Doing my job while dreaming of better employment

Dear diary,

Everyone seems to believe in how they vote. The people who vote for Trump believe he will make the best U.S. Prez. The people who vote for Bernie believe he will make the best U.S. Prez. And the people who vote for Uncle Joe Stalin believe that he will make the very best U.S. Prez.

I still can’t believe that they resurrected Uncle Joe Stalin, from his burial place underground. They dug him up, and they called that doctor who is famous for having created Frankenstein, and they say “Doc, please do the same thing for Uncle Joe,” so Doc fused all the dead limbs back together & taught the creature some words; & now it’s one of the best choices for U.S. Prez, according to certain voters.

Here’s the thing about believing in your favorite candidate. When your candidate talks, you listen, and you interpret their words in the best light. Then, when your candidate’s opponents talk, you only half-listen while scowling, and you interpret their words in the worst light.

Then your favored candidate gets elected. Take Uncle Joe Stalin, for instance, since that’s who I assume we’re all voting for. Uncle Joe will say, while on the campaign trail “I’m here to do good, not bad.” And we cheer. Then, when Uncle Joe becomes Prez, he announces, “Now I’m here to do bad, not good.” Can you spot the difference? He switched his values around, once in office: bad became good; good became bad. That’s called “the political pivot”. It’s an extremely useful tool for effective managers.

But how does one go from being a humble corpse resting eternally to being the President of the United States of America? Well the whole story takes place in the space between those two last-mentioned points. After campaigning, the people pretend to vote, and then the votes pretend to tally themselves; THEN the party bosses emerge from behind a curtain and deliver us their verdict during a super-elaborate pageant. They hand a letter to one of the party’s goons, and he announces:

“For the category ‘Best U.S. Prez’, the winner is… Uncle Joe Stalin!”

Then Uncle Joe acts surprised, balloons fall in celebration, and his terms as Prez unfold as I said above.

*

But if I weren’t a political commentator, what would I do? If I could choose any career in the world, instead of sitting here at my cubicle in front of my typewriter, pumping out article after article for the Establishment Post, what would I be doing for work this morning?

I don’t know what it’s called exactly, or even if this profession has an official title, but I can explain how my day would proceed, point by point; & I think you’ll recognize the type of field that I’d be master of:

First I would wake up and start my car, which would be parked in my driveway. My car would be tan and oblong, with sharp angles, a real gas-guzzler; let’s say it’s a 1985 Oldsmobile Toronado. You can hear the belts on this car slightly squeal while it idles. I warm up my car for about fifteen minutes before leaving for work each day. Then I back up out of my driveway and head in reverse until I’m about a meter or two into the snow of my neighbor’s yard across the street, then I straighten out the wheels and drive uphill. My engine is loud because my muffler needs repair.

Now I arrive at the jobsite. I’ve been ordered to deliver an empty box to a customer. I place the box on the floor. The customer looks at the box. He is satisfied.

I say “Is that all?”

The customer answers, “No, I also have an item that I wish for you to place inside the box.”

I say, “That’ll cost extra.”

The customer answers, “Yes, I talked to the lady on the phone. She said I can put anything that I want inside the box, and you guys will just add the charge to my credit card.”

I say, “Alrighty. Where’s the item that you want boxed?”

The neighbor points to a rack that is holding four wooden trays — the type that you’d eat a TV dinner on.

“That’s four items, sir,” I say.

& he sez: “No, it’s only one set.”

So I agree to charge him the single-item rate for this so-called set. I bring my dolly over & shove its L-shaped ledge underneath the tray-rack’s base. Then I secure the nylon strap around the trays and feed it back thru the eyes of the metal rings to fasten it tight. I haul the item(s) over to the destination, tip the appliance dolly forward, undo the strap, give it a shake, and the trays and the rack-base that they were resting upon tumble into the box.

“Voila,” I remark to the customer; “it is finished.”

Then I raise my right hand up like I’m going to take an oath in court, and I quickly and firmly slap the customer on the face.

The customer briefly appears shocked. Then he reaches down to the floor and grabs a tire iron that was positioned near his feet; he raises the iron overhead & then brings it down, full force, upon my skull. I collapse & slouch head-first into the box. The customer kicks my legs, which were protruding over the side, to force them within the box.

Once I’m packed, in a semi-fetal position, atop the tray tables, the customer affixes the box’s lid, wraps it thoroughly with shipping tape, then addresses it to the former grave-site of Uncle Joe Stalin.

When the box arrives, the undertakers all sing “O! this is perfect, for we needed something to fill the void that was left after digging up Uncle Joe!”

So this ain’t one of those stories that comes full circle and eats its own tail: for it is not my body that shall be resurrected into the next U.S. Prez — I’m simply the filler material for the grave-site: it was convenient to bury me in place of the man they exhumed, to keep the equation in balance. For whenever God opens a door, he closes a window.

My only regret in this career choice is that I can’t figure out what the wooden trays symbolize. I just chose to have my customer pay to package & ship those particular objects because there were a couple sitting before me here on the couch, where I’ve been typing this entry — I’m no longer in my cubicle at the newspaper office, because I repented & changed my life around, remember? — I’m sitting on a sofa now, with two wooden TV trays before me, & there are a couple more in the mid-ground hanging on a rack (this was the sight that caught my eye when I looked up during the composition & thot to myself “Hmm, what should I have the customer desire to place within this box that I put on the floor?”); also I’m using a portable laptop computer instead of an old typewriter to make this stuff up. That’s how much we all have advanced, as a nation.