This is not a test

I've an odd job.
Yes I realize that to most of the people that know me, I don't have a job.
I generally come and go as I please. Showing up in strange places at seemingly random times.
I go to work at 4 am.
For those of you that lead normal, sunshine lives. 4 am is not the middle of the night, its just a while before the butt-crack of dawn.
I get emergency calls occasionally.
Sometimes, but very seldom actually are the emergencies real.
I have just had to broaden my view as to what, exactly, constitutes an emergency.
I wont use any names, I cant.
A day or so ago, I started getting calls at 3:30 am. An emergency in one of my buildings. Unspecified as to the nature of the crisis, but from the panicked tones and veiled nervousness on my voice-mail and carefully worded semi-literate pleas in the emails I was receiving I surmised it was something big.
A little background.
About a year ago I had a power failure in one of my buildings.
This particular building houses (among other things) a lab.
As in Laboratory.
They store things in this lab, in giant stainless steel locked refrigerators.
Things that if they got even a little thawed, even a little bit of exposure to humans, could make some very sick people.
A lot of very sick humans.
I got one call.
one.
The other day I got 15 calls. From 15 different people. 36 emails.
All within an 8 hour window.
To say I rushed is a bit of an understatement.
I calmly sped to the building, calmly ran in, I calmly eschewed the elevator and sprinted up the stairs.
8 flights.
Opening the doors to a kicked termite mound of activity.
2 seconds.
That's how long it took for the lowing masses to recognize I was there and start clamoring.
One of those marvelous instances of mass hysteria where every single person is talking at the exact same time.
I picked the calmest looking of the bunch, a distinguished looking gent.
He had a sardonic tilt to one eyebrow that gave me a little hope for the survival of the entire floor. A little humorous gleam in his eye as he surveyed the crowds of cubicle lemmings milling about.
He walked me over to the emergency.
Briskly walked.

Bananas.
That was the emergency.
Last week one of the lemmings had gone on vacation.
He called one of his co-lemmings the day before the emergency to tell a sad tale.
A sordid tale.
A tale of woe and calamity.
See, he had left a bunch of bananas by accident locked in his cabinet.
Sardonic eyebrow and I, we stood there.
In front of the unlocked cabinet, and I reached in and removed the browned bunch.
The sigh of relief from the herd was audible.
This is when it gets weird.

I walked, mouldering fruit in my hand, to the nearest garbage pail and was just about to calmly chuck them in.
It seemed a good idea, after all, if you can simply dispose of the emergency, you really should.
I was stopped.
Mid chuck.
By 4, count them, four women and 2 men. That's a total of 6 (unless I miscalculate) humans.
All of whom wanted the fruit.
Is a banana a fruit?
Needless, these people, budding chefs all of them, wanted those blasted browned bananas to make bread.
Banana Bread.
no shit.
So I set them on a table.
With a conspiratorial glance at the sardonic eyebrow, I left.
Left them to go and type up my required 6 page emergency report.
Left them to cajole, plead, argue and possibly use the wisdom of Solomon to distribute the potassium packed delicacies on their own.
I've an odd Job.

Stranger things

Some of the conversations I have with people border on the absurd.
Scratch that, let me re-phrase, very few of the conversations I have with people could be considered normal.
Possibly because I do not fit into the "normal" spectrum, but I think that the universe has a sick sense of humor.
Either that or Karma-man hates my guts for stealing his weed in a previous life.
I had a female walk up to me at work the other day and throw a hand drawn floor map at me. Then she screamed (loudly) "I want my 48 feet back!"
I had no idea who she was or what the hell she was talking about. Fearing that she was having an episode of some sort I plastered the "concern" expression on my face and remained silent.
She plastered the "furious hate" expression on her face and stood staring at me with her arms folded.
I felt that she was ready to stand there all the live long day so I relented and said "Huh?"
She took this for the green light and was verbally off like a shot. After about a three minute rant, three minutes by my watch, which I kept glancing at, I got the gist.
She had given me a hand-drawn request for some small interior project she wanted done the week before, measured out with her very accurate paces, and I had the absolute gall! The nerve! The GOD-COMPLEX! To give her back a blueprint, computer generated from the stupid building plans that reduced her spacious 48 feet to a paltry 32.
I was confounded. Rendered speechless.
She took this as even more encouragement and started wailing about the unfairness of life, the stupid domination of men and their even dumber ability to pee wherever they feel and my idiotic reliance on such inane things as "BLUEPRINTS" "TAPE-MEASURES" "LEVELS AND LASERS" and other such malignant tools of Herr Satan.

I had recovered sufficiently by this point to try and reason with her by explaining that on the 4th floor, there really was only 32 feet between the walls in her area and That I would be pleased to walk over with her and show her. Using the tape measure that, since time immemorial, has given us dumb ass Americans the measure of feet, inches and so forth.
She actually threw her laptop bag on the ground and screamed at me that only if I gave her the 48 feet back which I had taken from her was she ever going to let this drop.
She turned on her heels and marched directly into the CEOs office, slamming the door behind her.
Not before I was able to hear the screamed, "I just want my 48 feet back....."
Stunned Silence.
I heard the click of a keyboard, the hum of a printer.
Then Laughter.
Not a roar of laughter, not a group, not even the dual chorus of two folks laughing at a good joke. 220 people within hearing distance and one guy was laughing.
One.
I turned to see who it was.
A Director, of another Division.
To my somewhat stunned expression, he laughed even harder.
Patted me on the back and said "your job really sucks"
yes.
Yes it really does.

Methinformation

I know how to make meth.

Not from watching television or movies, not even from wiki. 

Its a strange story.

Years ago, I needed a job. Badly. It wasn't the money. I had a little legal dispute with the evil orange empire and they lost. So I was getting a paycheck every two weeks. However, I was going crazier. I have worked since I was 12, part time during school and full time plus during the summer. That's what happens when the Family business is landscaping and construction. You want to eat and not be naked, you work.

So sitting around doing laundry and watching the infant was making me nuts. Really. For three days I rolled dice and wrote down every number that came up to see if there was a predictable pattern.

(Incidentally, 5 is the least common number rolled while 7 and 9 share the title of "most rolled")

At the end of this time of random number prediction the wife took matters into her own hands and started applying me for jobs. One day, when the mental anguish has faded I will write a blog about the painful process of  a 30 year old white guy with a background in construction and money collecting for various semi-shady money lenders interviewing for jobs in the real world. With real humans. As a last resort she applied me to a job working for the Military, the last line of the job description made me laugh "MUST BE ABLE TO DEFEND ONESELF AND OTHERS FROM PHYSICAL ATTACK"

Yeah, right.

So I applied, interviewed and they overlooked my various eclectic skills (I can stick a knife or a 16 penny nail into anything 20 feet away for example) and hired me.

The first day on the job, my hair cut, my steel toed boots and canvas pants fitting quite nicely I reported to the "Chief" to meet my crew.

Federal inmates. All of them facing life and multiple life sentences. Murderers, Rapists, Drug Dealers, Unsuccessful high dollar item thieves, and soft pasty white squishy accountants.

My crew.

I asked if I got a gun, they handed me a shovel. I had a guard, he was supposed to shoot the crew if they tried to escape and or tried to kill someone. (me) He didn't seem to be to enthused about his job, cant say I blamed him. He was half my size and I was half the size of 1/2 the crew. The accountants never lasted more than a week or two. Some of those guys actually scared the hell out of me, some I felt bad for, most though. Were just tattooed bodies getting out in the sun to work away from their box. We talked, a lot. I learned really quickly that there are certain words used in the real world that have entirely different meanings in the box.

As a hint, NEVER call a 6 and 1/2 foot inmate a "punk" they take it badly. Luckily I had my shovel with me.

I got some really cool scars at that job. Got pushed into a roll of concertina wire and got to have the interesting experience of pulling myself off while grown men howled and wept with laughter at my predicament. Saw a little tiny dude knock a really big dude out cold for throwing a spider at him. He really didn't like spiders I guess. It was a job.

Oh, and I learned how to make gin, tattoo ink, tattoo guns and meth.

I've never put any of this knowledge into practice. Although I did think seriously about making the garbage gin for a Halloween party......

The thing about Meth. The thing that astonished me, really truly hurt my brain. Is the fact that it is poison. Really. Poison.

In the real world, the non "breaking bad" real world. Meth is made from the strangest concoctions of chemicals anyone has ever heard of.

Blue aquarium rocks. Drano. A specific brand of stainless steel cookie sheet. Certain paints. Certain permanent markers. A lawn fertilizer. A gopher poison.

Anything you could think of that would kill you to ingest.

Here it is, the thought that I thunk during all of this. 

Who?

Really. Who was the sick minded human that one day, playing in his shed, his lab, his bedroom? Who was the guy that saw evaporated crystals as the result of a botched lawn treatment gopher poison application and said.......

"DUDE! We could TOTALLY smoke that shit!"

Possibly this guy?

Bother

So many things bother me.
Its an exhausting list really.
I add to it every day, only when I start enjoying the thing that formally bothered me does it get removed from the list.
Typical.
Its just so easy to be bothered.
Cause I am so secure in my own mind.
Those people, Waiting for the elevator in a FOUR story building with their gym bags nonchalantly slung over the shoulder? Who do they think they are fooling?
Why should I care?
Its a difficult thought process. Wondering what my "gym bag' is. What it contains?
Perfectly obvious to anyone who sees me.
Years ago, when I worked for the evil orange empire. I would drive by a section of office buildings every day on my way to the soul sucking box.
There was this truck, an older Nissan hard body with a roof rack. A mountain bike and a kayak nestled firmly in custom designed carriers. Ready at any moment for adventure. It parked in front of one of the big real estate companies. I would tell myself stories about that truck. About this completely cool guy that owned it. The life he led. Money enough to do what he wanted, when he wanted. Slipping away on a whim to hit a trail. Going on extended lunch breaks to float a section.
Man, his grass was green.
He got me through some long days. Thinking about when that guy would be me. Or I would be him. The adventure waiting around every corner, the chances to get the rush of life, fire in my veins.
My own life was so drab. Dull muddled colors seeping together in the bottom tray of watercolor paints. One of those kids that tries to tell themselves that they "like" the color of mixed colors. No bright vibrant yellow, no deep flavorful purple, no crisp green. Just this muddy taint that drips and mucks its merry way. Infecting all the other colors with its misogynistic glaze.
Always though I would find bright spots.
They seemed so brief, fleeting. Mayfly delights.
Life is made up of those pinpricks.
My man-card is on suspension still, from various infractions but I am going to risk the wrath of the mancartel and tell you a not so little secret. I love Musicals.
Not just the trendy popular "Phantom" and "Le Mis" but the old classics. "Camelot" "Kiss me Kate" "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" "Paint your Wagon" and most all of the others. I really like them. I even know Kathryn Grayson's real name.
My Favorite though, is "Into the Woods"
I have it on my i-pod and on my phone. Both versions, movie and Broadway.
Its a great story, not just the fairy tales, but after. What happens after the happily ever after.
Its pretty much how life is. All of life.
Contained in a lyrical and colorful stage spectacle for entertainment.
I will take my truth wherever I find it, thank you very much.
I am going to quote one line from one song.
"Are you certain what you wish is what you want?"
One very long day, near the end of my eternal shift of misery. This guy came in. Miserable, fat and lonely. Swilling his coffee out of the magical bottomless mug of java, shaking a little with the caffeine. Red eyes and doughy skin, he looked like a grub wearing a suit.
One of those guys that makes everything more difficult by a factor of ten, he followed me around while I pulled his order for him. Little things, the kind of things that the helpless dudes buy at a hardware store because they think that's what the real men do. One of those guys that watches a few too many reality shows and starts to think "HEY! I can do that!" Geez. I may be a neanderthal, but I know my limits. I couldn't program a computer or balance a checkbook or construct a grammatically correct sentence if my life depended on it.
But I can build a house from the ground up.
I know which weights to lift for which body part, I know diets and programs and fitness.
I understand things, and I am curious.
This guy? A lazy, lonely, Bored, Decadent disrespectful dunce.
I pulled his order, small hand tools and various bits and bobs of some home project he was mangling. Hearing the whole time how stupid I was from his point of view, what a dead end my life was, what a waste of everything women were, what a sad sorry state everything, every little thing was in.
He paid, hitting on the cashier, who rolled her eyes and said nothing. He demanded help to load his haul into his truck.
I figured what he really needed was a brick to the back of his head.
Sadly though, they had rules against that sort of thing.
I wheeled his cart out to his truck.
An older Nissan hard body, a kayak and a mountain bike strapped into the rack at the top.
I was stunned into motionlessness.
Grub followed my gaze, fixated on the objects of my years long jealousy.
"Oh, the bolts got all rusty and I have been to busy to cut them to get my stuff down"