Hang it all!

Fran has been pretty Ikea-crazy since the store opened in our area last year, but lately things have been getting out of hand. I'm starting to find bizarre knick-knacks around the house and am starting to resent the Swedish influence.

I open the door to our pantry and there's a roll of Swedish cookies. A pencil-thin bamboo shoot rising out of a test-tube looking vase on our kitchen counter, someone's idea of decoration. My new alarm clock has all these wacky functions which are activated according to its orientation-one side up means the temperature is displayed; another side is the current time, another conveniently freezes time in the universe indefinitely so I can catch up on Emails. All of these functions have crazy, indecipherable icons. But it only cost $8.

Our gameroom chair was inflated with a hair dryer.

There is some poor Swedish engineer named Thor Pendragonssson locked in a sensory isolation chamber. The door swings open, and a guy in a cleanroom suit brings in an article of decoration or function.

"Thor, Ikeaify this, immediately, or I shall beat you." He lays the item on a desk composed of a single slab or particle board suspended from the ceiling, just because it can be, then turns and walks out.

Thor picks it up, takes the familiar object, and turns it funky and unconventional in every possible way. Then it's off to marketing where they give it some overtly Swedish-sounding name (my favorite is the unfortunately named "DIKTAD" line of children's furniture).

So I wasn't too shocked when I opened the closet to see the most retarded-looking hangers ever. I mean, come on, Thor, did the clothes hanger really need to be redesigned? Was there something just calling out for improvement? Did we really need thicker, squattier-looking devices? I'm embarrassed to put my clothes on them (plus, they don't work as well as "normal" hangers).

So, I had to finally say something: "Honey, what in the hell are these things?"

"What?"

"These things right here next to the hangers."

"Those are hangers."

"No, these weird white things."

"You don't have to be THAT way about them--they're only 40 cents each!"

"Yeah, but I really like the non-goofy type of hanger--how much do those cost?"

"Who cares what a hanger looks like?"

"Uh, I guess it's no big deal. But I'm starting to hate that Thor guy."

A Project I worked on with Ryan

  

Got Crazy? Come on in!

First of all, paranoia update: Mike D., shouting across the table in front of three strangers "Hey, how's the blog going?!"

Three strangers, quizzically:
1) What's a blog?
2) You mean Mike (me) does something more than work? *collective gasp*
3) What's the website?
4) What do you mean "none of my f***ing business?"
5) Seriously, you won't give me the URL?

That's right--feel priviledged, because I don't hand my URL out to anyone unless they pass the test of not using my crazy life to tease me with (MD--you're on the verge :) )

One person in particular keeps asking me for clues so he can find it (google my family members' names in a Boolean search and there's only one possible hit, so I guess eventually I'll be found out).

So, I'm a little hesitant to reveal work information, because I don't want to be fired. But seriously, I'm pretty careful.

That being said, this week I encountered a guy from my company who is an absolute Fruit Loop. Let's call him Rob. He is supposed to install a relatively complex laser array in a machine that we were demonstrating this week for some scientists.

The encounters with Rob this week were so disturbing that I seriously thought at some point that we should call a doctor or something--he could possibly need to be hospitalized. Either that or he is the most socially inept person I've ever met. No, there's no question--he is totally nuts.

Rob is an older man who just started with our company a few months ago--I've already had an encounter with him in which he started telling me what he was going to do and what he wasn't going to do when it was time for him to work, so I was prepared for a little assertion of his independence. One of his excellent communication techniques includes the use of the term "between you and me", as I immediately found out.

"Between you and me, I'm not working after 5:00! I'm too old to do that--Between you and me, those guys (in the other office) just cut out whenever they want, and, between you and me, this laser-scanner they sent us doesn't even work in the first place, so I'm not staying up here all night!"

I smiled and nodded. There are things I can't deal with: Black-hearted evil people walk over me, Liars fool me all the time, Needy people can distract my full emotional attention.

But Crazy? Oh, yes, I can manage Crazy! I'm an expert.

So I just smiled and pretended that I didn't hear him (This is one of my secrets--smile and say little--the poisoned brain is a much better instrument of torture than anything I can devise) and we went into the lab. We end up working til after 7:00 and Rob did a somewhat good job, so I complimented him.

It turns out that someone, probably as a joke, told him during the day that I was an "important person", and I saw that this made a difference to Rob. He started stammering and contradicting himself at every turn, trying to correct his political errors. I played upon the fact that he thought I was important, feeling a little guilty but realizing that it was both for the good of our weeklong project and also for Rob's own good that he senses that there are boundaries not to cross--especially since we are guests in the lab and he apparently doesn't have self-control enough to reign himself in just for the sake of pride in his work and normal civility and sociability.

When it was just our group around, Rob could be overheard constantly muttering to himself about how the company was trying to get away with screwing him around, how others from the company are members of the union and get special priviledges that he doesn't get, and even how his boss was more powerful than our boss (I told him that we could meet at the bike rack after school and settle it). His chatter was incessant and nonsensical. He would suddenly and randomly come to us throughout and report emergencies with equipment, scheduling, and situations, at first causing everyone to jump into action to solve them, only to learn that there really was no problem.

Crazy people have a self-centered reality that makes them operate in this "messy" manner to focus attention on themselves, and this was what Rob was up to--he was craving attention so much, and wanted his work to be valued, that he was just generating fake problems so we would all spring into action around him.

After a couple of these moments over 2 days, I walked up to Rob quietly and said, "Hey, Rob, between you and me, I want this week to go as smoothly as possible--maybe some of the other members of the team shouldn't be bogged down when everything goes to hell so bad, okay? Just come and get me quietly and I bet that, between us, we can solve it." He was so flattered by this that he actually did it, making a show out of coming and getting me out of meetings to step outside and discuuss problems, glancing over my shoulder to make sure everyone was watching him--of course, they were, because they couldn't believe their freaking eyes.

"Uh, Mike, the lab manager told me that our system is unacceptable! He wants us to use dual monitors on the computer. Between you and me, I think we ought to do it, but I'll need to get a "y" splitter and extra VGA cable." (minor problem blown up to large problem--solved via $15).

"Sounds good, Rob--thanks for letting me know. Here are my car keys--do me a favor and go to (told him a specific store which would take him an hour longer to get there and back than the closest store) and grab these things for me." (Whew, dumped him for a few hours, at least).

He looked down at my keys in awe, then back at me. It was at that point that I realized I've just armed a crazy person with my personal vehicle, hoping he doesn't decide to drive to South America or something. Luckily, other than being stinky, it came back okay. That's me, Mike--the smooth operator. Yes, I am a pro at handling Crazy--I started feeling good about myself. The big debate in my mind was whether or not to report how nuts this guy is when I spoke to his boss, or should I wait until he feeds one of my co-workers through a wood-chipper Fargo-style and spoons the remnants into jelly jars. I could nod and smile and say "Yeah, I saw that coming..."

Dealing with Rob became just a humorous sideshow to the intense work that I was doing all week, so I didn't mind it too badly--it was like comic relief in a Shakespearean play. The problem was that it was also the least productive time spent all week--he actually did do some work, but it all had to be redone because it was imcompetently performed.

Then there was the lunch incident.

We decided to take the whole team of 5 people out for lunch on Thursday, and Rob was invited. One of the girls of our group was just too softhearted to acknowledge my "nix" sign when we started talking about lunch plans in front of Rob--I did the cutthroat sign and a big "X" with my arms, but she ended up inviting him anyway. I even tried to thwart it by asking Rob if everything was working right, thinking he would start complaining, as he had all week, about something or other that needed his expert attention. Nope, he saw right through me. Then I dangled my keys in front of him and asked if we needed any more supplies. This had been one of Rob's favorite things to do all week--make a supply run (which actually came in handy on occasion), during which he would disappear for hours. I'm sure he was out in my car, robbing banks, buying crack and picking up hookers or something. My car is probably on some police watch list, now. But this time, Rob smelled a free lunch and, amazingly, all was suddenly right in the universe and he was free for lunch with no plans.

We all piled into the car and, as we drove into downtown, I explained some of the historical parts of Dallas as we went by them, and mentioned the fact that there is still a lot of racial tension in the city and how lots of debates in the city are divided along racial lines--recently, during some building renovation, some water fountains were uncovered which had "Whites Only" printed above them. Many of the group, who were older, nodded and said they remember those times from their childhood.

Rob piped up, "Well, I was raised by the most bigoted man there ever was, and, you know what? We used to call those people..."

I saw where he was going, and cut him off loudly "Rob, I'm telling you right now that I know what you're about to say and I don't want to hear it!"

Rob let me finish, then proceeded, "Well, we called them (highly offensive racial epithet which starts with 'n'".

Me: "Rob, I can't believe you just said that when I asked you not to."

Rob: "It's a real word in the dictionary--look it up. It doesn't mean anything racial."

Me (thinking to myself) That doesn't make sense--he just identified it as a bigoted remark!
(out loud, calmly): "Okay, Rob, let's just drop it."

Just an aside--I had a Sunday School teacher who used "the n-word" all the time, practically ever week, justifying it in the same way by saying that it was just a word and that any external connotations were purely invented. Still not nice.

At lunch, Rob blew his nose at the table into a large, disgusting, bacterial-laden handkerchief and then immediately turned to me, sticking his hand out for me to shake: "No hard feelings, okay?"

(how long do you have to boil your hand to purify it?)

Actually, I patted him on the shoulder and just smiled at him, thinking, this is the part of the shoulder where they are going to tighten your straightjacket, you crazy bastard!

 

Three Days of the Mouse

In the past week, I have found myself at Chuck E. Cheese THREE different times, for three different kids' birthday parties (one was my son Ryan's seventh birthday). I may deserve a medal.

For those of you who don't know, Chuck E. Cheese's is a pizza place with video games where kids often have pizza parties, often for their birthday. It smells like greasy pizza, flat coke, and sweaty kids. It's noisy and pandering to kids and geared to whip them into a frenzy, but they absolutely love this place. Parents generally wear a very tired-looking expression and are relegated to the role of stuffing dollar bills into a token machine so the fun doesn't stop. This place gives me the overwhelming urge to bathe in alcohol-based antiseptic lotion.

The parents tend to form a sort of support group at these things--we hang out and watch the kids running amok and talk about insipid things like "How's work?" and "What do you do?". I hate that type of throwaway question from a stranger, because I have one of those weird jobs that can't be summarized easily. I hate boring people to death, but don't want to be rude and not answer the question, so my speech gets faster and faster so I can cram all the necessary words into the smallest time frame--before long I'm rattling along like an auctioneer, painfully self-aware but unable to stop.

So it was interesting at the first of these parties to find out that one of the parents was essentially in the same field of work as I am. In fact, it turns out that we had a distant business association that was mutually beneficial to further, and we made immediate plans to have a meeting later in the week. I've known this person as an acquaintence for nearly a year, now, so I feel almost negligent that I didn't get to know him before now.

At the second party, I saw a young lady going to the table right next to us. I recognized her face, but was worried about freaking her out with my crazy memory so I decided to avoid looking at her and just focus on Ryan's birthday. Sure enough, she came up to me a minute or so later and asked in amazement: "Mike?!" Yes, it took a second to register, age her twenty (plus) years, give her a perm, and subtract the fact that she was pregnant. But within seconds I recognized that it was Shannon, and that her family had lived across the street from my parents when I was two and I've known her all her life (well, except for the past twenty years). We used to carpool to the same private school. Her mom carried my limp four-year-old body after I was attacked by a German shepherd (dog, not a guy). Shannon had her wedding shower at my parents' home. And her husband was seriously giving me the stink eye the whole time I was talking to his wife...Dude, get a grip.

Party number three could carry the subtitle "Revenge of the Mummy". My wife has a friend that she just loves, named Jamie, and her husband, Todd, brought their son to the party. Their son has been in the same class with Ryan for two years. Additionally, Fran and Jamie held a garage sale together last year. I have never heard Todd put five words together in a row.

This type of non-conversationalist makes me kind of nervous. I always joke that I approach all subjects with an open mouth...it's not really true, but I'm just naturally drawn to good conversation. However, when I realize that I'm the only one talking, I start getting self-conscious and usually act like an idiot.

Knowing that Todd fell under the category of "boring as shit", I prepared myself for a mute standoff. So I found myself sitting at a table, munching disgusting pizza, and pretending that the Chuck E. Cheese puppet show was the most fascinating entertainment on earth which commanded my full attention. In the meantime, the sounds munching pizza echoed in my head and I got bored, bored, bored.

Eventually, another guy at the table managed to get Todd to admit that he was an accountant, which, I suppose, explains some of the problem. I thought Todd was perhaps just shy, but he made a comment about his wife, saying he "had to be careful" about what he said to her in regard to accounting (because she wouldn't understand it). That kind of bugged me. I thought "Hey, you chauvanist bastard, don't go from acting like you wouldn't care if I lived or died to imposing on me to listen to you bash your lovely wife. By the way, what is she doing with YOU?" I was impressed, though, because it took about 8 or so words for him to express this thought, which was a record for him up to this point. Otherwise, he's just a big lump of mute flesh.

But I replied, "I have to be careful about what I say to my wife, too, 'cause she'll kill me!" (this is funny because I'm more than a foot taller than Fran and she is (mostly) very sweet and graceful).

Blank looks.

So, I let him sit there unmolested by me and mummy-out for the rest of the party. When I got home, Fran mentioned that she and Jamie had made plans for us all to go out of town together for a few days next month. Joy.

  

Paranoia: My Best Friend

On Tuesday, I was out of town walking to my car on a very busy road near a college campus. I looked down, and in the street gutter next to my car was a young lady's driver's license.

It was clear to me from her age that she was probably a student at the school--another clue was that the home address was from about 300 miles away. I picked up the license and quickly looked around with a relatively futile hope that the matching face would suddenly appear in front of me by magic.

Then I felt struck with a dilemma: Should I just toss this back in the street? Surely the girl will come looking for it, right? One time, I dropped my paycheck in the street and came back and hour later and found it. If someone had taken it, I would have been screwed.

Then again, maybe some evil person will find it after I drop it, open an online credit card, charge it up, and it would be my fault.

What if someone has hacked this person up and hauled her off somewhere, and I get pulled over with her driver's license in my possession?

I decided I would take it home and mail it to the address on the license--if it's her parent's house, she'll get it.

I couldn't possibly disclose to Fran rapidly enough why I was in possession of a young, blonde girl's identification. She just smiled about it and commented that it was nice of me to help the poor girl--thank God no suspicion or mocking me for getting myself into a mess...

Fran suggested that if I just drop the license into the mailbox that it will magically find its way to the owner free of charge. I have much less faith in the postal system.

Should I just put it in an envelope by itself and send it? I really don't want to put a note, and damn sure don't want to put my name, address, etc. on it because that just puts the receiver in a weird position, right?

I need to reveal a secret fear that I have: I have this overriding fear of being perceived as a stalker. I just happen to be a person who enjoys conversation, remembers people's names and faces for crazy long periods of time, likes to compliment people, etc. I have this deep, deep fear of being misinterpreted, and I take pains to avoid situations like this, but still seem to find myself in the middle of them all the time. Here's an example: If I see a guy's blog entry that I really like, I have no qualms about complimenting them or leaving a comment. I think 2 or 3 times before leaving any kind of similar comment on a woman's blog, just because I am terribly self-conscious about them thinking I'm some cheesy dude from a 70's movie with the weird tinted glasses trying to pick them up or something. Seriously, it's a thing with me. By the way, I PROMISE I'm not hitting on you, whoever you are (and that's my story, your honor).

So, in this situation, I just completely freaked out over how to send this silly license.

Just sending the license in an envelope by itself is kind of creepy and weird, so that was out.

My handwriting, unfortunately, resembles that of a serial killer, so I tried to keep any kind of explanation to a minimum.

Finally, I wrote on a piece of paper: "Found this on the street near the ******* campus. Mike". I folded it up, sealed the envelope, and put a stamp on it and put it in the mailbox. Whew! Crisis managed.

I envision some poor mother opening the envelope, freaking out, and calling her daughter saying "We got your driver's license in the mail today. There was the most terrifying handwriting--I just had to call make make sure you were okay. And who the hell is Mike?"

That evening, when I went to get my mail, there was the damned envelope still--apparently, the postal rate went up and I used the wrong type of stamp. The letter carrier had written "39 cents" at the top. This is sure to puzzle the poor girl, now, right?

Then, to make it more confusing, I didn't have a stamp for the price of the difference (I had used a 34 cent stamp or something), so I just put another 34 cents on there, cursing the letter carrier for being such a damned stickler. I breathed a sign of relief today when the letter was gone from my box. It was like a boomerang of shit circling over my head--I'm just glad it's over now.

Anyway, this is my poor life.

Flat Stanley!

I thought I did pretty well in 1st grade, but karma has dictated that I am to be assigned 1st grade homework to complete again and again like Prometheus rolling the stone up the hill...I still don't know how to color inside the lines which has been psychologically damaging over time, I suspect.

Ryan brought home Flat Stanley, who was smashed by a bulletin board (according to folklore) and his family subsequently mailed him around the country. The assignment was to send Flat Stanley on an exotic trip by mail, to an aunt or uncle, grandparent, or friend, and have them take photographs of Stanley doing cool stuff in a different state and write a story about it. It's kind of a social studies experiment.

Of course, I really dig this kind of project and made about 10 suggestions about crazy places we could send Stanley and have his picture taken (we have over a month). My friend, Mike D., just got back from the Czech Republic which would have been cool.

I mentioned this to some of my techie buddies and they all said the same thing:

"Hey, let's scan him into Photoshop and doctor some photos to have him..."

-sitting on the top of the St. Louis Arch
-riding on a yak in Africa
-On Abbey Road walking like the Beatles
-playing basketball for the Lakers
-Racing a NASCAR
-Sitting on the wing of an airplane
-Jumping up and down on the moon
-Playing guitar for Metallica

(you get the idea, right?) Seriously, independently, like 3 people thought of that.

My answer, "Let's wait at least another year before we teach my boy how to cheat creatively, okay? Next year, maybe."

So, Ryan wrote a letter asking for some help and we have sent Stanley on a business trip to New York with my friend, Marty. He's going to take a picture of Stanley on a limo ride, maybe in the ocean off Long Island, and also when they go into Manhattan for dinner on Wednesday night they can shoot him against the skyline--he promised great shots.

I also expect pictures of poor Stanley getting groped by a hooker, smoking...something, getting hit by a cab, and possibly buying crack. It's pretty much guaranteed.

After this, I'm thinking of sending him off to the West Coast to see what trouble he can get into over there...and after that...who knows.

Fran is scared to death that Marty will leave Stanley in Little Italy and Ryan will get a zero on his grade...

Riding the Shuttle Bus

"Mine eyes are made the fool o'er th' other senses,
or else worth all the rest..."

-Macbeth

Climbing the three mud-splattered steps, I passed through a cloud of cheap aftershave which the driver must have soaked himself with. It's the same stuff my well-intentioned aunt gave me when I was ten years old--$3 from Avon. Does anyone think this stuff smells good? Really? I walked about six rows back, but I could still taste the cheap cologne in the air as people filed by me, wafting the cloud toward me.

Two middle-aged women sat by the driver. They were facing forward, away from me, but talking at the top of their voices. I eavesdropped, later laughing at how badly I mistook their conversation at first. One of them asked "Do you think she will stay?". The other "I dunno--that's sure a lot of money?" I surmised that one of their female co-workers had hit the lottery and they were wondering if she would continue on at work--I've heard so many people debate that issue it just seemed natural.

The bus filled up, and a wrinkled man in loose clothes made eye contact with me--I scooped up my black, leather briefcase and set it in my lap so he could sit next to me as we bumped along the road. As I slid against the window, the seat spring stuck right between my shoulder blades--not painful, but enough to be uncomfortable. I smiled as he sat down, and he smelled as though he had just smoked his 100th cigarette of the day.

He got off at the next stop with about half of the passengers.

A beautiful and well-dressed young woman then got on, and took the now-unoccupied seat in front of me, sitting sideways with her back against the window, leaning her head gracefully against the seat right in front of me. She was a wispy blond girl, about 23, with a dreamy look on her face--she stared across the aisle of the bus but didn't seem to be looking too intently at anything in particular.

Just then, I realized that the women on the front row were describing one of their daughters who had just lost her job. They were debating if she would continue to live with her mother since she couldn't afford a place of her own.

The blond girl in front of me utterly reeked of alcohol--I could smell it coming out of her pores as she leaned against the headrest right in front of me. It made her less intimidating, more vulnerable, more beautiful, but sad to me.

We came to my stop and I got off the bus, wondering how many daggers of the mind were to be endured in the 10-minute ride.

On Christmas Eve, a few of us went out on the patio overlooking the park. It was cold, and as dusk set in, we could see fog like smoke settling into the trees. It was a moment that you don't expect to be able to capture when you take a picture. The clouds felt like a ceiling above us and we could see that they touched the mountain on the other side of the city, making things feel a little more closed-in, like we were in a giant room, and you could bounce a ball off the wall of it if you could just throw it hard enough...and listen to the echoes.