The Working Life

The other day I was thinking about how great it would be not to have to work. This sentiment is a pretty common one, I'm sure, but the more I thought about it, the more invested in the idea I became. In my head I envisioned a scenario in which I lay on a chaise lounge, sipping Mai Tais somewhere in the neighborhood of eleven in the morning, maybe reading a book or just catching up on the latest cases in Judge Judy's courtroom. As it stands, I'm currently employed in the retail field, which is to say that I get yelled at by people who want important things like toasters and "That one bedspread; my daughter said it's called 'Jasmine' " that happen to be out of stock or, more often than one might believe, completely nonexistent. For the past five years I've worked for a major department store, and for three years prior to that, I spend my after-school hours stocking shelves and ringing up tubs of potato salad at a small-town grocery store.

Eight years of working with the public has taught me one thing about myself: that I hate people.

That might not be entirely true. For every ten middle-aged women trying too hard to pull off the sophisticated demeanor of upper-middle class status by claiming that the pillow I have shown them "does NOT go with their theme," there's always one or two friendly folks who will smile back at me and offer a genuine thank-you. An elderly woman in tight, leopard-print lycra will tell me her preference for fullscreen DVDs, and when I tell her that her chosen movie only comes in widescreen, she shrugs it off and says, "Okay. Thanks, hon." Then, ten minutes later, I'm attacked by a man whose child, it seems, has been taken hostage, and the only way he can save him is to buy ammo for his staple gun, here in the home improvement section the size of a Smart car rather than, say, at the Home Depot across the street.

Having been at my job for several years, I've managed to weasel my way into a position of some responsibility. How I managed to convince anyone that I should be in charge of anything or anyone I'll never know, but having been given a supervisory role in my store means that I get the brunt of most people's aggression. A coworker will encounter an angry customer, and before anyone can get too fired up, they'll jump in and say, "Would you like to speak to my manager?" Basically, offering my head to them on a silver platter.

I can't really blame them, though. I did the exact same thing when I first started.

Often, after explaining to someone that a sign for laundry soap in one spot does not apply to another soap three spots away, I get the privilege of listening to any number of responses. These can range from the litigious "Well, this is FALSE ADVERTISING" to the malicious "You sonofabitch" to the comparatively friendly "This is why I do NOT shop here." On a given day, when I have to crush someone's dream of owning a thirty-dollar slow cooker or telling a grandchild not to climb on the shelves, I'm thought of by any number of people as an asshole.

I've developed a thicker skin, having a few years of insults, curse words, and angry glares under my belt. Still, every once in a while the inevitable confrontation will get to me. In the middle of a woman's rant, I'll sense my heartbeat quicken to something I can actually feel in my neck, the pounding so loud that I can barely make out which four-letter words she's basing her qualifiers on. Thanks to that damned fight or flight response, the part of my brain that would ordinarily make me sound not like an idiot diverts its resources, leaving my mouth numb and giving me a tendency to stumble, buffoon-like, over words a toddler could speak with ease.

In these cases, after I've been left standing victorious or wallowing in defeat, I'll conjure up the image of me resting comfortably, propped up against a mountain of cushions with a drink in my hand. The room around me sits silent with the first words of a novel. Or maybe the television offers its passing promise of more Judge Judy, coming up next. Either way, back in the real world I'll continue on, checking my watch and counting down the hours until my fantasy comes true. If not the one in which I'm free from the bonds of working life, then at least the one, more attainable, where I can clock out and call it a day until tomorrow.

Horoscopes & The Fifth Moon of Vesuvius

Even though I know that no good will come of it, I read my horoscope nearly every day. I’ve been doing this since I was a “night-watchman” back in Kansas City. Then, at the end of my shift, a large truck from the Kansas City Star would lumber down the street and fling a stack of newspapers near my guardhouse. I’d shuffle out, Camel cigarette firmly clenched between my lips, and gather them up for all the big-wigs.

Of course, before they got their papers I’d read the sections that interested me. The front page, A&E, and the daily cartoons. This was how my day began and my night ended.

I’ve always found it a bit insulting that the brain-trusts who run the newspapers think the horoscope belongs next to the cartoons. Horoscopes are bullshit whereas the latest “Foxtrot” is not. Sure they’re both for “entertainment” I suppose…but come on they’re not even in the same league.

Horoscopes suck and are pointless.

Like all good "psychic" cons, horoscopes contain vague generalities that could mean virtually anything. They’re the prognostic equivalent of a Rorschach blot. Or, if you fancy STAR WARS—the scary cave on Dagobah where Luke faces his demons (and a vision of Darth Vader).

“What’s in there?” Luke asks before entering.

“Only what you take with you,” Yoda replies.

Still, I can't help but read them every day.

I guess I read the horoscopes because at heart I’m an eternal optimist. I keep thinking, “today’s the day there’s going to be something in here I can use.”

But there never is.

Anyway, I’m a Cancer--whatever the hell that even means.

Here’s a typical Cancer horoscope:

The crab seeks to hide in his/her shell today. The Fifth Moon of Vesuvius enters your Love House this week, so expect a great surprise that may not surprise you all that much. Enjoying fine food and friends coax the hermit-crab, but only briefly! If you aren’t in a committed relationship you soon will be! And if you are in a committed relationship expect to stay in it for some time to come!

Now let’s examine this, shall we? First off, someone a long time ago decided that people born in June are crabs. I don’t get this at all. Is June Crab-Month? Has it really always been Crab-Month and no one’s told me? Because crabs are seen as "loner" creatures that carry shells around, Cancers are somehow supposed to all be anti-social and like to stay home (so far this is fits me, actually). I refuse to believe that ALL people who are “Cancers” really fit this description.

Then this “fifth Moon of Vesuvius” thing comes ups.

Always some large galactic body is swooping into one of my “houses” to create either trouble or love (and sometimes, troubling love). I think this feeds our need to be the center of the universe (literally). The Fifth Moon of Vesuvius is entering MY house! Please, give me a break.

This next part, “expect a great surprise that may not surprise you all that much” is truly classic horoscope writing. This says nothing if you read it carefully (and are awake and paying attention as you read it). The next line talks about food and friends “coaxing the crab” out, which of course must happen—people run out of food and must go get more.

I wish I had a cheeseburger garden in my backyard so I wouldn’t have to leave the house, but I don't...nice predicting there horoscope!

But it’s the last bit that pisses me off because it’s so ridiculous—the horoscope itself is supposed to be written for Cancers, and yet this thing can’t decide if I’m in a relationship or not. So the horoscope covers its bases by saying “heck! If you are, then this…and if you’re not, then this!”

This is lazy predicting/forecasting/prognosticating of EPIC proportions.

Just for once I’d like to see a super-specific horoscope. Sure, it wouldn’t appeal to as many people…but the people that it DID apply to would be astounded.

For example, here is a horoscope that I would write:

John, you shouldn’t have eaten that burrito last night! You’re going to fart in the elevator and Melissa is going to smell it. Melissa, the cute girl from accounting! Take the stairs John, take them ALL DAY LONG. Also, your goldfish Andy is sick because the Fifth Moon of Vesuvius is in your Pet-Sickness House. Pick up some Goldfish medicine after work for him! Also, you’re not in a relationship and you won’t be until you shave that stupid mustache.

A Lesson In Hate: The California Pizza Kitchen Incident

Growing up white, and in the suburbs, one tends to miss out on a few things. Like racism and discrimination. In school you learn about Jim Crow and the Civil Rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s, but these topics are presented in a “Long Time Ago, In a Galaxy Far, Far Away…” type narrative that misleads the young and impressionable into thinking that ethnic and religious groups now blend seamlessly together.

I think there were four of five black kids in my High School class. I don’t know the exact figures, but it was abysmally low. So much for desegregation. Once I started working and went off to college I met all sorts of people (read: “Not Whitey”). People with diverse backgrounds that all told me the same thing—shit in this country hasn’t changed very much since Dr. King first had his famous “dream.”

As a young person (who looks a bit like a drug mule), I have faced some…shall we say “extra scrutiny” in shopping malls and at the airport. But nothing like some of the stories I’ve been told by friends not lucky enough to be born “white.” Recently I was chatting with a guy who told me about how he caught a prospective employer throwing away his application TWO SECONDS AFTER HE TURNED IT IN.

What happened was, he turned it to a secretary then left—on his way to his car he thought of something he wanted to add to application. So he goes inside and asks for his application back. The lady says she can’t find it, which is strange because he just gave it to her. So he goes and sits down in the lobby, and while he nervously staring at his shoes—he sees his application TORN IN HALF sitting atop the secretary’s trashcan.

If this happened to me I’d think “Gee, they must really not like the looks of me,” it’s different when you’re black. Whereas I would have gotten really pissed, this guy just shrugged and took it in stride—he said he was “used to it.” To me that’s the worst part of the story. Whereas I would have been filled with rage, this poor guy just shrugged and took it in stride—because it was normal for him.

I think that blatant sort of discrimination/racism is tough to fight—but what’s tougher is the more passive forms of hate. There is application-ripping, bed-sheet-wearing hate…but there is also a more nefarious, subtle bit of hate. Hate/hate-speech is ingrained in American life and can sometimes slip past even the most sensitive liberal-hippies.

In High School the “cool” way to put a person, idea, or thing down was to call it “gay.” It got to the point where even I was saying it. Without even thinking about it I would proclaim my hatred for Geometry by saying, “Geometry is gay.”

No. Geometry is fucking difficult, boring, and utterly useless to me…but it’s not going around sleeping with like-sexed schools of math. Does that even make any sense? No, no it does not. You can’t even try to use reason on the sentence “Geometry is gay.” It defies reason.

So I’ve lived a charmed life being the same color as a loaf of Wonder Bread. But as I grew older and began mixing with other types of people I witnessed a few instances of discrimination.

I speak of course about the infamous “California Pizza Kitchen Incident.”

My wife Leah is white like me, but unlike me she’s Jewish. Before meeting her, all I knew about Jews I gleaned from Jerry Seinfeld and SHINDLER’S LIST. The only Jewish person I’d ever really met was this mousy-girl that sat adjacent to me in a community college composition class. Leah being Jewish didn’t and does not bother me. But it has opened up my eyes to a few things…

“The California Pizza Kitchen Incident”

One time, Leah and I went to California Pizza Kitchen—which by the way is a fucking awful pizza place. I don’t want to totally derail myself here, but I feel like I need to let the world know that though his story occurred at California Pizza Kitchen, I think it’s terrible and I don’t normally eat there.

Interlude: California Pizza Kitchen Sucks

My reasoning is this: Pizza is an eastern thing. Chicago. New York. Those places are “back East,” where Pizza SHOULD come from. The only way that California is “back East” is if you somehow circumnavigate the globe, so that by going East you end up going West…

Look, the Earth is round. I wish I could explain all that better…but I fucking flunked geometry (twice) so I have only a rudimentary understanding of globes and such. Anyway, California isn’t known for FANTASTIC piazza.

California Pizza Kitchen also sucks because it’s one of those restaurants that try to take a “low-brow” or “everyman” food item and make it “high-brow” and a “pinkies-out” kind of dinning experience. Look, when I eat pizza, I want either an animatronic bear (singing about how good the pizza is) OR I want paper napkins. CPK has neither of these things—therefore it sucks.

End of Interlude

So Leah drags me to this place, and everything is going as good as it can go (in a pizza place with no singing bear or paper napkins), when we finish our meal and we get the check. Like most young people, Leah pays with a debit card. Our waiter, a young twenty-something who looks like he stepped out of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue (not that I look at those), has been polite and done a decent enough job waiting on us.

After he runs Leah’s debit card he gives her that little leather booklet-thing they give you in fancy (“pinkies-out”) restaurants that holds the credit slip. She opens it and asks for a pen (so she can finish paying).

Our waiter reaches into his kangaroo apron/pouch and pulls out a pen and hands it to her says (of the pen):

“Sure, here you go…just don’t Jew it.”

Then he turns and walks away.

Leah looks at me and I look at Leah. A few seconds tick by, then we both kinda ask each other at the same time—“Did he just say what I think he just said?”

As a gentile, I didn’t even fucking understand what that was supposed to me. My immediate reaction wasn’t so much “I want to punch this guy’s lights out,” so much as ask him what he hell he meant by that. Was he referring to her tipping?

Leah didn’t think so; she thought he meant stealing his pen.

Not used to these hurtful/embarrassing situations, I looked to Leah for what to do. She decided to leave a nasty note on the receipt. What else could we do? It wasn’t like we were going to walk up to they guy and ask what he meant by his anti-Semitic slur. I mean, I couldn’t ask a question like that. Not without tearing out his throat with my bare hands.

I’m just not built that way.

So we left a note (and I’m sure Leah tipped him, though it was a really small tip).

End of "The California Pizza Kitchen Incident"

The weird part was, a few days (weeks?) later this douche-bag contacted Leah on Facebook and tried to apologize (which tells me he probably didn’t mean anything by it). He tried to pass his comments off as a misunderstanding, and that he just didn’t want her to steal his pen.

This guy went to Fontbonne University (a school out here in St. Louis) and his Facebook page made me wish I had punched him. Of course he had SHINDLER’S LIST down as one of his favorite movies…which Leah thinks he added to appear like less of a d-bag.

What’s messed up is, this guy might have just been honestly misheard by Leah and myself. Maybe he didn’t say “Jew” maybe he said something else. Maybe this guy truly does LOVE JEWS and was just using “jew” in a pejorative fashion in the same way that I used to use “gay” in High School.

The sad part is, we just don’t know.

We all have these negative attitudes and prejudices inside us—and I think one of the lasting legacy’s of hate is that people see it sometimes when it might not actually be there.