The View From Scranton

Bails and Boxes

The sky was spitting this morning, a steady, static spitting, interrupted only by the occasional spew. Perfect walking weather, if you're walking a gangplank. Or if you're going to a place you don't belong. Perfect weather anyway, especially after forty-four months of no weather at all.

So to the job. I figured I'd enjoy the wet while it lasted. Skip Frank's and stroll the scenic route. Save the Times a wetting. I could get the paper once I topped a few hills, at the inaccurately, unoriginally, obscenely named Price Chopper. I needed some things anyway.

Over no river and through no woods, past houses well past their glory, down streets well past their prime. A hospital here, a diagnostic center there. Something ugly being built. Something beautiful being torn down. A man in a Today's Man suit. A woman walking her beagle. An unstraight line of footwear before the door to the Cambodian-owned market. Walking in Scranton, with a skip in my step and a song by my side.

That the song was All the Things I've Done by The Killers should make perfect sense. Not just for all I've done, but for all I haven't done. All I've killed. In me. In the world. I am so much older than I can take. Indeed.

It's a great song for strolling 'cause it promises everything and nothing all at once. Just how it should be. We gotta make do with our own promise. It's got a great video too -- a kinda kooky Good, Bad and then some as would be done by Russ Meyers. The song, and the scenery, substituted nicely for what wasn't in my heart, what wasn't in my path.

Before I knew it I had crested the last crest before the plateau parking lot. Two miles is really not very far; two miles is forever. Like I said, I needed some things. And I usually know exactly what I need. It may not always be right. It may not always be proper. It may not always be good. But it's known. I suppose. And I suppose I needed cereal, that new three berry deal, some salad, like the bagged organics, and some cheese, preferrably semi-fresh mozzerella. On impulse I bought a bag of mini Krispy Kreme cruellers to share with my, er, co-workers (none dare ever call 'em colleagues). Might be nice to be nice for a change.

Then I remembered the Times, the main reason for the visit in the first place. The Times though was not there. Was not anywhere. Seems they had sold their single copy just before I arrived.

Guess I'd just have to talk to my fellow UGLers; after all, I'd already bought 'em donuts.

Ha. Ha. Ha. The donuts they did not want and the talk we did not have. Oh, I offered. And I tried. But the sweets were a harmful superfluous to a well-balanced meal (or so I surmised), and the talk was of less consequence than the cold shoulders that carried its weight. Its weightlessness. One man explained in detail the wattage system of his home's lightbulbs, then copped to needing a nightlight. Go figure. Another exchange involved some mutterings regarding a bar, a brawl, and a "broad." I've heard enough of those to forget them all. Most talk though stayed right where it was seated, and right where it would stay: on the job.

Pails and bails and boxes and skids and mixes and of Glazol and Whatall and End-it-all-now. We were on Glazol (Better Than Putty!), and Glazol was on us. All over us. It is unclean. And boresome. Boxing Glazol is the industrial equivalent of bagging groceries except it takes ten times as long and half as much smarts. Nothing can break. Nothing can crumble. Nothing can get smashed. Therefore nothing need be considered. I boxed Glazol, all day yesterday and half the day today. Then I bailed one-gallon cans. Bails, in case you don't know (I didn't), are those thin metal handles that come affixed to things like paint cans. Someone puts them on, one by one, before the cans get shipped and sold. That someone was me. Try stretching a yawn to it breaks, then quintuple it. I was half fine with it all till the machine stopped expending and I had to expend it by hand. Now that was unpleasant. Ever milk a machine? A monstrous, massive machine that squirts out 200 degree milk? Don't.

And don't try to be what you're not. A gentleman e'd that to me this aft, and it's an excuse that I'll endeavor to live by. I am not them; I shouldn't try to be them. So there.

posted by John Hood. @ 11:05 PM