '02, when Googling wasn't *quite* so ubiquitous). And some were just downright stupid, like the woman who wanted to know where to find (I shit you not) the 'any' key on her keyboard.
After six years, I could count on two hands the number of times I was faced with a genuinely challenging problem, something that really required me to fire up a few brain cells and apply some critical thinking. I fucking loved those times. It felt like I was actually doing something, I was helping someone who really needed it. It felt good. And I actually wanted to be polite and helpful to those people, because they had proven themselves, in a way. They didn't just take the equipment out of the box and poke at it with a stick, like most of the primates that passed for my customers; they experimented, they read the manual, they showed a kind of simple, everyday courage and faith in themselves that I feared was fast becoming extinct in this world. They were problem solvers who found a new problem, an interesting one, and I was happy to join them, and sometimes guide them, on the path to understanding.
And then there were my coworkers. Most of them were alright, really. None of us really wanted to be where we were, but we were there, and we tried to help each other make the most of it. I'm pretty sure one of us would have snapped and brought a rifle to work eventually, if it weren't for our sense of humor, dark as it may have sometimes been. We made jokes about everything and anything. Stupid customers, broken equipment, sick family members, politics, religion, anything. Inside jokes and below-radar smartassery were the currency of our workday. I think we looked at ourselves as soldiers who'd been drafted into a war against stupidity, outnumbered and outgunned, just hunkered down in our foxholes passing the time until we got our chance to get out.
Well, I got my chance a couple years ago. I cleaned out my little cubby locker, left my vest and badge, and strolled out of that store for what I dramatically imagined would be the last time. And for a long time, it was. I stayed out for nearly six months, shopping almost anywhere else but there. But eventually, I wound up having to stop by to pick up a couple of necessities. It felt weird, as though something about the place had changed, just a little, but it didn't want you to figure out what. I shrugged it off, stopped and chatted with a couple of my old coworkers, then got my things and got out. Alright, that, surely that, would be the last time I went in there again.
And again, it was. For a long time, nearly a year this time. Then Thanksgiving went and snuck up on me last year, and I had to drop by to pick up a few things again. That feeling was back, a change in the air in the building. This time I realized what it was: some of the old guard were gone. People I'd known, worked with, joked with, argued and fought with, weren't there anymore. That felt...unsettling, a little bit. I had worked there for nearly seven years, and it had become a sort of unwanted but comfortably familiar monument of permanence in my life. Like a creepy old tree in your backyard that's been there for years, with its branches all gnarled and tangled in the powerlines above so you can't cut it down easily, and then suddenly one day you come outside and see that it's lost some of those branches.
I went there again today. First time in months. And again, I noticed there were more people missing. New people in their places. There were still some of the old people there, of course, the ones that deep down I always sort of knew would never leave, but today they were seriously outnumbered by the new folks. I didn't really talk to any of them today; they were all busy anyway, and so was I, and what do you say to someone you never really had very much in common with anyway? As much as I hated that place, I was a part of it, once. And as long as the others were there, I felt like I'd always be a part of it, whether I wanted to be or not. But now, they're gone, more every week, and I'm not a part of it anymore. I don't really know how I feel about that.
It really hit me when I was walking through the parking lot, back to my car, that things had really changed. One of those moments you realize all over again what they mean when they say 'you can't go home again'. There were these old, corrugated metal corrals that we used to use to hold the shopping carts, with this rusty old chain that ran across the center for a make-shift barrier. We used to race the carts, slam them together, and send them sailing as fast and hard as we could into that chain, and it made this oddly satisfying *clink-clank* sound. You can probably imagine. I looked over at the corrals as I was unloading my things today. No more chain. Now there was a bar, thick and sturdy-looking, criss-crossing the empty chutes. After I finished unloading my purchases into the trunk, I gave the cart a solid kick and sent it sailing into the corral, for old times' sake.
Clink-clank.
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