#455

Here's a little parable for you, drawn from life.

A man pops popcorn as one of the main parts of how he makes his living at this strange time in his oddball life. On occasion, he has occasion to take the occasion to take a big plastic trash bag of leftover popcorn home, and does so. Occasionally, you see. The bag may sit around and be drawn from for a month or more, and each time, the man marvels at how this food item, perishable and delicate though it is, retains freshness and bite, even crunch, for more than two weeks, and in a diminished state is still a quality product for another three or even four weeks before at last going properly stale--at which point it is still perfectly edible, though not exciting. 

The second man approaches the first man accompanied by a woman at the place at which the first man is employed and purchases popcorn. This popocorn was popped within the last hour. Twenty minutes later the woman approaches the first man and tells him the second man wanted her to inquire whether the popcorn had been popped fresh, because it tasted stale, and to have the first man pop more if the batch had been sitting around. 

I don't know exactly what this parable is about, but I think it's probably about how different approaches to life can yield different results from the same phenomenon. I mean that is pretty basic but I guess all parables sort of are, in an obscure sort of way.

--JL

#99

So what I do is I work five days and get a weekend, but my Monday is Wednesday and my Friday is Sunday. At least, that has been the way things have been able to shake out for a few weeks running, maybe even more than a month (I have a great memory but it is not chrononormative or performative, so I forget what day it is and how much time has passed around events and it is panoramic as opposed to photographic), which is impressive given the way turnover and call-offs go. 

Someone, however, did indeed call off on Tuesday, and I covered the close and opened Wednesday like usual, figured it wouldn't kill me to throw in a clopen at the beginning of my week and take a little overtime. Now the new schedule has come down the line and I do not get a day off till Wednesday, due to various requests for time off, so that's eight days in a row. 

Frankly, I'm glad. I hated Monday, a day on which I accomplished little outside of recuperation, and wished I were at work. Now I have an unbroken stretch in front of me. I have asked, and now I shall receive. It is a blessing to have work for the hands, and paths to tread, so I am grateful.

*

Never before have I wondered if I could get away with simply coming in on my day off, punching the clock, and getting to work. 

Kind of hoping for another call-off I can cover, either to throw a double in there or a ninth day, since I'm already approved for overtime. 

*

I don't need a lot of money to live my life, but I am a gamer, and so when the numbers go up, I feel viscerally rewarded. Paychecks can be a sort of high score. That's why people ask each other "so, what's your game?"

People in my industry are pretty badly underpaid, so my effort-to-number ratio is pretty good. Like, a Wall Street shithead my age pulling in more than three hundred and fifty thousand points after taxes is playing Tetris on easy and getting his dick sucked for it and free cocaine into the bargain. I'm in the corner playing a pinball game that cuts or burns my hands or arms if I fuck up; if I lose, somebody gets sick, and if I play a perfect game, I might get fired with no notice because the pinball machine is fifty grand in the hole. The points don't exactly rack up, but I'm proud to punch my initials next to the score.

--JL