Total Market Coverage Carnival Day

We spent two weeks preparing this Wednesday's papers, and I got a lot of extra hours pay, but on the big day all I had was my phoney-baloney job to record store and rack returns. I was out of action, way in back of the front lines, where even the generals were toting and baling.

So I put a ciggie in my mouth and walked around taking pictures.

Had a rival.

His family had it particularly hard with all the extra papers, extra thick. Three generations on TMC Day!

Every known address in Our Town was getting the thick, advertising laden paper whether they liked it or not.

To make my alienation worse, all my coblings and I were served special luncheons before the starting bell. I was scheduled to come in an hour early and suspected this was the reason.

The Boxx met me and told me to go upstairs, eat! Ah, f.a.duck, all right.

Different crews, different rooms, I discovered on the way.

I passed several of these windowed rooms full of the suits and young skirts from the offices across the street. Some girls, you look and it's like, let's get this straight, I'm a man and you're a woman and we should go make out somewhere in that labyrinth of newspaper rolls.

Pirouetting on the ball of my foot---it would be understandable mistake! I had plausible deniability sitting down to lunch in the wrong room, with the salaried ones--- One step forward, turning back, double-taking, rubber necking.

360 defiant degrees to see if anyone was watching my indecision, then forward as if through a scrimmage of demons. The Boxx's words kept coming back: "Go upstairs and eat, John!" Upstairs, he said. That was clear. grr all right all right all right. Not like I can make small talk anyway.

'Hi, I'm John, who are you?'
*****

Through this door covered with signs warning against espionage. Remember! Don't take Mr. Gimble's ads and show them to Mr. Macy or we'll cut you loose! Steel myself for this socially awkward breaking of bread with The Boxx and Crew. Up these stairs I should hear them by now but no. Their mouths are all full I suppose.

Can't get to know anyone here except when you escape the roar of the stitchers and the balers and the presses for a smoke break.

In a year now, I've got more friends with the guys in the Olde Press area, where I do my clerical work.

'Helloooh', I actually project my voice, 'what's this an awards ceremony, ah...'

Eye darting mutes. For right now, I don't care if it's me, not them, that causes the eye darting.

Oh look, my one pal on the crew, Chris, sitting not at the table but by himself with a plate in his lap. He's a non-smoker so nobody knows him at all. Been here five years. I sensed he was the outcast my first day of work, and that he was the non-supervisor to follow around asking what to do. He was a grump for just a few days, then warmed to me.

Teddi. I do like Teddi, geeeeee, from North Carolina, who grew up barefoot a fur piece from Sgt. York's , and carried a flask most of her adult life. She was drunk as long as me, in recovery a few years longer now. She's my boss at the stitcher and I'm not very good at that but when we get smoke breaks together she'll say don't worry, your brain will grow back eventually, mine did.

Glad I'm late. Boxx opening new party sub, grab a plate, John. Thank you, "hey is that what I think it is, YES IT IS THERE'S A QUARTER ON THE FLOOR!" Gonna pick that up!

Bad etitquette to use the vending machines and buy a burrito I suppose...
____
I am a poor man, well to do. Quarters are for parking downtown when I have a date at a coffee shop (long time).

I'm in second hand clothes for a year now, but they're bed-comfortable. And thanks to Ms. Vanderbilt-Benz or whoever she is, the sprite in my life (say, where is she these last few days? Pooka family reunion, something like that? Maybe she's left me for a bus driver whose behavior isn't quite right to her liking, and she's complexing him). you can call me General John Dollar.

How much is this?
A dollar.
Hm. How much is this?
A dollar, sir.

These last two months of the year I'm looking at about ten extra twenty dollar bills. That's rich, it's all relative. I want to buy the Pooka something more loving than a coffee pot. A coffee pot we both know is for me. Bunny slippers, no. Cotton pajamas maybe.

Throw pillows? Socks?
___

I took a seat finally and there was utter silence and I got nothing to say, no one I want to impress.

Some guy brought up a murder reported last night. Someone else said, yeah I had just walked by there a couple hours earlier.

Silence. Then, uh, did you see anything suspicious?

An opening! I don't take it.

"Hey! D'ya hear Michaels was robbed last night?"
____
This sandwich is too big for my mouth, I'm so rich.

I was scheduled to leave after just two hours, but stayed until the end. Everyone was in rapid occupation, everyone needed help, I darted from here to there, giving people unexpected 15 minute breaks, pushing papers forward, getting palates out of the way, rolling ten foot high stacks of circulars into place at the GMA inserter (our long blue locomotive without wheels).

Got to remember a lot of these folks have been working together for five, ten years. That dinner table quiet might have been more of a familial thing than a bad social mix.

Hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Better get up early Friday: limited supplies at those sales. Also look at the fine print for "in store price", under 'rebates!'