Always Start With The Bad News

Some poor fellow at the club got his left hand lopped off and we don't know what happened, how or why. One day he shows up with a bandaged stump but otherwise fit as a fiddle.

Maybe it was diabetes but no one seems to know. How do you ask?

When someone hurts their hand, you ask "What happened to your hand?"

But not in this case.
___
I lost my job. It was due to too many shenanigans: I had the floor pulled out beneath me, I got knifed in the back, and I was double-crossed by a dirty rat. I'll win unemployment, perhaps on appeal, but I'll get it, oh yes I will too.

Two years on an assembly line. I'm proud of that but three years would have looked bad. Three years would be the most time I've spent anywhere without being fired (I was a habitual drunkard most of my life, coincidentally).

Now some other news. Today I was hired as a bookseller at a large national chain I'll call Borders. It's been ten years since I was a bookseller, so I feel very childish but I have my own hungry mouth to feed.


"A man's got to do what he has to do
when he's got a hungry mouth to feed"
dylan

Also, I have a University job as a wandering cleric. That is better pay but doesn't start until later.

Temporary clerical, I mean. Not wandering cleric. That would be a pilgrim.

Also, I'm in line to be data-manager for a University Communist Research and Policy Development Center on Families and Children.

That interview was memorable. I sat in a nice cushioned swivel chair at a Pledge-Polished table in an office with glass walls. There was a psychologist and a P.H.D. in Education and Childhood Development, and I had the devil-may-care, "all right, you got me, I'm an imposter! What are you going to do?" attitude.

I don't know when I've done that before but it sure felt familiar.

I comported myself like a man in a suit. I parroted, I made mention of things that started the two of them interviewing one another (if not actually debating). I kept my feet on the floor and didn't swivel myself in circles.

When asked about my strong suit I said I am a hero-worshipper and a mimic. That I chose my heroes and my friends very well. My heroes for being hard working, competent, and "socially conscious", my friends for being "artists and folk-musicians" who help me unwind at the end of the day. Who distract me from the duties of my work (which I tend to take home too much) and make me think of the poor Haymarket Martyrs, who had it so much worse.

The Doctor of Education said she liked that answer. Like: I've never heard such humility. Ironic, that she should admire a mimic.

I also told them I'm a progressive, in a sort of muted aside. We're supposed to be non-partisan of course.

Their current project is to improve reading by having a Head Start On Pre-school Program. These are the geniuses that brought us whole language, and shudder at the days of "rote" learning ---even of mathematics and--- *shudder* ---flash-cards.

I have a brother who is a high school math teacher, 15 years now, and he's nearly lunatic fringe. I believe he'd like to have these people shot.

I have another brother who is a lawyer and would probably refuse to defend him, too. Our family is diverse.

But such a position will make me rich. I can marry my good-night nurse, maybe, with that much money.

Myself, I don't know what the hell to do with money. I've got everything I could possibly want, and I'm way below the poverty line.

But best of all, my mother won't be asking me "What happened to your job?"