[The Wisdom of a Distracted Mind] Disregard This Babble...

Oh, what the hell…

I’m in a thinking sort of mood beneath the gray-painted sky of my Monday afternoon. I know I should be writing and spinning those tales which may or may not enchant and entertain, but the last couple of weeks have found me somewhat uninspired and, for lack of a better word, bored with the stories I’m trying to tell. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a “writer’s block” since, not only do I not believe in that sort of thing, what I’m dealing with is just a desire to momentarily escape the tedium and drudgery of typing incessantly.

For some reason, it all reminds me of a friend I had in high school. He was a funny guy, and he loved his job. His job, however, consisted of nothing more than standing at a big, hulking and grunting piece of machinery and pushing a single button several times an hour for twelve hours a day.

That’s it.

Every day, for god knows how many years, he stood there pushing that one solitary button. Though I have no idea of its color, I’d like to imagine it was a red button, and whenever he pushed it, he would shut his eyes for a moment and pretend that he was secretly launching a nuclear solution to America’s long and tiresome Communist “problem” (this was in 1984, and the Cold War was still going somewhat strong, for what it’s worth). However, instead of sending ICBMs screaming toward Moscow, he stood there making plastic bags for the greedy Capitalist masses.

What was I doing in 1984?

I honestly don’t really know. My guess is that I was most likely chasing after a girl who kept breaking up with me, I was probably spending time posting to online bulletin boards for giggles, and I was probably trying to write a book. As you can imagine, I’ve come a long way from those salad days, haven’t I?

Hahaha…

Nonetheless, as appealing as that sort of mindless routine would be, I honestly think I’d take one of those plastic bags and put it over my head if that was my job. Monotony doesn’t suit me.

It’s funny, but as I write this, I’m thinking of a conversation I had with another friend sometime ago as he was telling me about one of the places he visited while working his job as a sprinkler-fitter for some sort of fire-prevention outfit here in Wisconsin. It’s not exactly glamorous work, but rarely is it ever the same damn thing day after day.

Anyway, his name’s John, and he is, without a doubt, one of the coolest bastards ever to find themselves on planet earth, and our little chat went something like this:

“Dan,” he said. “They actually sent me to install a sprinkler system in a coffee filter factory.”
“Cool,” I said. After all, I had no idea whether I should be excited, confused, or whatever else since I had no damn clue what the appropriate response to that sort of statement should be, but I did manage to issue a somewhat confused “I’m sorry?”
“It’s weird, man.” He replied. “Picture a windowless warehouse full of people just standing around watching machines make coffee filters.”
“Hypnotic?” I asked.
“I damn near fell from the rafters,” he said. “I wonder if anyone would have noticed.”
“Well, they probably wouldn’t have until you made your way around to some lemming in Quality Control.”

The thing is, throughout the conversation, there was a slight tint of envy in his voice, and I think the thing that appealed to him more than anything was that making coffee filters was a job which required little thought and carried with it absolutely no responsibility, and considering he installs fire-extinguishers, escaping that sort of responsibility, even in a day-dream, was probably quite pleasant.

In the end, however, I think his desire for a less responsible career were shattered when I brought up the fact that it would be a little tough for him to make house payments, boat payments, and car payments at that sort of job.

So, what’s the point of writing this?

I really don’t think there is one. I’m just typing a vast collection of words to see if it my hands work. So far, they actually don’t hurt all that badly, and considering how they felt last week, this is spectacularly nice.

Plus, I also wanted to see how a document written in Word translates to Blogger’s platform. So, if this thing comes out looking unbearably messy and unintelligible, that’s why. I already anticipate AOL making a complete hash of it when this post trundles its way over there. And, if inspired, I may actually spend time fixing it.

Then again, I’m kind of put off with AOL these days. I have a hard time understanding why they would shit-can one of the blogging world’s most friendly, entertaining and helpful people while still continuing to pay that racist, neo-conservative, elfmaid, Dinesh D’Souza, for spouting his bigoted and misguided nonsense at their comically mislabeled “Newsblogger” feature.

–DP

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Posted By Dan to The Wisdom of a Distracted Mind at 10/22/2007 02:34:00 PM