Day 186: Monday, April 26, 2010: Snowshoes just make a bigger hole to the bare ground.

SUPPORT OUR TROOPS.

These bumper stickers and colorful signs are everywhere.  I have no idea what they mean.

How do you support the troops?  Is it like football?  Can we support other troops?  Go team!  Don’t die!  The guy who sent you is playing golf right now!  Speaking of which . . . I heard there was a horrific firefight yesterday, but it was all shoved aside when Tiger Woods made another apology.  Cue the Green Day tune. 

Sorry.  It’s the prednisone again, at war with the poison ivy.

Here’s some snapshots of my mail run on Saturday, which is the only day I work now that I’m up to speed.  Can you say Catch-22?

A woman was is absolute shock that I ran a package up flights of stairs to her apartment.  There are screaming kids in the background but she’s thanking me profusely because, “The other people just leave it outside and bolt.”

A dog is lunging at a mobile home door, but I need a signature and wait, hearing this woman inside screaming at someone not to answer, so I pick my way back through piles of dog crap and empty beer cans, to where I’m parked at the mailbox, where I leave a slip with days of accumulated pieces from before.

My former boss is outside in his yard next to a big lake, tending to a garden with his family.  He has no idea that I’m delivering his mail out at the box, and mail trucks can make you invisible, which is a very good thing.  I don’t want anything to do with him.   

There is a very wealthy family in town with a long driveway (over a quarter mile) that goes between two beautiful ponds.  An identical layout is on the southern side of town, and it’s the same family name.  I find this fascinating with the ponds.

Two baby cows are butting heads and pushing each other all over a field.  

A long, long group of Harleys go by me out on the main road through town.  Some kind of gang insignia is on their backs, and the column goes on forever.  I don’t want to pull out from a mailbox and wait for them to pass.  Better to be safe than sorry.

One of them slows and spits on my truck, and another flips me off and laughs.

I just wait patiently and be the Buddha.  Hmmmmm, hmmmmm, I hum.  I’m okay and you’re okay.  Hmmmm, hmmmmm.  The grass is always greener over the septic tank.  Hmmmmm, hmmmmm.  Neil Young is singing in my head, “There is a place in Noooorth Ontario . . .” Hmmmmmmmm.  

More Harleys.     

The last bike (trike?) has three wheels.  On the back of his cart-like structure, a bumper sticker reads Support Our Troops. 

I do the mail run and stay very late putting third class away.  As I go home that evening toward the hills, a car in front of me locks his brakes and I follow suit, as does a car behind me. 

There are suddenly Harleys everywhere, and up ahead it looks like the gang had some kind of horrible accident.

Hmmmmmm . . . hmmmmmm, I hum, picking my way through scattered bikes and people with cell phones calling for help.   

“There is a place in Noooorth Ontario . . .”

I swear it finds me.

DAY 119: Thursday, February 4, 2010:  You don’t shop for cars; you shop for land movers.

Severance Pay: continued from Day 118 . . .

And how did Manager Rick react to this?

By using it all against them come review time, which was usually three months late anyway.  The last one was just like the one before:

“I could really use a raise,” Fiddles stammered, seated in Rick’s office.  “My car is on the fritz again, and those classes cut into my overtime.”

“You failed those classes,” Rick said, tap-tap-tapping a pencil.  “And I’d would really like to address those so-called twelve hours of overtime claimed in June, when you and Randy worked up in Greenfield?”

Fiddles shrugged.  “That was Randy’s job.  He was the crew chief.”

“And that would be the bus rolling right over him, huh?

“Well . . .”

“You get to take the van home at night, Fids, because your car is always on the fritz, remember?  That van is like a huge bonus, so we’ll leave it at that.  A review is mandatory; a raise is not.  Your job is secure for another year.”

“But Fergus . . .”

“Ferg is vulnerable because he starts pushing buttons when review time rolls past.  Last time he called Boston, and they came down on us pretty hard.  Now he’s overpaid for the work he does, and has officially jumped to environmental, run by a flaky idealist who doesn’t have any real solid backlog.  He’s very vulnerable, and you’re not.”

Fiddles smiled, unconsciously feeling his hooked nose.

Rick leaned closer.  “Are you shaving your eyebrows now?”

Fiddles shrugged.  “I shave my head, so . . .”

“And certain white guys should never, ever do that.”

Tap-tap-tap . . .

“You included, Fids.”

Tap-tap-tap . . .

“Your job’s secure.  Get the hell out.”

Tap-tap-tap  . . .

The biscuit was officially his, and Fiddles looked down in despair.  “So . . . are we getting rid of Fergus?”

“It’s not ethical for me to say,” Rick explained, nodding “yes” like a desperate bidder at the auction, throwing in winks for good measure.

Fiddles smiled.  “That’s what you get for jumping to the fucking tree huggers.”

“Maybe you should think about that career move,” Rick said, taunting.  “I heard you’re quite a mover out in the woods.”

Fiddles flushed.  “I better get back to those plans and make sure some angles add up.”

“Yuh.”

And so it went as rumors spread into eventual reality, Fiddles talking during lunch, Rick meeting with Rourke over Boston’s request for someone’s release, and Frenchy preparing special wine, trying to get payback for lectures about beating his boy, and passing out during lunch.

So Ferg was gone for real now, and Uncle Fiddles parked in back of that wonderful little packy store, watching the ballet class stretch and bounce eagerly on flexing toes, the hawkish pervert slamming nips and drinking beer, listening to a CD of Stern calling Gary the Retard; Gary nearly bawling in misery as Arty Lang jabbed his arm with another needle to bring his witty mind up . . . or down.

You can’t even buy this kind of multi tasking thrill Fiddles thought, swatting angrily at his lap.  You only dream of such things in fairy tales.

“So Gary,” Howard was saying.  “Is your thumb really up your ass right about now . . ?”

Ahhhhhhh, Fiddles thought, just now aware of a homeless drunk guy climbing out of that rusted blue dumpster to find himself a place to piss, exciting the hawkish pedophile into even higher levels of self-satisfying ecstasy.

To be continued . . .