From the Archives - Bits & Bobs Volume IX

Introduction

This is the ninth installment in the “From the Archives – Bits & Bobs” series. Volume I is here, Volume II is here, Volume III is here, Volume IV is here, Volume V is here, Volume VI is here, Volume VII is here, and Volume XIII is here. (The different volumes have little or nothing to do with one another.)

As with other installments, these are taken from emails to various friends and family members, back when I archived them as simple text files for posterity. Who know that posterity would come in the form of a blog? I sure didn’t, as the Internet was (almost) entirely unknown in those days…

January 15, 1995

I filled out a W-2 the other day and was about to check “Single” as I’ve been doing for about 15 years, and then realized, “Wait a second—I’m married!” Then, I had to look at all the worksheets to see how many deductions to claim. I was shocked to realize that as far as the IRS is concerned, I do not qualify as the Head of the Household. Just what in the hell is going on here when a man doesn’t automatically qualify as head of the household?

July 6, 1995

We have some houseguests from Holland. In their honor we just ate “Gourmet,” a Dutch culinary tradition (you might even say celebration). I got the Gourmet set from my brother. You have these little burners, that burn Sterno, with little 4-inch non-stick pans on a cage above them, and you throw in little pieces of meat and vegetables, kind of like fajitas. It takes forever, and it’s a lot of fun, like a great movie that you don’t want to end. You get to try all kinds of different combinations—I ate at least ten different pans of food. It’s great. The only problem is that the flame goes out every so often and it’s kind of scary relighting it. I’m sure after doing this dozens of times I’ll get overconfident, squirt Sterno right into the dying flame, and blow up my kitchen.

July 30, 1995

I had an epiphany recently. I was going to brush my teeth and I noticed that E—’s toothpaste tube wasn’t rolled neatly from the end, but was squeezed in the middle. This shouldn’t have bothered me too much, since we have separate toothpastes (not really by design, but because I accidentally bought tartar control, which she doesn’t like). But I figure I’d roll her tube up for her. Well, not really for her, since she doesn’t give a damn, but for me. I can’t stand to see the toothpaste tube disfigured like that. Well, when I rolled it up, I realized the cap was open. I realized this because toothpaste squirted out. It was a big mess, all over the cap. This is the kind of stupid modern cap that has a little flip-top. The top was all coated in goo. I reflected meanly that it was probably pretty gooey even before my little mishap. I removed the cap and rinsed it carefully in the sink, which is when I had my epiphany that I’m really a totally absurd person. Actually, it’s not really an epiphany, because this fact has been dawning on me frequently, possibly due to the tendency one has to compare his behavior to that of his spouse. E—’s lack of attention to such details amazes me. “Amazement” perhaps don’t cover her responses to my own quirky pedanticism, and to the obvious torture that entropy inflicts on my life. We’ve had a certain amount of marital friction along these lines.

So, are you the same way? (I think I’ve seen signs that you are.) If so, does [your wife] mind? Only moments ago, I halted my train of thought, noticing a bit of lint on my keyboard, and plunged into my desk drawer to retrieve a little nylon brush, perfectly suited for cleaning out a keyboard. It’s the brush that came with the Norelco electric razor I bought in 1985 to shave my legs with. The razor wore out in six months, and the replacement blades cost more than a new razor. I sure wasn’t going to buy new blades, on general principle, but I couldn’t bring myself to replace the whole razor and throw away the almost perfectly good old one. So I took the only possible remaining option: I began using a Bic. Before retiring the electric razor to some special burying place (or perhaps I still have it somewhere), I inspected the nylon brush that came with it, and determined that it would be excellent for cleaning the keyboard of my typewriter. Well, that little brush has lasted me four keyboards since then, and I always know where to find it instantly. I even brought it on the bike tour. Does that make me ridiculous? [2023 update: I still have, and use, that little brush.]

September 12, 1995

[Trigger warning: the following anecdote involves heavy drinking. Let me just say, before you proceed, that these days, as a responsible salary man, husband, and father, I appreciate quality beverages and enjoy them responsibly. I haven’t drunk recklessly in ages, and my kids can vouch for me in that regard.]

We went down to Ventura to participate in D—’s blowout 30th birthday party. P— drove us down there, with [his wife] L—, and even got us a motel. (I’d envisioned just passing out on a sofa or something at the party, but a motel was entirely welcome.) The only problem was, once we got to the party, P—, who is a very starchy sort, given to extreme temperance, seemed determined not to have a good time. He and L— sat by themselves on a sofa and watched—and in fact judged—the mêlée unfolding around them. It was one hell of a party. All kinds of people were there whom I hadn’t seen in ages, such as B—. Well, the more fun everybody else began to have, the more visibly annoyed P— seemed to become. By 9:30 he had his jacket on and was making noises about saying our goodbyes and heading to the motel.

The next piece of this story requires some background. At your wedding, I became somewhat inebriated, perhaps as the result of obliging half a dozen old friends who wanted to drink a shot with me. (I’m not sure what the origin is of this strange custom.) Well, I began talking to S—’s sister. She asked me what I did for a living. My response, as I began, threatened to ramble out of control, since I really didn’t have a good answer. So I backed up and started over by telling her the highlights of my day: getting home, changing my shoes, and hanging up my suit jacket. From here my logical faculties completely broke down and I circumnavigated, in tedious spirals, what would have been the point of my story if there had been one. My shoes featured prominently, for reasons I cannot recall. I do not believe that my story was very interesting. However, I believe S—’s sister was at least somewhat amused, because she giggled through my little monologue. It’s always at least somewhat amusing, in a voyeuristic sort of way, to watch a drunk person trying to make sense, his rhetoric completely disintegrating and being replaced by loud, doggerel emphasis. If nothing else, my rambling was benign.

Anyway, the next time I saw P— he recounted at length the foolishness of my drunken oration, which he’d witnessed at the wedding. (I had actually half forgotten it, until he mentioned it to me, at which point I remembered every detail with complete clarity.) P— expounded with much emphasis on what an absolute idiot I had been, and how glad he was that he wasn’t me and doesn’t have to live anything down. I didn’t (and don’t) quite get his point, though he took pains to make it.

Okay, that’s the background. Now we’ll return to D—’s party. P— grew increasingly vexed with me, since I was ruining everything by having a good time and enjoying the company of not just my friends but of complete strangers. For example, I got to chat with M—, a former star rider on the cycling team I’d never before met, whom I gather P— was kind of intimidated by. Well, while I was chatting with M—, about who knows what, P— came up to us and said, “Hey Dana, why don’t you tell him about your job, and your shoes.” This annoyed me, encapsulating as it did his general piss-poor attitude, and I am curt even when sober as you well know. I responded, as one does, “Why don’t you blow me.” Well, M— was drunk enough to find this the funniest damn thing he’d ever heard. This annoyed P— further, and he decided it was time to leave.

It wasn’t even 10:00 yet, and D— and I hadn’t even yet shared the sophomoric delight of travelling naked. To this day I regret having squandered the opportunity to bike naked through Isla Vista with D— years ago (having chosen instead to do something else with R—, which only seemed like the better idea at the time). This time I wasn’t about to leave before accomplishing that, so with the clock running out, D—, B—, and I ran out of the house, out the back door, as if escaping. As we abandoned our clothing and ran across the beach, mooning the moon as it were, I could hear L— and P— harmonizing: “We’re leaving!”

Now, the ocean was a good 200 meters from the beach house, and we aren’t great runners, and it seemed to take an eternity to make it to the surf. Then, for some reason the water felt merely cool, not icy cold as it truly must have been, and hence our swim was not rushed. Nor was the ensuing sand fight. To make matters worse, by the time we returned to the house, our clothing had been stolen. By now it was going on 10:30 and P— was livid (in the silent, tense, purple style that is so much more annoying than if he’d spewed profanity or something). It should be noted that nobody else had even thought of leaving the party. In fact, there was a cake fight in full swing. By the time I had recovered my clothing and put it back on, P— himself had become an innocent civilian caught in the crossfire: he’d had a giant wedge of brown/blue/pink birthday cake ground into his jacket by one of the blessed Dionysians. P—, the party atheist, dragged me out to the car, our wives following along, and we left behind a party that was still in full swing. Fortunately, once we got to the motel P— treated us to a live reading from a book of fine literature by Laurence Sterne. This seemed to revive his good spirits and was a nice way to wind down the night.

December 10, 1995

My new job begins tomorrow. I gave my old employer  a whole month’s notice, so that I would have time to tie up all the loose ends and train my replacement. We hired a good guy, looks like Uncle David did as a young man. Good academic credentials, including a law degree. Made it kind of odd training him: “Well, I’ve no use for this job anymore, but I’m sure you’ll be great!”

The new job is about five blocks closer to home than the old one. It’s on the edge of the Financial District near Chinatown. The building is a newer one than my old one, but slightly less spacious. If my old building was a giant Buick, this one is more like a nice new Nissan Sentra. The furniture is more modern (Star Trek ballistic nylon, coated steel) than the stuff at my old building (opulent leather, cherry wood). And this is the kicker: a cubicle rather than an office. Did you ever see my old office? Probably not. Well, it was sweet. Great view, great chairs (high back, ergonomic chair for me, a sumptuous black leather chair for my guest), great lighting. A door I could close. Vertical blinds. Framed Ansel Adams print on the wall. Now I’ll have a cubicle. I haven’t seen it yet, but I envision the kind of fabric-covered partitions I can stick notes to with thumbtacks. Surely buzzing fluorescent lights overhead. It’ll be an unimpressive task chair (like the dumb-looking webbed chair Spock had to sit on in the Star Trek movies). These are my fears. The reality could be nicer, but still . . . a cubicle. O, what I’ll sacrifice for job security, unlimited growth potential, stock options, vision benefits, and cool people to work with!

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From the Archives - Fiction - Roommate

Introduction

It being a slow news day, here’s a bit of short fiction from my archives. Enjoy please enjoy.

Roommate – June 1, 1989

It was an art, really. Nobody cooked ramen‑spaghetti like Nick did (albeit because nobody cooked it at all). The process gave him solace. No matter what was going wrong with his day, he could always count on his keenly precise cooking techniques to assure him that all was not lost. He would think, “Well, the ramen’s perfect anyway. At least there’s one thing in my life I haven’t screwed up yet.”

But today, Nick knew something was wrong as soon as he stepped into the kitchen. His demon roommate had stunk the place up. Scott, whose entire diet consisted of beans and brown rice, was sick again and thought he could cure himself by drinking gallons of tea infused with garlic. Scott wasn’t the first one to try this delusional home remedy. Nick’s own brother had tried it, too … when he was eight.

The smell itself wasn’t the only problem. Beyond this, Scott had used Nick’s pot. Nick was used to his roommates using his kitchenware, but not this pot. It was a gift, like almost everything else, from a friend who had used it all through college. “If you can handle not having a handle, it’s a great pot,” she had said. She was referring to the steel stub that had once supported a wooden handle. The stub never heated up too much, since almost all Nick cooked in the pot was ramen. And it was the perfect ramen pot, being the perfect size for two packages.

Nick’s routine was like clockwork. While the water heated up, he would pour spaghetti sauce into his special bowl. He used to have an even better bowl, with a fill line for the sauce, but Scott had broken it. Sure, Nick couldn’t prove that Scott broke it; somebody started a crack and one day the bowl finally split in half. But Scott was his scapegoat. Every household needs one, he mused, and this demon roommate had earned the title. The bowl Nick used now was less handy, but cool anyway: a white china bowl with a blue Japanese‑looking fish on the bottom. One of Scott’s former roommates had left it behind when he abruptly dropped out of college, having gone crazy. As in, he was literally in a mental hospital.

Nick would put the bowl of spaghetti sauce in the microwave, but he wouldn’t start it right away. Once the water was boiling and the noodles were all separated, he would reduce the heat and then start the microwave. The sauce didn’t need to be very hot; cooking it served as a timer more than anything. On half power, the microwave would warm the sauce just enough. When the microwave timer showed one minute, he would turn the stove off completely. With the lid on, it would keep cooking. He doubted—no, he knew—that Scott never took this energy-saving step; Scott looked at conservation only from a financial standpoint, and therefore acquainted it with being cheap. As if he wasn’t a low-class, low-rent, low-tier guy to begin with. He might as well admit it.

As soon as the timer rang, Nick would test one noodle. If it was done, he would pour the noodles in the waiting colander, then slide them into the bowl atop the sauce. The warm sauce cooled the noodles just enough to eat immediately once stirred, with a good shake of powdered parmesan from the green cardboard shaker.

But today his pot was dirty. Scott had used it to boil his smelly tea. Scott stubbornly insisted on brewing the tea several times a day. He couldn’t make a whole pot in advance and reheat mugs of it throughout the day, because he couldn’t figure out the microwave oven. It was an old-dog-new-tricks situation (Scott was thirty-fricking-three). Nick tried to show him how the microwave worked, but Scott just refused to learn. All manner of electronics mystified him, which was ironic since he was getting his Master’s in computer science.

Scott never figured out how to use his digital watch, either. When Nick realized this, he played a trick: he set alarm to go off at 2:00 am every night, just to see if the demon roommate would finally sit down and figure out how to disable it. Amazingly, not only did Scott fail to learn this, but couldn’t even figure out how to silence the alarm mid-ring. It was as though he was afraid to push a single button on the watch. Instead he made a habit of putting the watch in his sock drawer every night so it wouldn’t wake him up.

How would this guy, upon finishing grad school, find a job in the computer industry? Rely on his good looks? Hardly. Okay, he wasn’t a bad-looking guy, but also wasn’t nearly as handsome as he himself believed. He was so damn proud of his highway‑patrolman mustache, he would just sit in front of the mirror admiring it, like Narcissus. Nick, laboring to suppress a sneer nearby, would eventually give himself away. Then Scott would say, “Yeah, you could never grow one of these, could you? That’s a shame. Man, I used to have a full beard. Looked damn good too. Did I ever show you the picture of that?” Nick would roll his eyes. Only about a thousand times. Scott would reiterate, “You never could grow one of these. It’s not in your genes. Guess you’re outta luck.” Nothing Nick could say would deter him. Scott would continue admiring his reflection, and Nick would just stand there wishing he had a gun.

Normally Nick didn’t have to worry about Scott using his special ramen‑pot, because it was steel. Scott, like a lot of paranoid people, equated aluminum pots with Alzheimer’s disease. But he took it a step further, avoiding steel as well. He had one stovetop-safe glass pot, but today it was covered in burnt rice, and the dirtbag had resorted to borrowing the ramen pot.

This was a guy who took liberties. He left messes, he borrowed your stuff, you might even find him in your own bedroom sitting in your chair listening to your stereo. He had an entitled air about him, like Goldilocks. He had even discarded his given name and rechristened himself Scott. He probably chose this just so he could nickname himself “the Scotsman,” despite being the farthest thing from Scottish. He loved to refer to himself in the third person. As in, “I met a young woman at the gym today and got her number. Looks like the Scotsman’s gonna get laid!”

Now Nick was in a rush—to zip home between classes and have a ramen spaghetti meal before rushing back for his next class required clockwork precision. Now his whole system was thrown off. When the microwave beeped he hastily pulled one long noodle from the pot, let it cool for a few seconds, and tested it. It was perfect—the gears in his machine seemed to be meshing again. He signed contentedly—and poured the noodles down the garbage disposal. The colander! He had completely forgotten it! And it was all because of the Scotsman throwing him off his game!

He was furious. His lunch—gone. No time to start over—he’d have to go hungry. Nick’s mind raced. Scott and that damn tea, he thought. I’ll get him for this. I’ll kill him! But how? Suddenly, he remembered the Winchester 30.06. He knew just how to get it, too. It was in his neighbor’s glass display case, and the neighbor’s eight-year-old kid had the key on a string around his neck. But that was the neighbor in his hometown, more than a thousand miles away, and that little eight‑year‑old was probably in high school by now. What could Nick do? There was always the chef’s knife . . . but he probably didn’t have the nerve. He didn’t doubt that he could overpower his roommate—he could envision the old dude’s brittle bones snapping like twigs. But there couldn’t be blood—then he would lose the damage deposit on the apartment. No, it would have to be clean—the perfect crime.

He didn’t have much time to hatch a revenge plot—Scott would be home by about five. He checked his watch, and was suddenly overcome with inspiration. Of course! The watch! As Nick watched the liquid crystal digits rolling over precisely, the seconds changing like magic, a plan unfolded before his eyes. The Scotsman had been talking nonstop about a meeting he was to have with the one professor on campus who still respected him. Scott freely—almost proudly—admitted that his flamboyant personality had irritated all the other professors to the point of complete alienation. And Nick knew a bit more than Scott had let on, since he had friends in the Computer Science department. Many people knew that Scott had virtually no hands‑on computer experience. Sure, he could write decent programs on paper, but that wouldn’t make him a real programmer. The ones who spent their entire lives in front of the computer—they would be competing for the jobs. For them, school was just a side‑show; they had been dominating the keyboards since they were teenagers. Scott, meanwhile, had spent ten years working at a factory after washing out in the white-collar world. Grad school was his second chance, but he needed to find a thesis advisor before he could finish his Master’s—and he had only one prospect left. Whether or not he could make a good impression at Friday’s meeting was up to him—until he decided not to wash that pot. Now, his fate was in Nick’s hands.

It was almost too simple. Nick would swipe Scott’s watch that night and change the alarm. The meeting was at 2:00 p.m.—he would set the alarm for 2:15. He envisioned the result: as the ignorant fool chatted with the professor, desperate to make a good impression, the watch would suddenly start beeping. The Scotsman, as shocked as the professor, would be powerless to stop the shrill “BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP! BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!” For maybe five seconds, he would just listen to it, his face turning red, the professor becoming increasingly irritated by the unpleasant noise. Then, Scott would try in vain to muffle it with his hand. After about ten seconds, the professor would stare in disbelief as the computer science major clumsily fumbled with the band, finally stripping the delinquent watch from his wrist and shoving it in his pocket. The professor would realize the irony of the situation and burst out laughing. The damage already done, Scott could theoretically laugh with him, or make a futile excuse. But that wasn’t his nature. No, his explosive temper would take over, and he would blurt out something offensive and storm out of the room. He might reach the end of the hall before realizing that he had just ruined his last chance at getting a thesis advisor—and hence at getting his master’s degree in computer science. Once the word got out about his folly with the digital watch, and the ensuing loss of temper, he would be the laughingstock of the entire department.

Would the Scotsman then transfer to another school, to finally complete his degree? No chance. He was a quitter—always had been. A decade earlier, he’d received his first rejection slip from a magazine editor and immediately gave up all hope of becoming a writer, despite having a journalism degree. In like fashion, he would leave the university, unable to complete his goal, and return to the factory, a broken man. Nick’s revenge would be complete. And he couldn’t be punished! Even if he were convicted of tampering with Scott’s watch, was that a crime? In itself, no . . . Nick sat back, chuckling. It would indeed be the perfect crime.

Right around five, Scott arrived at the apartment, and between snorting, wheezing, and hacking up snot in the sink, he told Nick about this certain girl, who was so good looking, and not bitchy at all, but actually really sweet, and how he could tell she liked him, and how he wanted to “treat her to an active sex life.” Scott brushed his teeth, admired his reflection for a while, then continued his bedtime ritual by stashing his watch in the sock drawer. He was asleep within the hour, whereupon Nick retrieved the watch, put it in alarm set mode, expertly marched the digits across the screen until the alarm was set for 2:15 p.m., and returned the watch to its drawer. He had launched his magnificent plan and Scott would handle the rest, the mechanism of his own humiliation and rage set into motion like clockwork.

At precisely 2:28 the next afternoon, Nick looked up from his ramen to see the Scotsman crash through the front door in a blind rage. He crossed the room and began smashing his already bloody fist into the fridge. He spouted profanities, mingled with “professor” and “watch,” until he glanced over at Nick and fell silent. Nick, wiping tomato sauce from his chin, innocently asked, “What’s the matter?”

Then, as he locked eyes with the demon roommate, he found he was no longer able to keep a poker face. He jumped up, anticipating the attack, and when the Scotsman reached him, Nick let him have it.

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