Vacation Notes (not what you'd expect).

 

Any of the people I've been watching during my time off could go on to become a focus of my infantile obsessions. On the other hand, if, when you walk down your typical street during lunch hour, and find that your innate sense of control is slipping, does that mean that only a person taller than yourself has any right to expect better treatment? It would shock absolutely no one if the answer were a resounding 'NO!'. And I wouldn't blame them. Because, I mean, what have they got to lose anyway? It's not like anyone ever stood a chance. From their feet on down, you could see that they were goners, in both senses of the word. All of which is just another way of casting suspicion in a novel direction. Those of us who've been underwater for, quite literally, years, like to think of ourselves as people that someone would be proud to take out for a bite to eat. The thing is, though, that's just not how the game is played, and you know it. Better than most folks, I'm afraid.

Even when I was gently admonished to try to be a little 'more cryptic', there was a bit of a problem arranging for my name to be announced on the public address system. The team tasked with developing scripts for third countries had their hands full and I was in no mood to hold them liable for damages in the millions. The one who was repeatedly photographed lingering in the feminine hygiene aisle at CVS was my mentor. He liked nothing better than to insert a smallish wooden dowel into a magnetized dispenser and wait for the 'fun' to begin. And 'begin' it did, in earnest this time. I had to hold him while authorities did the basic background stuff. For that I still receive calls, just not in my native tongue. Which, in case you're wondering, is proto-Albigensian. No one should think twice about getting up to speed if the future of our actual cohort is on the line. The only folks who have anything to worry about are the ones whose slovenly ways attract a crowd which blocks egress for the chosen few. In that sense, everyone seems to buy in to the basic premise. Which is, in a word, 'baffling'. Just don't tell that to people who represent themselves as ready and willing to come up short. Because in that case, we have major work to do. Agreed?

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