Searching Beneath One's Nose

Another entry in the Middling series.  This time only the main character is involved, and his name is exposed.  What fun! Props if you can discern the two lead singers his name is derived from...

Searching Beneath One’s Nose

342 minutes, 14.7 gallons of gas, 7 cigarettes, two bottles of water, two chili cheese burritos from Taco Bell, one emergency stop to take a dump at one of the dirtiest rest stops in the Midwest, and one vile case of swamp ass was all it took for me to get from Central Illinois to Columbus Ohio.  At times the drive felt like an odyssey and at times it felt as though it only lasted a second.  In either case, I was grateful to pull in to the hotel parking lot.  I had been to Columbus a lot, it was at least a quarterly trip for me and sometimes it was twice a quarter but I was somewhat excited because I was trying out a new hotel.  The beauty of trying the new hotel was that it was both brand new and in a similar geographic location to the last hotel I typically frequented.  This meant that all of the regular drinking and dining establishments would still be in play.

I walked into the hotel and immediately noticed two things, the wall with a waterfall on it and the hotel bar.  Traveling could be a real pain in the ass but there were a few perks, they ranged from not having to clean up after yourself and eating and drinking whatever the hell I wanted without the nagging vocal concerns of my wife Claudia.  Above all those, in my experience were hotel bars.  No other place welcomed such varied and weary souls.  Everyone inside a transient, longing to make their way home or to distance themselves from home; whether coming or going the feeling inside the bar was the same, a handful of folks in a communal miserable imbibe.  What horrific glory!

I checked in quickly, and I was pleasantly surprised by the gift bag of a water bottle, cheese crackers, and a snack size package of Twizzlers that I received due to my Honored Privilege Priority Member status.  Ah, the little things...

I made my way to the elevator with my bags of shit and hit the circular four with authority.  I had a feeling it was going to be a good night.

Once in the room I unpacked two days worth of clothing and life distracting paraphernalia; upon completion I set out to the bathroom and completed another dump to rid myself of the last of the chili cheese burritos.  I changed my sweaty t-shirt and headed down to the bar, hopeful that I would encounter some strange and miserable characters to both intrigue my fascination with the human condition and to hopefully make me feel slightly better about being a relative failure. 

The first thing I noticed was that the bar was small, it was a little disappointing but acceptable.  Luckily, it was mostly empty.  There was a well groomed asshole in a suit at one end chomping at a giant bloody steak and at the other end was what looked to be an over worked engineer drawing up schematics on napkins.  I sat in the middle, equally far away from the both of them. 

The bar maiden greeted me with an overture that was both phony and loud.  I was put off immediately.  “Hi! I’m Lymene, what’s your name?” 

Now it’s well known that a bartender should be friendly but they should be more than just that, with the amount of varied drunken bastards they had to deal with on any given night, being simply happy would not suffice.  The best bartenders I had experienced were able to fill three character types,  they should be one part chipper, one part pensive psychologist(for the real nuts like myself) and one part comedian.  Lymene, bless her heart was all chipper, and I wanted nothing to do with her.

I cleared my throat and spoke sheepishly, “Todd Armstrong, how are you?” 

She smiled big, “I’m fantastic! What can I get you?”

She was some kind of Asian and I stared at her for a moment trying to decide whether it was Philippino or Korean.  I stood silent staring at her before I snapped out of it.  “I’ll take a dirty martini up with Beefeaters and as many olives as you can fit on a stick.”  She skipped back to the bottles of hard liquor and my stomach rumbled.  Why did she have to be so fucking chipper? Blah.

I sat down and eyed the asshole eating the steak.  He was chomping away like he hadn’t eaten in weeks.  I dismissed him at once and looked to the other end of the bar and watched as the overworked engineer sketched furiously.  Lymene asked him twice if he wanted another beer while she was making my martini.  He replied in the negative both times. 

While Lymene had been shut down at that end of the bar, the starving suit at the other end had been happy to oblige her idiotic conversation starters.  They discussed the finest methods of making martini together; according to them the vermouth should be barely apparent, only swished around the glass in a finite amount just to give a hint of its flavor.  I felt as though my martini had been tainted before it even had a chance to slide down my gullet.  When Lymene had found a breaking point in her conversation with Dickface she brought me my martini.  “Can I get you something else; a menu?”

“No, thanks, my stomach is queasy; maybe in a bit.”

I did my best to ignore Lymene and the gluttonous steak guy, I fired up twitter on my iphone and read about a bunch of things that were so far beyond arms length that I began to wonder why I followed anything.  News was only news if you gave a shit, and I only did in widespread intervals. 

After a few sips of the martini an anxiety attack set in and I couldn’t get out of the hotel bar quick enough.  I wanted no part of these derelict interlopers, I longed for the solemnity of my backyard or basement.  My room would have to suffice.

I started chugging the martini, the best I could.  Despite my hatred for Lymene, it was one of the better martinis I had ever had, and when that notion hit me it made me feel even more out of place.  Why couldn’t I just enjoy this and see how the night progressed?  There was bound to be some fun to be had, but the thought was listless and floated for only a second before being shot down like a scud in the gulf war by the patriot missile of my anxiety.

Lymene could see me gulping quickly, “Todd, you want another one?”

All I could mutter was “Check please.”

She looked sad for a second but quickly smiled, “OK Todd, Thanks for coming!”

While waiting for her to run my visa; a crew of construction workers huddled behind me, trapping me at the stool.  Lymene dropped off the receipt and started asking the gang behind me for their drink orders.  I quickly signed for a heavy tip and finished the last of the martini.  I ate the last olive in frenzy and quickly turned around.  I bumped into one of the construction workers chest and clumsily made my way through them.  As I was heading through the lobby I could hear one of them call me an asshole.

The elevator doors opened and as they closed I breathed a huge sigh of relief.  I was an asshole, the construction worker was right but it felt good to be an asshole on his way to his own room.

Once in the room I sat for a while and had a few light beers that were in my fridge.  I tried to write but it all came out hackish and trite (see previous and current fabulous confessor blog entry) so I gave up and lay down on the bed.

After lying for a while, my phone alerted me to a text from my wife Claudia.  I assumed she was pissed that I hadn't called and looked at the message with a sense of impending doom. 

Fortunately, it was a link to a video file with the title Margaret Dances.  The message she wrote was a smiley face using a colon and parenthesis (J).

Pressing the button I was full of anticipation, I couldn’t wait to see my ever evolving 16 month old daughter.  Watching the forty eight second video of my daughter dancing like a fool to a children’s song made my torso feel warm.

 

I watched the video 16 times in a row until I drifted into a deep and peaceful sleep.

Down and Up and Down Again

Another entry in the series of work related stories I've been working on.  I've decided to name this non linear series "Middling".  So from now on it will be referred to as such, here's hoping my legion of followers(all of two of you) enjoy.  

Down and Up and Down Again

I tripped as I was walking up the stairs into the office.  My knee banged into one of the steps and an intense pain shot through me.  I turned around and sat down in a huddled mass in the middle of the outdoor stairway.  When the pain subsided to what felt like a butter knife being jabbed and twisted into my kneecap in five second intervals rather than one, I gathered myself enough to light a smoke.  It tasted terrible, but I didn’t want to go inside.  I was late and hung-over, which was not so a-typical for a Tuesday but somehow today it filled me with a genuine regret and sorrow. 

Usually the booze had been the medicine of choice for washing away the pain of today, but lately it was leaving me feeling wanton and vapid the next morning.  What kind of man can’t simply enjoy the claim he staked?  Why was I always peering from the blinds, to look at my neighbor’s lot?  Like a tom peeping into the neighbor's windows for scantily clad contentment but only finding the fat vacuous teenager stuffing his face with Doritos and looking at his dad’s pornography, I was beginning to feel as though it wasn’t just the world around me that was a fucked up mess.  I had begun to recognize that I played a part, and that no matter how small, I was just as guilty as those who I thought were responsible for piloting this bird straight into the shit pile.  For a moment I imagined a plane flying into a turd the size and shape of an office building and I imagined it just getting stuck, all but the tail immersed in shit.

I walked inside the office and scooted past Beck’s office and into mine.  I flipped on the light turned on the computer, and grabbed my coffee cup.  On my way out to the water cooler I could hear Beck laying into Grape(Jack) about something.  Mike Warner looked up and caught my eye; he then rolled his eyes and motioned to Beck.  Whatever the fuck was going on wasn't going to be pretty and I was desperate to avoid it.

I slipped past the commotion and made my way to the water cooler, safe for the moment.  Arnie came out of the bathroom and nodded.  He walked past me toward his cubicle and sat down.  In the distance you could hear Beck still berating Grape(Jack) for his dereliction of duty.  From what I could gather, it sounded as though Grape had made an error on a compliance report that had gotten out to the customer.  Now that was potentially a big deal, and normally I wouldn’t sympathize with Grape(Jack) but in this instance you had to wonder how the project was managed.  Our company as a whole was inconsistent at best when it came to communication and organization, there were instances where you had to read minds to get shit done correctly and if you didn't there was often hell to pay.  That being said, it’s well within reason that Grape just fucked up and Beck was justified in raking his hairy ass over the coals.  From my perspective, I didn’t really care anymore, I just wanted to get back to my office and start hacking through the emails that had accumulated overnight and pray that I would be left the fuck alone.

I was making my way back to my office, head down staring at the filthy office carpet attempting to sneak past the four letter word diatribe that Grape was enduring when I stumbled into Anna.  She let loose a shriek as her hot coffee poured all over her blouse.  She looked up at me with the eyes of a women scorned and walked hurriedly past me towards the bathroom.

I muttered a muted, “Sorry” that she ignored.

I watched her head back to the bathroom and Arnie stuck his head out of the cubicle and he gave me a thumbs up.  “Ha! Nice job boss!”

The entire office was quiet, and all eyes were on me, Including Grape’s(Jack’s) and Beck’s.  Beck started walking towards me much to Grape’s content, “Good morning Brian.”  His tone was measured and slow, a sure sign that he was pissed.  Beck had a tendency to get pretty animated, in certain places in the office there were oddly placed signs that acted not only as tacky adornments but as a cover for fist sized holes in the drywall.  Prior to these outbursts, Beck displayed a gritted calm, just as he was doing now.

“Morning Sir, how are we fairing today?”  I was stuck; all I could do was try to make the best of it.

“Well, I think you may have just sent Anna to the hospital with 3^rd degree burns and Jack over there couldn’t find his dick in a whore house but what the hell it’s only my money we’re losing.”  Spittle was forming around Beck’s mouth.

Intellectually I knew that I needed to diffuse the situation quickly but before I could come up with a strategy I spoke.  “I’m not sure Jack’s had as much experience as some of us at the whore house.”

Beck looked at me coldly, it was a long silence.  I got the feeling he was thinking up a retort but nothing good came to him.  “My office.”

I looked at Grape(Jack) as I started to walk towards Beck’s office, if I could have I would have walked over and punched him in the sternum.  He looked up apologetically and broke eye contact.

I stepped over Beck’s “No Spin Zone” floor mat as I walked into his office and as I did so it dawned on me that intimating that he frequented whore houses might have been a fool’s errand.

He sat in his office chair and twirled toward his desk, he acted as though I wasn't even in the room.  He clicked a few buttons on his keyboard and the volume spewing from some right wing extremist sharply turned into muted gibberish that I wasn't able to make out.  Every thirty seconds or so I could hear the name Obama through the gibberish but that was all I could make out.  I stood and waited.

Beck finally looked at me, “Look, you do a good job; and I know it’s not easy around here, you’re in a tough spot.  Having said that, you have to get these clowns in line.  Jack doesn’t have a clue and he’s pissing all over my clients face.  This isn’t McDonalds; these guys have to be professional, we can’t fuck up, not even once.  Do you hear me?”

In a way, I appreciated Beck’s honesty.  I thought it was reactionary and misguided but at least he was giving me a bar to fall short of.  “I understand the concern, but Jack’s been working his ass off for us and I’ll personally work with him to resolve the issue.” 

Beck got demonstrative; his arms flailed around like a prophet with an audience of one.  His presupposed sermon was equally self-relevant and doomed to be ineffectual.  “I’ve got an issue with his performance!  You can’t bail him out of every grave he digs for himself.  I’ll fire his ass today and I don’t care if you tell him what I said!”

I couldn't help but think about what a coward he was, hinting that I should relay the scare tactics to Grape(Jack) for him.  The fact was that Grape(Jack) was valuable, he was young and talented and he did mostly good work.  Firing him would be an act of idiocy, threatening him was a tactic of fear mongering and I wouldn't take part.  I nodded my head and looked at the floor.  “I’ll make it right, I’ll get back with you when the issue is resolved.”

With that I left his office and headed back towards my own, as I made my way down the hall I heard the vitriol of an angry baby boomer spew from the speakers of his office computer.  “This President is a Socialist Dictator driving us directly toward our ruin…” The anger seeped out from the office and onto the floor, following me as I made my way to my office.  I waded through it, despondent and in a state of anxious disbelief.

I sat at my desk and watched my hands shake, it was a combination of hangover and anxiety.  I turned to my computer and tried to ignore it, I got some music streaming and opened the bad sandwich chronicles blog.  I was two paragraphs into blissfully ignoring the shit storm around me when my phone rang.

“Hello,” I muttered with my best attempt to cover up my hatred for whoever the fuck was calling.

Anna’s voice was innocent as it made its way from the receiver to my rattled brain, “Hi Brian, you’re wife is on line 1.”

“Thanks Anna, hey I’m sorry about burning you.  You all right?”

“I’ll be ok, you’re going to have to buy me lunch or something though…”

“Done.”

I pushed line one and Claudia was her usual chipper self, “Hiiiiiii Hoooney!”

I tried with less success to mask my annoyance, “Hi C, what’s up?”

“Nothing, I just wanted to say hi!”

I rolled my eyes and groaned, “That’s great but I’m at work, I’m busy.  Did you need something?”

The phone was silent; I had killed her sincere attempt at cheering me up and made this just another awkward conversation.  “No, I was just…”

“OK well I have to go.”

All she could say was “Fine” before the line went dead. 

I tried to continue ignoring the task at hand but I felt like too much of an ass after being mean to Claudia to fuck around.  I walked out on the office to find Grape and see if we couldn’t figure out what he had fucked up and how we could fix it.

When things like this happened the floor went from jovial dissidence to solemn and angered productivity.  I tried making nice with Mike Warner but he was clearly in a shit tank due to the awkwardness of earlier events.  He pointed me in the general direction of Grape who was doing an equipment inventory in the warehouse.

When I found him he was working diligently with the look of a kid who had just been grounded by his father.  He had the stink of fear on him and I felt bad for him.  I wanted to take a box cutter and slit his throat for dragging me into this nonsense but I also felt empathy for a 21 year old kid who was doing the best he could.  I motioned to him to come back to my office and he followed.

Once there we went over the particulars of his reporting error, he had a made a simple but understandable error.  I called and talked to the client, it wasn't hard to smooth the situation over once I relayed to him the nature of the error.  I emailed beck and told him that there had been a positive resolution and that all was well.  I sent Grape back to work and he was in better spirits.  By the end of the day, the jovial dissidence had returned to the floor and my hangover was long gone.  Considering how the day had started, i was feeling pretty good.

At 5:00 Beck popped his head into my office and told me he was leaving.  I was the last one left.  Feeling halfway content, I opened up the Bad Sandwich Chronicles blog and finished reading where I had left off earlier.  I felt my shoulders lighten and I laughed a few times as I read the blog.

When I was done, I walked through the office and shut off all of the lights.  I locked the front door and picked up my phone and keys as I flicked off the lights in my office.  I locked up the backdoor of the office and proceeded quickly down the stairs.  I tripped as I was halfway down, careening into a huddled heap at the bottom.

Looking up at the cloudless blue sky I waited for the pain to subside and stayed motionless for a few minutes.  Staggering to my feet I brushed the dust from my khakis.  I looked around and noticed that no one was around to notice; at least I had become a chump in relative anonymity.