-Midnight Jolt: Social Disease-

High levels of concentration are temporary. Take advantage of them.

MidnightJolt
Originally uploaded by benedict monk.

[Don’t worry. It’s probably fiction.]

-Wow!

After all these years of failed relationships with different women met through work or school, I’ve found a much simpler way of getting along socially.

The old way had its convenience, I suppose. Carpools, only one conversation about classmates and coworkers in the evenings instead of two. But when the relationship goes toxic after one or both of us got to third base with a department head, I’d have to quit or transfer. And I hate to update my CV or find another place to do laundry, and (this is the killer) declare another 20 or so good songs lost forever because hearing them post breakup is the catalyst for a night of crying and drinking.

No longer! It’s just so much easier, I have learned, to ask the stranger who’s been circling the block all afternoon, every afternoon for as long as I’ve lived here. She’s so fit from all that walking, and all I did was ask. True, her habit of assigning ‘prices’ to individual sex acts seemed a bit anti-romantic, but everybody has their kinks, I suppose. Maybe she’s a business major or something. I’ll have to ask her when she and her brother (what a grip that guy has!) get back with the $200 I lent them for groceries.

-The Partner who didn't get it-

It must have been 2002. A cast party in Minneapolis. And the partner who didn't get it.

Allen Gurganus once wrote that among every pairing of artists, there was always the talented one, and the one whose parents were paying for the studio. Both partners in my example had day jobs, but we couldn't help but make that association.

You know, another actor said, We've all been rockin' out backstage to the musical interludes. The guitarists laugh, and the singers titter.

It took several shows before the meaning of the lyrics dawned on us, he continued. I mean, those are really dirty. Murmurs of assent all around, with the exception of the partner who didn't get it.

No-they-weren't, she scolds. It's healthy. It's human nature.

Her partner (who got it) took a long stage-length swig of the Shiraz, and all was quiet except for the recording of Louie Armstrong.

The actor tried again. I guess, he said, that it was the line where the girl "was in pigtails when the boys learned she'd go down" that made me think it-

'That's human nature, too.'

She doesn't get it, but she gets that she's alone because she's looking around with wild eyes for support, ultimately seeking her partner's over the rim of his glass. I suppose any one of us could have helped her over the final stumbling block and identified the clue of age-inappropriate behavior, but by now she was so convinced she was trapped in a den with puritans that she might not recognize one of the last and greatest taboos.

For whatever reason, our group let it drop there, and our hosts - the partners who did and didn't get it - began to clean up, and we gave them what assistance we could before they drove all guests out of the kitchen and out the door.

On the way back home I thought about the uncomfortable moment earlier, and marveled at the difference the uncomprehending partner could have made if she had delivered 'that's human nature, too' in a resigned voice. I think we all would have assumed that she did know what we were talking about, and had rather cunningly advanced the discussion. I never saw her again, and I have no idea how they turned out. I could imagine some Fitzgerald-like scene in the kitchen after everyone left, but that would all be conjecture.

And through the years, this mystery has stuck with me. Maybe that's why I didn't remember until now that they still possess the decorative plate I brought to transport and present the peanut butter brownies.

That's one mystery solved.

Damn. I liked that dish.

-Which Wedding Shower?-

By this time, I really should know better, but I still rise to the bait when people talk about weddings. In the abstract, I'm happy when two people I know get together. Practical talk of weddings (schedules, receptions, dinner, registry) really gets to me. Why? Because at some point that I can identify, but no one else in my circle can, it becomes wildly impractical.

We fly doddering relatives great distances to attend. We learn origami for the sake of a single napkin arrangement. We spend weeks splicing photos into a five-minute flash video loop. Why?

Because it's important to her.

-She doesn't know about all of this!-

Well, not now, it's a surprise. But she won't be expecting this from us. She only expects one from her bridesmaids.

-Why aren't they throwing her a shower?-

They are.

-Two showers!?-

Three, actually; the mother and grandmother of the bride also wanted to..

This is the part where I wave my arms like a loon. Why not take this directly to its absurd conclusion, I sputter. Each and every relative and friend of the bride and groom must throw a separate shower, the amount of money spent to be determined by closeness (adjusted semiannually).

The absurd ones who have just ganged up on me by standing still and looking calm as the tidal wave of the marriage industry dashes us into the reef tell me that I am jealous. And because they aren't waving their arms like loons, I begin to doubt my position.

When I have calmed down, I seek the answer from a number of different sources, Putnam's 'Bowling Alone' providing the foil. A breakdown of community ties would make the three or more showers (one for every major social circle) inevitable. HDTV's designer brinksmanship explains the expensive obsession with "the presentation."

-Borough-

Well, the couch made it here in one piece. Sitting around half the day waiting for it didn't seem like such a chore when the two delivery men deftly eased it in the torturously small entryway. (They were less deft with brick wall outside, but that's my landlord's problem.)

This challenge conquered, I decided to spend the rest of the day exploring this economically disadvantaged town to which my job has taken me. Try as I might to keep an open mind, I saw disillusionment and decay everywhere. The favorite drug seems to be Jesus.

Of course, Jesus is the healthy part of the godfearer's theological regimen. But I don't need to consult my Clergyman's Desk Reference to worry about the effects of using Jesus in conjunction with proselytes, Kinko's and right wing cinema. In this incarnation, the older faithful squatted around one of the many active religious store fronts. The young trolled the main street seeking extra theater-goers. The young doing the bidding of the old - sounds like every religion, every politician's MO, outside of Inuit territory.

I think it was the volunteers' eyes that unnerve me the most - they seem to move independently from what they're saying. It makes you wonder what they think they're reading on your forehead.

-Give credit where credit is due-

It was supposed to be so simple; buy an inexpensive couch using a revolving charge agreement and establish credit.

I could have paid for it all at once. But years of friends and family and slightly goofy low-level bank executives in college multipurpose rooms have worn me down. Okay, I said yesterday, we live in a debtor society, and the odd twenty-something (that's me) who only orders things he can afford to pay immediately is indeed odd, and perhaps throwing the rest of you off.

The crisp, uncooked carrot the rest of you have been dangling before me is still distant, but I caved all the same - I hope to someday bite the legumbre and buy a house. Oddly, my new intention coincided with stories from radio economists who challenge the conventional wisdom, "'tis better to rent than to own."

Even so, my apartment needed a couch now, and the paperwork seemed painless enough. Within a few hours, a furniture store wonk entered my information and shook my hand with the promise of approved credit and a Friday delivery.

His hand was large but limp.

Late last night I checked my messages to hear his limp phone voice:
"'Wanted to let you know that the credit was not approved. If you want to have it delivered on Friday, you'll have to come in and pay at least half, or get someone to co-sign.'"

I put the above phrase in bold to indicate my displeasure upon hearing it. When I typed it, my fingers struck with extra force; the other lab users stopped working for a moment to deliver withering stares.

Friday delivery is essential. Friday is my day off.

I call, I argue, I acquiesce. I drive thirty minutes to the nearest location, and spend at least as much time waiting for the computers to acknowledge my debit card (funny, how the pejoratively named debit card is more responsible than its credit cousin) and drive thirty minutes home. It's all been straightened out, I think, but I'll believe it when I'm sitting on my couch on Friday.

Who would have thought that you need credit to get credit? Maybe everyone knew that, but I imagined that all of that information they collected about employment, and addresses, and rent, and paychecks was about something more, not merely for the purpose of setting me up for mass mailings from debtor culture parasites.

-It could happen to you-

If this happened to me, I would go home and get out Boggle.

I would take all of the wooden cubes with letters and smear them with tomato sauce and karo syrup, and I would return to the scene of the incident, that numismatic-sword-in-the-stone. I would slip the messy letter cubes in my mouth and drop to all fours, growling and snapping over the wet sidewalk and the panel of dried cement. I would continue snarling until the monetary mason revealed his or her self in shock or amusement. And then I would fix my baleful eye on the jester and spit my Boggle bicuspids as high into the air as possible.

We'll see who's the bigger fool.

-It's my job-

Because March is National Women's History Month, I spent most of yesterday putting together a giant banner that proclaims: "YOU GO, GIRL!!"

It was not my idea, but I loathe myself for it, nevertheless.

-Pint-sized Orwellian-

A woman came in with a child in tow, and asked for a videotape from a particular series on warfare. When she saw our selection (a well kept secret; don't tell!) she was inspired to select a few toddler-friendly videos, as well.

I checked three more VHS tapes out to her, and paused with the fourth, the red light of the scanner shimming a hairsbreadth away from the barcode. The cover features a blue sky, green hills, and cheerful barnyard animals.

It is a made-for-TV version of George Orwell's Animal Farm.

"Um.."

Some mischievous imp inside my head wanted to let her check it out without enlightening her to its contents. My sense of responsibility prevailed, and I explained that this video was an excellent choice, but was not, perhaps, what she may have thought it was originally.

She checked her watch impatiently, and yanked her child away from human traffic. "It's okay," she said. "I'll take it anyway."

I've got to start listening to my inner imp.