Category Archives: Uncategorized

New pens in the supply room

Someone told the office manager that we needed more pens. Three days later, there are all of these boxes in the supply room. I thought, great, finally, I only had like one pen left. At one point there were at least a half a dozen in this decorative mug I keep on my desk, but, and I don’t want to point any fingers here, because I know how crazy it sounds, for me to just go around giving this blanket accusation toward basically everybody in the office, but it’s the only reasonable explanation I’ve got, that someone’s taking my pens.

pen

Do I think it’s anything personal? No, I mean, I can understand it, sometimes. It’s not like I have my own office. And yes, I can think of maybe one or two fluke occasions where I was on the phone with a vendor or a client and I needed a pen – probably because someone had stolen all of mine. Was it Jones? – so I’d kind of just reach over the cubicle wall, not over, but around, I’d take it.

But, and I’m trying here, I’m going back in my head, trying to make a real thorough inventory of how many times this could have happened, and I’m really only picking out two or three distinct memories. Two, it was definitely two. And each time, I’ve put the pens back as soon as I was done with them.

I remember the second time vividly because as I was reaching back around the cubicle, Sally was like, “What are you doing?” and so I told her, “Sorry Sally, I just had to grab a pen real quick, and here it is, I’m giving it back.” She recoiled, it was a physical reaction, a pained look of disgust, “Ew, OK, not ew, but still, just … it’s yours. Just keep it.”

But I pushed it a little, because I knew where it was going to go if I did push it, just a little further, I told her, “OK well, I just thought you might want your pen back.” And it did, it went exactly where I thought it would, she said, “I’ll just take some more from the supply room. It’s a pen.”

It’s not just a pen. I said that to Sally, I said, “It’s not just a pen, Sally. I’m always losing pens. And then there are no pens in the supply room. And yeah, they get filled eventually, but it’s just unnerving, I just want my pens. If everybody just kept track of their pens, we wouldn’t have any of these problems.”

Whatever, she stopped paying attention, turned her back toward me to show how little she cared about how much I cared about the pens. But how could I not? I was sitting there, the day before the new pens came in, it was a crystal BIC, black, but, and this is a pretty bad habit, yes, but the cap was all chewed up. Nobody took that one.

If I had the same six pens that I had grabbed from the supply room weeks ago, I wouldn’t chew on all of them, just the one. But people steal the good ones, – it’s definitely Jones, he’s got like fifteen pens on his desk – and I’m left with this barely functional, old pen.

Fine, new pens, I’ll get over it. Only, these aren’t crystal BICs, they’re some knockoff pen, the ballpoint doesn’t really roll that smoothly, keeps leaving behind these globs of ink on the page, my sleeve is getting dirty. And there’s no structure to the pen itself, it’s like this thing, it’s made out of rubber, or plastic, like a really cheap plastic.

“Come on Margaret,” I went to the office manager’s office, “Why didn’t you get the good pens?” And she barely even registered my complaint, “It’s a pen, jeez, it’s just a pen.” But it’s not a pen. Or, OK, it’s a pen, yes, but what’s the thought process behind picking out the cheapest pen available? We had crystal BICs, and now we have this off-brank junk. How much could you be saving the company? And why? Just because it’s “just a pen” doesn’t mean you have to buy the absolutely lowest-priced model.

Don’t you think if maybe we bought moderately priced pens, nothing fancy, I don’t see what was wrong with the crystal BICs, don’t you think we’d be spending less money in the long term if you think about how many we’re all going to be just eventually throwing away? Because these things are terrible, honestly, what are you saving, like twenty bucks? Can I just donate twenty bucks to the office supply budget?

And I swear to God, as I was talking to Margaret, which was going nowhere by the way, I saw Jones, on the phone, he walked right past my desk. He went right for my last crystal BIC, he took one of my tissues and threw away the chewed up cap, and he putsthe pen behind his ear. I walked over to say something, like what the hell Jones? You’re going to take my last crystal BIC? But he was on a phone call, I went to say something, he just put his finger in the air, like, one second buddy, and then he turned it into a thumbs up and walked away. Come on man, this isn’t pen communism here, those are my pens, can we just establish a few rules? Just like three or four pen rules?

Just three pen rules. Rule one: Only buy good pens. Rule two: Get your own pens from the supply room. Rule three: Stop taking pens off of my desk, OK Jones? I’m going to lose it, I swear to God, just give me back my BIC, now.

Gas station co-op

“Fill me up with regular,” I told the guy working the pump. Normally I never get full-serve gas. I mean, I know how to work the pump. It’s ridiculous to make someone else get out there and do it for you. But there was a line behind pump three, and the positioning of my gas cap … yeah, I guess I could have made it work. It would have been an awkward three-point parallel park to get over to the opposite side. Or I could have just waited like five minutes.

pumpcoop

But it was freezing out, and it happened so fast, my brain’s way of justifying anything. There was a split decision, for a second I didn’t feel bad about paying those five extra cents a gallon, I pulled up at the full-serve pump and the attendant came around to take my credit card.

And again, it’s not really like full, full-serve. I’d imagine full service to be me not having to turn the car off during refueling. That’s got to be a bullshit rule, turn your ignition off while the pump’s running. What’s going to happen, an explosion? I doubt it. You’d hear about a gas station explosion, even if it only happened once in a while. You hear about every time a plane crashes, and that’s not a very common thing. So a gas station explosion, that would be big news.

Besides I’m pretty sure I’ve left the car running before. One time it was really cold out and I knew that if you used pump eight, the handle still had that little lock, like you could set it to pump and then go back inside the car and wait. It was great, almost like self-full-service. And yeah, I do remember it now, I left the car running, the heat on, I was listening to the radio. I must have lost track of time though, because all of the sudden the gas station guy was banging on my window, he was screaming, I couldn’t tell about what exactly, but I got out of the car and there was gas spilling everywhere, I guess the automatic shut-off wasn’t working for whatever reason, and there was this huge puddle underneath.

That was a pretty expensive mistake, something like a hundred dollars worth of gas, mostly spilled. But still, you fill up the tank and you don’t spill anything, it’s not cheap. “Sixty-seven twenty-three,” the guy handed me back my credit card and my receipt. Was it the full-service? It couldn’t have amounted to that much bigger an expense.

“There’s got to be a better way,” I looked up at the attendant. I don’t even know why I said it. I’m driving a car, I just had this guy pump my gas for me, what’s he interested in my complaints? Oh boo-hoo, you had to pay money for gas, you got sit there in your car and watch me pump it for you. And it’s freezing out here. And are you going to give me a tip? And I don’t even know, do you tip gas station guys? Sure, he’d definitely accept it, but is that a thing?

He was surprisingly sympathetic. He looked me in the eye and said, “There is a better way. You interested?”

“Of course I’m interested,” I said, and he told me to follow him inside the little gas station attendant’s booth.

“A gas station co-op?” I didn’t really understand it. I mean, I understand what a co-op is, you know, for food, for groceries. They have one a little further downtown, where people have to put in a little time at the grocery store, shelving boxes, running the register. I’ve never been, but I heard it’s something about organic produce, a lot of raw stuff … to be perfectly honest, I don’t get the appeal. But people love it.

“So you work the pump for like two hours a week, and then you get fifteen cents off of every gallon as long as you stay in good standing with the co-op.” He looked at me, he definitely had that look like, I got him, I’m totally getting this guy to sign up for the co-op. They must have had some referral program, because, even though this guy clearly wasn’t a natural salesman, I could still see that glint in his eye, the promise of welcoming someone else into the fold.

“I don’t know,” I was getting a little cold in the booth, “I’ll think about it.” Which definitely meant no, and he could see it too, because his face got visibly frustrated. I couldn’t tell if, you know, he might make one more play to get me to stay. He looked like he was about to say something else, but then his head turned abruptly and he ran out of the booth.

Apparently he must have forgotten to take the pump out of my car. And also apparently, I must have forgotten to shift the car into park. Because it started rolling, very, very slowly, backward. He fiddled with the driver’s side door, to get to the brakes, but it was locked, and that pump started stretching, a little bit more, I wasn’t reacting as fast as he was, and then it snapped, gas everywhere, they had to shut off the master pump to stop it from pouring out.

“What the hell man?” he said to me, and all I could see in my head was some owner coming over to the station, screaming at me, all of that lost gas, plus all of the lost sales from having to shut the place down for the rest of the day.

“What the hell to you?” I said in defense, “You were the one who left the pump in the car. You told me to follow you inside. That’s on you, man.”

And I could tell that he was angry, he was frustrated, but that same whatever it was that prevented him from really selling me on the co-op, it was also hindering him from really articulating any more of a fight. He just stood there, staring at me, he looked increasingly more pissed, I worried that he might do something desperate.

I said, “Hey man, you know what? I’m thinking about that co-op. Here’s my number. Once you get this whole pump business fixed, just give me a ring, I’m in.”

And yeah, that worked a little bit. His face didn’t get any more relaxed, but it stopped twisting into as big of a grimace. He didn’t offer any resistance as I took the pump handle out of my car, screwed on the cap and drove away. I could see him in my rearview mirror, holding that piece of paper on which I wrote my number.

But it wasn’t my number. I wrote down the number for the deli across town. Because fuck that, I’m not working for some gas co-op. That just sounds crazy. No thanks, I’ll pay the fifteen extra cents a gallon. Of course I can’t go back to that gas station for a while. And I’m never doing full-service again. I’m telling you, that’s bad news, all right? You just get out, or you wait for a pump, and you do it yourself. Unless you’re in New Jersey, where self-service is mandated by law. But fuck that too, get out of Jersey fast, you never know when Chris Christie is going to shut down another bridge and make it a real headache for you to get back to New York.

Workout pro

When I started working out last month, I expected to get some results, eventually. I mean, this is all so new to me. Just basic techniques like stretching, how to correctly handle a small dumbbell, these were all foreign concepts to me. Push-ups. I started doing push-ups and I could barely get to ten. And I’m sure my form was way off, my back arched, by the sixth or seventh, I couldn’t really tell if I was going all the way down and up.

workoutpro

But that was just a month ago, and it’s like now I’m already a completely different person. I can’t even begin to think of to what I can attribute my rapid success. It’s like, week one, I was terrible, I was sore, I couldn’t do anything. And then immediately into week two, I somehow transformed into this workout pro. I don’t know how to explain it.

Like the push-ups. Remember how I said I could barely do ten? Now I have yet to find my upward limit. The other day at the gym, I was almost getting frustrated. What turned into a pre-workout warm-up wound up consuming the entirety my afternoon. I said to myself, you know what? I’m just going to do as many push-ups as I can.

I lost count. It was somewhere around four hundred when my mind couldn’t keep up with the monotony anymore. And by the time I looked up at the clock, not only had I gotten lost in my physical routine, but I’d completely lost track of time. I was only supposed to be there for an hour, but the gym guy had to tap me on my back, he was like, “Hey bro, we’re closing.”

“Closing?” I couldn’t believe it, “You mean I’ve been doing push-ups here for six hours straight?” Shit, I thought, that means I definitely must have missed work. What was I going to tell my boss, that after only six days of starting a New Years workout resolution, I’ve somehow made enough progress to where I’m able to continuously do push-ups, one after the other, with no sign of ever needing to stop, even for a small break?

“And the craziest thing is, I never even felt tired!” I tried telling my boss, who, it’s not just that he was skeptical, it’s that he wasn’t interested in even entertaining my story. “It’s true,” I tried to catch his attention again as he turned away, “I’m telling you, watch, look, I’ll get down right now. One. Two. Three. Four.”

But he was just like, “Get off the floor Rob, you look like an idiot. I have a restaurant to run, I’m not going to sit here and watch you do push-ups. Just … if you miss one more shift, that’s it, we’re going to have to let you go.”

And right as he was saying that, I got this idea, like fine, I don’t need this stupid job anymore. I could work for the gym. I could be like a personal trainer. So I said, “How about I let myself go,” and I threw down my apron and stormed out. And I went straight to the gym.

“Hire me,” I told the guy at the front desk, “I want to work here at the gym.” And the guy said, “Well, I guess we could use someone to make sure all the weights go back on the racks after people are done using them.”

I said, “No, I don’t think you get it. I want to be a trainer. I can do like an unlimited amount of push-ups.”

And he said, “Well, that’s great, but you know, you have to get certified to be a trainer, and even then, you’ve got to build up a clientele, so if you bring say, ten or eleven people here, get them a gym membership, I mean, we could give them a preferential rate, then maybe we could talk about giving you a cut.”

“Wait a second,” I told him, “Client base? Do you want to see me do push-ups? Seriously, ask the guy who closed the other night. He had to kick me out. I was doing push-ups for like six hours straight.”

“Look, that’s terrific, really, but this is a business, so unless you can somehow make a successful business model out of those push-ups … well, like I said, you’re more than welcome to start part-time racking weights.”

And that sucked, because it was only like seven an hour, and I had a lot of bills to pay. My old boss wasn’t that forgiving either, he let me back, but I had to start over as busboy, which meant a lot of hours for a lot less pay. In fact I was spending so much time at the restaurant that I didn’t have any time to work out, I barely had any money to pay for my gym membership.

By the time I found an hour to sneak away, it was like months later, all of that muscle I’d built up, well, if you don’t use it, you lose it, right? And so I was back to square one, I couldn’t even finish ten push-ups. And of course, guess who walked by right as I was struggling around number seven. It was the gym owner.

“Keep pushing there buddy, you’re doing great.” Why couldn’t he have walked by when I was at the top of my game, huh? Because I don’t think he believed me, if only he could have seen, I was just cranking out push-ups, I could have powered a small city just on upper body strength.

“Keep pushing!” he wasn’t even talking to me anymore, he was just walking around the gym, doling out generic motivation to everyone in the room, “You’re doing a great job!”

Tongue glasses

If you don’t have perfect vision, that’s not such a big deal, you just get a pair of glasses, and then you can see things perfectly. What’s that? No, what did you say? I’m sorry, I can’t hear you. Maybe my hearing isn’t as good as everyone else’s. That’s not really a problem either. If you’re hard of hearing, you just go and get a hearing aid or a cochlear implant and, there you go, much better, now everything’s coming through loud and clear.

tglasses

But what about the other senses? Are you telling me that touch, taste, and smell don’t ever suffer like hearing and sight do? And say your taste buds aren’t fully operational, what are your options? Are you supposed to just go through life acting like everything’s OK? No, unless you’re a naturally gifted actor, which I’m sure you’re not, you might pretend like you can taste just fine. And so your mom surprises you one day, she made you your favorite pie, “And have a piece right now! I want to see the look on your face when you take that first bite!”

And you’re like, “All right mom,” because, yeah, you don’t dislike pie. Maybe you even tell yourself that you really like pie, that you love it. And so you cut yourself a huge slice, like a fifth of the pie. Your mom’s watching expectantly, you cut in and take your first taste. That smile, you close your eyes and you go, “Mmm, that’s delicious mom, thank you so much.”

Your mom’s still smiling, I mean, you’re smiling, to the rest of the world, you look like you might be enjoying yourself. But this isn’t the rest of the world you’re eating pie in front of, this is your mom. She knows you better than anybody. She knows what it looks like when you’re experiencing pure joy, that same look you had on your face when you were in the second grade, when there was a Super Nintendo wrapped underneath the Christmas tree that year.

All you talked about was asking Santa for a Super Nintendo, you wouldn’t shut up about Super Mario World and all of the different items and tools available in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. “I wouldn’t get your hopes up,” your mom would tell you as you cut out a full-page advertisement for the SNES from a Nintendo Power magazine and taped it up like a poster above your bed. “There might not be enough Super Nintendos for Santa to give out. That’s a really popular toy this year.”

But of course she got you that Super Nintendo. And even though you tried not to let it show, the doubt, that maybe Santa wouldn’t be able to make it happen right there, you went right for that box on Christmas morning, the only one that could have been a Super Nintendo. The wrapping paper went flying, but it was just a clothing box, just a couple of sweaters.

And after all of the presents were opened up, your mom couldn’t prolong her own need for that Christmas morning feeling any longer. She did the whole, “Wait a second, did you forget a present? What’s that over there?” routine, the cleverly hidden box, of course it was the Super Nintendo. That was the look, pure joy, of unadulterated bliss, and it would have been difficult for an outside observer to make a distinction between just who was happier that day, you or your mom.

But this? “Wow, great pie mom.” This was a joke. You’re not an actor, and even if you were, do you know how hard it is to fake that type of a reaction? Was your mom really expecting a repeat of December, 1992? Of course she wasn’t. But maybe if your reaction was just a little more genuine, if you could only fully appreciate the time and care that went in to making that pie crust, the delicate flavor profile of the strawberries balanced with the tartness of the rhubarb. Maybe you wouldn’t be wolfing it down as fast, like, OK, this pie is great and all, but I’m a little tired of having dessert.

And the worst part is, it’s not even your fault. How can your mom know that your sense of taste isn’t up to snuff? You don’t even know. It’s not like you started losing your flavor profile over night. It was gradual. You started ordering chicken and pasta when you went out to eat because, well, everyone else keeps raving about that smoked paprika dry rub or the artisanal veal bouillabaisse, but when you really take a bite, can you tell the difference? Besides the basics, the savory, the hot, the cold, are you picking out any separate tastes?

Of course you can’t. When it comes to the sense of taste, you’re like Mr. Magoo. You know, except that he couldn’t see. But whatever, he got some glasses and went about his life. Why don’t they make glasses for you? For your tongue? How many people are out there, disappointing their mothers and grandmothers on a daily basis, by pretending to enjoy food that they’re really not even capable of truly appreciating?

We need tongue glasses. Obviously we won’t call them glasses. Except if whatever technological advances that make it work happen to be made out of glass. Then we probably still won’t call them glasses, because it would be confusing with eyeglasses. Well, I guess it wouldn’t be that difficult to just say eyeglasses and tongue … no, you know what? Someone will think of a different name. But we’ve got to invent them first. Scientists, whoever invents what I’m talking about first, don’t forget to give me some credit.