jobless, worthless, and my blood pressure pills cost over 200 dollars for a months supply. i have two left. then i have to rob someone. it doesnt get too high when im off them. it not like i set the record in the small town doctors office when i went in for my checkup. oh wait, thats exactly the story. the nurse took it twice, just to be sure, and said i may have won myself a free ride in the ambulance. i pointed out that i was wearing running shoes and that the doctor said i should get more exercise so bring 'em on.
yeah, i channeled george bush.
they gave me some samples but now im almost out of them. cavemen didnt have pills. cavemen didnt live much past 35. cavemen lived the life. i mean look at this shitheap i tool around in all day. an overstuffed collection of aches and pains, my eyes are starting to go, my teeth are getting sensitive, my right hand numbs up from too much rugby, i thinks its c6 or c7, probably fused. if i was a caveman id be in heaven with tupac and biggie and bob marley and mr mojo risin.
so this is my early forties, only the good die young, so im a bad mutha and i gotta find another career to replace the wonderful inner-city teaching job that is fading in my rearview. the "career" that took twelve to fifteen of my most energetic, productive years in an unwinnable struggle against institutionally entrenched apathy and ignorance in a hypersexualized frequently violent culture. it was fun while it lasted. now its just depressing to think about.
i coulda been a contenda.
so i gotta write my name on papers and convince them im not crazy and it gets harder with every interview. they'll find out eventually. why do i have to hide it? i have to give them names and numbers of people who will vouch for the fact that i was once a successful, competent, bill-paying pillar of society. an upstanding human being with values out the kazoo and many intangible qualities that make me the exact right match for their company at this time.
i just need a job to finance my frequent trips to the liquor store. i should work there. i applied at the track the otehr day. the turf club. they didn't get back to me for some reason. rejected by degenerate gambling inc., now thats a highlight of my life. and as if being unemployed is not bad enough, my writing isn't going anywhere. i mean look at THIS bellyaching, whiny missive. oh, its reality verite', a slice of life, a look at the hopelessness confronted by the newly jobless in a transitional period between "CAREERS" yeah. well i didn't know the answer to the question in high school and 22 years later i still do not know it. what do I want to be when i grow up? how do you know that answer?
I know i dont have a burning desire to manage a grocery store, but i will apply for that job if it has benefits. im pretty sure i wouldnt like having a stroke because i ran out of pills. grocery manager? im pretty sure i could do it well enough to make my bonusses and probably do very well for about a year or two. thats when the muzac and constant bombardment of buying impulses embedded into the every square inch of packaging by a team of ex nazi food merchandisers would drive me over the edge i had been skating so close to and only survivng because of a strategic plan of weekend long binge drinking and vegas jaunts to try to erase from my brain the hell that my life has become.
there was a movie about a grocery store manager who was banging the young checkout girls in the fridge, so maybe it wouldnt be so bad after all. but id have to fill out an application to find out and then id have to clean up and look all fresh and enthused just to get thru the interviews.
i can see it now, inside the grocers studio, with james lipton. the followup mega hit/reality series where he talks to ordinary shmoes who work in grocery stores, or "grocery artistes" as he calls them
"it says here that you have two passions in life, fresh vegetables and exemplary customer service, tell me about these twin passions..."
"well it came about from a movie actually james"
"do tell"
"in the classic john hughes film animal house when deans wormers wife is so intrigued by the properties of fresh produce"
"ahhh...the famous cucmber scene..."
"yes, it was then i saw my destiny. like a lightbulb going off, truly one of those AHA! moments. it was then that i realized the truly rich and fabulous potential that there was in combining fresh produce and customer service, and it filled me with a zeal that has never waned to this day, 23 years later."
"you do know that the character was a rakish frat boy and not an employee of the supermarket, don't you?"
"wh...what?"
"yes, actually the only employee of a grocery store iwith a speaking part in the film was the bra stuffing fifteen year old who"
"WAITAMINUTE, MY LIFE HAS BEEN A SHAM!"
pulls out a gun, shoot lipton who somersualts backwards off of the dias and into the curtains, bringing them down, as the crowd goes wild with applause.
cut to commercial
inside the grocers studio is brought to you by remington, makers of fine firearms and the international brotherhood of carrot growers, fertilizers and distributors council number 432, briniging quality beta carotene to your famlilies tables affordably, reliably and delicously since 1976. say it with carrots. or bullets.
yeah, i channeled george bush.
they gave me some samples but now im almost out of them. cavemen didnt have pills. cavemen didnt live much past 35. cavemen lived the life. i mean look at this shitheap i tool around in all day. an overstuffed collection of aches and pains, my eyes are starting to go, my teeth are getting sensitive, my right hand numbs up from too much rugby, i thinks its c6 or c7, probably fused. if i was a caveman id be in heaven with tupac and biggie and bob marley and mr mojo risin.
so this is my early forties, only the good die young, so im a bad mutha and i gotta find another career to replace the wonderful inner-city teaching job that is fading in my rearview. the "career" that took twelve to fifteen of my most energetic, productive years in an unwinnable struggle against institutionally entrenched apathy and ignorance in a hypersexualized frequently violent culture. it was fun while it lasted. now its just depressing to think about.
i coulda been a contenda.
so i gotta write my name on papers and convince them im not crazy and it gets harder with every interview. they'll find out eventually. why do i have to hide it? i have to give them names and numbers of people who will vouch for the fact that i was once a successful, competent, bill-paying pillar of society. an upstanding human being with values out the kazoo and many intangible qualities that make me the exact right match for their company at this time.
i just need a job to finance my frequent trips to the liquor store. i should work there. i applied at the track the otehr day. the turf club. they didn't get back to me for some reason. rejected by degenerate gambling inc., now thats a highlight of my life. and as if being unemployed is not bad enough, my writing isn't going anywhere. i mean look at THIS bellyaching, whiny missive. oh, its reality verite', a slice of life, a look at the hopelessness confronted by the newly jobless in a transitional period between "CAREERS" yeah. well i didn't know the answer to the question in high school and 22 years later i still do not know it. what do I want to be when i grow up? how do you know that answer?
I know i dont have a burning desire to manage a grocery store, but i will apply for that job if it has benefits. im pretty sure i wouldnt like having a stroke because i ran out of pills. grocery manager? im pretty sure i could do it well enough to make my bonusses and probably do very well for about a year or two. thats when the muzac and constant bombardment of buying impulses embedded into the every square inch of packaging by a team of ex nazi food merchandisers would drive me over the edge i had been skating so close to and only survivng because of a strategic plan of weekend long binge drinking and vegas jaunts to try to erase from my brain the hell that my life has become.
there was a movie about a grocery store manager who was banging the young checkout girls in the fridge, so maybe it wouldnt be so bad after all. but id have to fill out an application to find out and then id have to clean up and look all fresh and enthused just to get thru the interviews.
i can see it now, inside the grocers studio, with james lipton. the followup mega hit/reality series where he talks to ordinary shmoes who work in grocery stores, or "grocery artistes" as he calls them
"it says here that you have two passions in life, fresh vegetables and exemplary customer service, tell me about these twin passions..."
"well it came about from a movie actually james"
"do tell"
"in the classic john hughes film animal house when deans wormers wife is so intrigued by the properties of fresh produce"
"ahhh...the famous cucmber scene..."
"yes, it was then i saw my destiny. like a lightbulb going off, truly one of those AHA! moments. it was then that i realized the truly rich and fabulous potential that there was in combining fresh produce and customer service, and it filled me with a zeal that has never waned to this day, 23 years later."
"you do know that the character was a rakish frat boy and not an employee of the supermarket, don't you?"
"wh...what?"
"yes, actually the only employee of a grocery store iwith a speaking part in the film was the bra stuffing fifteen year old who"
"WAITAMINUTE, MY LIFE HAS BEEN A SHAM!"
pulls out a gun, shoot lipton who somersualts backwards off of the dias and into the curtains, bringing them down, as the crowd goes wild with applause.
cut to commercial
inside the grocers studio is brought to you by remington, makers of fine firearms and the international brotherhood of carrot growers, fertilizers and distributors council number 432, briniging quality beta carotene to your famlilies tables affordably, reliably and delicously since 1976. say it with carrots. or bullets.
posted by bakeowski | 1:35 PM
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