One of the lesser known laws of physics in the “Law of Wallet-detritus Attraction”. It isn’t a very catchy title but it works. Badly and creakily, but it works. It is the property by which a guy’s wallet in a state of existence attracts objects that have no business existing. This leads to a the wallet expanding in every possible dimension and a couple of improbable ones. (Sockspace, where all missing socks go from the portal in the dryer. DiskSpace, which is a kind of negative space in that it never is enough. Mostly because, well, wallets are impinging upon its boundaries).

My wallet is no exception. It has stuff in it that clearly does not belong. Receipts for things I bought. Receipts for things I returned. Receipts for things I would never buy. Receipts so faded that I do cannot make out which of the previous three categories they belonged to.

ID cards of every possible variety and vintage. Driving licenses, one valid, some expired and one not quite expired but where I am eminently unqualified to drive. I really should get rid of most of those. They contain photographs that I would rather forget. The only ones I like are the ones in which I perfected my smirk and my hair is uncombed.

(That last bit may not quite make sense. But this is the way my hair works. If I try to subdue it, it will rise up in a state of rebellion and there will be hell to pay. Villages will be burnt and sheep will be stolen. Chaos will rule supreme. However, if I run my fingers through it in the morning and forget about it for a couple of hours it will generally behave.

My hair is much like a computer in that way. Apart from occasionally coming up with a blue screen of death, like a computer, it will behave itself if left well enough alone)

A ten rupee note and a ten euro note. (I’ve had those from before grad school. They’ve moved from one wallet to another. So I carry money in my wallet that I do not ever plan on spending. That’s normal)

Ticket stubs from movies I enjoyed, from movies I did not, from movies I never watched and will continue to deny that I ever watched.

A post-it note that has something possibly important written on it. Having lived in my wallet for a year now, all I can make out is it saying, “G__or 78_9823”. Or maybe Space Alien Pirate Ninja from Outer Space. It’s one of the two. I’ll figure it out eventually. Or maybe not.

Well…you get the point. Wallet filled with too much crap, roughly seven inches thick and completely spoiling the line of my trousers. And so I removed everything, trimmed the wallet down to a manageable three inches and left the damned thing alone for a while.

When I returned an hour later it was back to being seven inches thick and not content with doing that, it was now glowing faintly green and making hungry noises. And I need to put that down my front pant pocket. Joy.

I’m annoyed at my parents for not being billionaires. That has forever cut me off from two career paths: “Gentleman of leisure” and “Wasted youth.” Both of these I could do very well. Sadly, this is not to be. Apparently I have to have a career and goals and stuff. Bah! The world does not know the treasure it lost when I realized that I could not be a Gentleman of leisure.

Apparently Disney has turned every one of their cartoon movies into a Broadway musical. I think that this is a capital idea, and only hope that this will not be restricted to movies like the Lion King. I’m looking forward to Terminator 2: Judgment Dance. The terminator goes back in time to stop the creation of boy bands and any show that has the word Idol in it. Robocop, the Musical won’t be half bad either. It’ll be a stretch, but the explosions will make it work. Explosions can be musical…right?

I’m too tired to sleep. That makes no fucking sense. It’s just that I put off going to sleep as long as possible and so when I stumble into my office I’m practically dead. A zombie one might say. I should roam the corridors going “Brains, brrrrains, brainssssss.” That would liven things up…Or considering that I’d be a zombie, deaden things up.

Sleep’s a funny thing for me. I like the middle parts of the sleep bit. The ends, not so much. I hate going to bed and getting out of it. The whole transition shit does not work for me. (That was today’s random fact about Rajneesh. An irregular feature of this blog.)

(I do fucking wish that Word would figure out that the word blog has entered the lexicon and stop doing the red squiggly line shit.)

I was going to write something about toothpaste. I can’t quite remember what. It was pretty good. And somewhere along the way I was going to segue into me dueling a tube of toothpaste with a sword. (Actually a light saber, but that is a bit too geeky).

(It seemed funny at the time. I’m glad I did not put it down on paper…um…screen.).

Robocop the musical. Part man, part machine, all music. I like Robocop. It is as guy a guy movie as a guy movie can be. Why did I share that with the world? Well, I’ve have railed before against needless explosions in movies. Not in Robocop. Each one of those explosions was crucial to the narrative flow of the movie. And that egregious body count added to the subtle subtext of death and decay in a hyper-capitalist world. Or something. But still cool.

Robocop should fight zombies in the musical.

Musical zombies.

Contestants from shows with words like “Idol” and “Next Superstar” in them could be the zombies. Robocop could use real bullets. Musical bullets.

(No, I am not drunk, merely spaced out.)

Once upon a time, in ( a galaxy far, far away) the distant past, I would be content to do a trip in five hours if Mapquest told me that the estimated driving time for that trip was four and a half hours. Those days are no more. They have disappeared. Gone poof, like a magician’s rabbit. These days, I set out on a trip with the express aim of beating Mapquest’s estimated time. And I usually do. Except when driving to Maryland from New Jersey. There I meet my bete noir, the Delaware Memorial Bridge

The Delaware Memorial Bridge hates me. Apparently it believes that I burnt down its farm and stole its sheep. Or maybe I stole its farm and burnt its sheep. You may think that this is an baseless anthropomorphization. If you do think so, hit yourself about the head and shoulders repeatedly. I have my reasons.

These then are my reasons. Tons of people, millions of them apparently, use the bridge to cross the Delaware. I know people who have used it on multiple occasions without any problems. I am not one of them. (It would be strange if at this point in the post I claimed to be one of them. There would be this lead up to the blood feud that I and the Bridge have and it would fizzle out with me saying, “But, I’ve never had a problem with that Bridge. That Bridge for all its faults has not pissed me off.” Anticlimactic!)

No, definitely not one of them. To our left we have the “Never had a problem with the Bridge” group. That group consists of most of humanity. To our right we have the “Hated by the Bridge” group. Me. Just me. All on my lonesome. Holding a sign saying, “I’ve been caught in a traffic jam whenever I’ve tried to cross that Bridge.”

And it’s true. A mile from the bridge everything is fine. Traffic flowing along at a steady clip, and the moment I get to the Bridge, traffic slows to a crawl. Three of the four lanes on the bridge will be shut down. And traffic volume multiplies just to fuck things up even more. And I’m sure that all that is a special production just for me. A few thousand cars and their android drivers stored away for them to spring on me at the right moment, and sensors to detect my arrival and shut the lanes of traffic down.

It is clear to me that the Bridge has a malevolent personality. It sits there twirling its mustache and evilly grinning at me as it plots to have me waste pointless eons crossing it at five miles an hour.

So yeah. I was late.

I am a master of the raised eyebrow waggle. Some people use the waggle indiscriminately but the discerning waggler (me) waggles sparingly. Sparingly but effectively. I use it as a wordless greeting. Lesser mortals may go “Hi” or say “Hello, how’s it going?” I don’t. I waggle my eyebrows. A quick up and down motion to signify that I am aware of the other person’s existence and that I value them enough to twitch my eyebrows at them.

And it goes so much more than mere words. Words are easy to say. Say these words out aloud: Rhinoceros Animatronics Juggernaut Necromancer Enigmatic Elegiac Sphygmomanometer Haberdashery. That was easy wasn’t it?

Now try twitching your eyebrows. See, that took so much more effort. Quad Erat Demonstratum. (Pax Romana. Veni Vidi Vici. More Latin Words. Some classical Greek. A forrsooth and a thou. More random Latin words.) And people appreciate this effort. Well most people do. Some don’t. Sadly this is not a perfect world.

In most situations the waggle will suffice, but sometimes you may need to respond to a question. For instance, “How’s it going?” An eyebrow waggle at this juncture, while always a wonderful thing to behold, cannot quite get the job done. It does not quench your interrogators thirst for information. You need to verbalize an answer. Some people try to get away with a shrug.

Sometimes acceptable, but not something you can do more than once or twice a day. Shrug to every question and you will look like…um…a person with shruggy, twitchy shoulders? (Analogies are not my strongpoint, okay?) Or like a person who thinks that dancing like Michael Jackson is cool! (Answer the question by grabbing your crotch, giving out a high pitched yelp and mooonwalking out of the person’s line of sight. This is how the question should be answered. Trust me. I’m a doctor. I know these things. Well…I’m not really a doctor, but you can trust me. Really. Honest.)

It helps if you have actually heard the question. But, if you haven’t and you’re not quite sure if the query was, “How’s it going?”, or if it was, “What’s up with you”, or “Who let the dogs out”, or “Who the fuck is Alice”, the best response is to grunt. “Mrmgr”, “Byazh” or “Gahk” are all acceptable. But feel free to explore our artistic boundaries. A grunt should be something that you can cherish and an look back at with pride. It should be able to let the other person know that you were paying deep attention to them, that you reflected deeply upon their question, that you considered all things and that you have reached a measured conclusion. All this can be summed up with “Pzangkrut”.

Practice it. See how easy it is.

A note of caution. Inexperienced people caught on the wrong foot may try to grunt and waggle at the same time. Don’t do this. You just might sprain your face.

I like airports and railway stations and bus terminals. The crowds I ignore, but the spaces that they occupy appeal to me. High, high ceilings, large rooms, echoes, public address systems, bright lights, people hurrying to and fro.

Well, I like them in principle. I like them when I’m there for ten minutes, picking someone up or rapidly exiting the building.

Not when I’m there for four hours. Perhaps at three in the morning.

Apparently you can turn up a little too early for your flight. When the flight leaves at a quarter to seven, you do not need to turn up at the airport at a quarter to three, full of smug satisfaction that there will be no lines, you will breeze through security and can then nap for a couple of hours until your flight.

The first snag in that plan was the fact that the check-in personnel do not turn up until a half past four. Ergo no check in. Fine, I could snooze on the chairs in the cavernous waiting area.

Except that the chairs seemed to have been transplanted from some medieval torture chamber. One of the more unpleasant ones…where people would be subjected to hours and hours of home movies of the torturer and his family on vacation. The poor victims would be forced to flip through the torturer’s photo albums. Pictures of the torturer and his hideously ugly family besmirching the landscape, grinning up into the camera lens as they obscure the beautiful countryside behind them.

Except that video cameras hadn’t made their appearance until the Renaissance. So that wouldn’t be a medieval torture chamber. It would be a Renaissancical… Renaissancified… Renaissancificated…um post-medieval pre-industrial age torture chamber.

(Again, I have no fucking clue about where I’m going with this. When I set off to write this post, I was going to describe falling asleep on the chair in the reception area, waking up at five and being confronted by a huge line at the security checkpoint.

Right after that would be long rant about me having to dump a can of deodorant in the trash because of the new restrictions and then being pulled aside for extra screening because of my contact lens solution.

That was to be followed by me describing the long and arduous trek to my gate only to find that my flight was taking off from another gate, the one that I had passed by on my way to the gate I was currently at. The new gate was next to a Starbucks, one that had deliciously unhealthy espresso brownies that I just cannot resist.

And I would have wrapped up with a few well chosen swear words against the people who insist on sitting next to me at the waiting area (New waiting area next to the gate). I spread out for a reason. I need my space. When I sprawl it mean: Do not sit next to me. You will take up valuable armrest space.

That’s another thing that puzzles me. Armrest etiquette. Say at a movie theater. How do you decide who gets the shared armrest? Do you take turns? First come first serve. Possession is nine tenths of the law? Tactical nuclear weapons? Puppy dog eyes? A dance-off? Low intensity urban conflict? Televised debate?

Or we could all decide to give up the right one and use only the left one. Or vice versa. A wonderfully balanced socialist system. But then one person in the row will have twice the number of armrests as the rest of the proletariat? Does that make them a member of the politburo? Is Big Brother watching? Does non conformity to the established armrest line mean opposition to the Party? Is war peace? Is the Truth False?

(Again, I have no fucking clue where I’m going with this little sidebar. I’m guessing that today’s theme is incoherence. I do believe that every day should have a theme. And not easy themes like Casual Fridays, or Hung-over Mondays. We need greater challenges, Nihilistic Wednesdays. Split Infinitive Thursdays. Mild Discomfort Saturdays. Got Out Of Bed and Tripped Over a Laptop-Bag Tuesdays. Filibustering Second Sunday Of Any Month With The Letter S In It. Pretend That You Are a Large Head of Lettuce Mondays.))

I think I should stop now.

So I did.

Pretend That You Are Robocop Wednesdays.

Well I’m done.

Really.

Hop At Work Thursdays.

One of the things I have learnt to dread since I’ve lived in the US is giving my name to people over the phone. Mine isn’t a particularly hard name. It’s a nice name. I like it. I’ve had since I was roughly three and a half minutes old. But it is quite possible that people here haven’t encountered that name before. Rajneesh has become Runjeesh, Rhaneesh, Runeesh, Rajeesh…ad nauseum.

Sometimes they ask me to spell it out. And some of the letters in my name are nasty, teisty letters. J can on a bad day sound like K. RA can for some reason sound like an RHA. E can nbe B, D, or P depending on how drunk/hard of hearing/high the person at the other end of the phone is. So I have to resort to substituting words for letters.

It would be cool if I could remember the NATO Phonetic Alphabet. I’d then shoot off Romeo-Alpha-Juliet-November-Echo Echo-Sierra-Hotel. But I can’t. So I need to dig for words. And my mind goes blank…blanker.

Anonymous Person On The Other End Of the Phone: Can I have your first name please, Sir.

Me: Sure. It’s Rajneesh. Do you need me to spell that out?

APOTOEOTP: Um…yes please.

Me: Sure. That’s R-A-J-N-E-E-S-H.

APOTOEOTP: Is that R-H-A-J-M-E-B-S-H?

Me. Um…you may have a few letters wrong. Let’s try this again.

APOTOEOTP: Sure!

Me: That’s R as in…as in…
(And at this point my mind blanks out. I cannot find an R word to save my life. Except for, well, naturally, rude words. The ones you say when you drop a laptop on your big toe. If my name were Fajneesh, I’d be a doomed man. There’s no way I’d be able to say anything other than F as in Fuck.
I start running through words. Boost, trump, delight, spawn…no nothing yet…computer, oligarchic (Oligarchic? What the fuck? I never use that word ever.)…trombone, rhinoceros. That’s it!)

Me: …R as in Rhinoceros.
(Oh yeah! I Rock!)

APOTOEOTP: …

Me: A as in…
(Oh Fuck! Not again! It gets easier though. However the urge to start using rude words is now nearly overwhelming. Asinine…would work but it’s fraught with the possibility of comic/embarrassing misunderstanding. Comic/embarrassing depending on the person on the other end of the phone.)

Me: …A as in A
(Yeah. Fucking helpful.)

APOTOEOTP: …

Me: J as in…
(But now I’ve found my flow. The words come tripping out like…Well the words come tripping out, but the similes do not. The similes hide away like things that hide away when you need them. Socks and keys and tickets.)

Me: J as in Jackrabbit, N as in Nautical, E as in Echidna, E as is Egocentricity, S as in Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious or Sphygmomanometer, H as in Haberdashery. So that’s’ Rhinoceros A Jackrabbit Nautical Echidna Egocentricity Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious or Sphygmomanometer Haberdashery.

APOTOEOTP: …Okay… I think I got that. Now, can I have your last name please?

Fuck fuck fuck!

That would make an awesome movie. A Rhinoceros and a Jackrabbit take on an evil nautical Echidna (Like captain Nemo but megalomaniacal and completely not good) as he (the Echidna) blackmails the world leaders with his Sphygmomanometer. The final climax takes place in the Haberdashery department and our heroes are nearly doomed until the day is saved by Mary Poppins.

Yeah, I have no idea what that last paragraph was about.

So, I went in late Wednesday evening to get an MRI scan done on my arm (Obvious ploy for sympathy here. Please do not ignore it. I have a Paypal account. Make large, generous donations. The larger the better. Amounts which end with million are particularly preferred, but those with end with a thousand are good too.). I braved the sprawl of Central New Jersey (And believe me, it sprawls. It sprawls like no sprawl has ever sprawled before. Strip malls (which aren’t what the name suggests, but are shopping complexes with huge-ass parking lots) line Route one like large parasites. Parasites with parking lots and fast food restaurants and supermarkets and… you get the idea.) Add to this rush hour traffic, buggy code and a mild headache and the end result is a bad tempered Rajneesh.

Well, I get here at seven thirty, because they told me to be there at seven thirty. That’s when my appointment was for. (Appointment: Ancient Sanskrit word meaning that the people in charge of getting insurance clearance failed to get it and that I will have to return again the next day)

Me : (All bright and chirpy). I’m here. (I lie…I was tired and pissed off)

MRIPerson : MumblemumblemumbleBlah.Forgot Insurance clearance. Come back tomorrow.

Me: Can I cover it and deal with my insurance personally?

MRIPerson: Sure. That’ll be a thousand dollars.

Me: Can I come back tomorrow?

MRIPerson: Sure. Come in at one. We’ll have you out in twenty minutes tops.

Me: (Back in my car) Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. (Pause for breath) Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.

The next day.

(I just realized that I can get only the right side of my face to smirk. The left side refuses to cooperate. That becomes a very impressive grimace. That works for me too.)

I take off during lunch to get to the MRI center. The drive is even more depressing because the sprawl is uglier, the traffic is meaner and I’m starving. (A cereal bar does not lunch make.)

I get to the MRI place. The paperwork has been resolved. I can be MRI-fied. I do a little dance of joy. In my mind. The only outward sign I show is that I smirk a bit. They lead me to though hallways and corridors and caverns to the machine. The machine and the room it is in are like something out of a spaceship in a science fiction movie. A quiet background hum. Antiseptic plastic walls. Light flashing quietly, with elegant restraint. Muted beeps. Martians. Representatives of the galactic empire of Toasters. Over by the far table is a large anthropomorphic insect taking down readings.

They need to take readings of my left arm and so the have me lay down on my left side with my left arm out stretched and my right arm by my side. You know, a bit like superman as he flies. Except not super and not flying. (I did, however have my red cape). They instructed me to refrain from moving, twitching or starting suddenly at loud noises. And then they rolled me into the machine.

I fell asleep.

(I’ve been sleeping five hours a night for the last couple of weeks; I’ve been working fourteen hour days; I’m sure I can be excused.)

A half hour later I woke up.

The results of the MRI?

I haven’t a fucking clue. They’ll fax to my doctor and he’ll tell me. Those are the rules.

Gotta fucking love the bureaucracy.

A Weighty Matter.

Ever said goodbye to someone, and then it turns out that heading out in the same direction as you are? So now you’ve said goodbye, but you’re still walking next to each other for what seems like and quite possibly is, an eternity.

I’m never quite sure about what to do in such a situation.

Do you erase the memory of that goodbye, pretend that it never happened and carry on with your conversation? Or maybe start an entirely new conversation? And at the end of that conversation do you say goodbye again and thus enter the risk of entering a vicious cycle?

Or do you treat the goodbye as a clear line in the sand. The conversation has ended and that’s the end of the matter. The person you just said goodbye may stand at your side unto eternity but you will not acknowledge their presence. Goodbyes are final. That is…until they leave and return. In which case the slate is wiped clean and you may start all over again.

A Weighty Matter worth pondering about.

Another Weighty Matter.

When a person holds a door open for you, you thank them. It is the polite thing to do. But what do you do if you are following them down a hallway with multiple doors, that they then hold open for you. Do you thank them repeatedly?

“Thank you.”

(Pause for Opening door)

“Thank you.”

(Pause for Opening door)

“Thank you.”

Go for a little variety.

“Thank You!”

“Mmm…thanks.”

“Much gratitude to you kind person.”

“Open Sesame!”

“Who let the dogs out?”

“Alas poor Yorick, I knew him well”

“Luke, I am your father.”

“Yooodleyhihoo!”

“My precioussss…”

“There are places I remember…”

“Quack quack quack.”

It does not necessarily need to be verbal. Pretend to lunge for the door in slow motion. Pretend that you are in a parade and wave to the imaginary crowds as you pass through the door. Alternatively moon the imaginary crowds as you pass through the door. Or goosestep through the door. Use your imagination. Make it a production!

This will certainly solve your repeated thanking problem. The person opening the door for you will at this point be either running or desperately calling for the cops on a cell phone. If, on the other hand, the door-opener is actively following your lead, running desperately might not be a half bad idea.

You could also thank them just once and then ride that thanks’ coat tails through each and every one of the doors held open for you. I’d recommend the earlier option, but that’s just me.

So yeah. Goodbye. Now stop following me!

This would be a perfect time for me to claim a writer’s block and take off on an extended hiatus. But I won’t. I will persevere. I will drag the words out of me using a pair of hot tongs, and put them down for you, my Loyal Audience.

(Peers out at the Loyal Audience from the middle of the stage. The Loyal Audience seems to consist of an elderly wino, a bedraggled puppy and a villainous boot of uncertain vintage. Not a very impressive Loyal Audience. More like an audience that came in to get out of the cold.)

Yeah, that is exactly how hard up I am for ideas right now. Not that I ever had any good ones, but nothing has pissed me off enough to rant about.

Actually scratch that last statement.

Last Sunday, the thirteenth of August, there was an Indian Independence Day parade in Edison. Something worth going to. And I would have gone.

Except, and you knew that that except was coming, except that the main draw of the parade was that Bipasha Basu would be the marshal. Yes, she’s smoking hot, but the fucking point of the parade should be the parade celebrating India’s independence, and not the fact that some hot-semi naked woman would be marching in it.

Gah! Arguing against the presence of hot, semi-naked women seems so..unnatural. It irks me.

As you may have realized, I am really bad at writing about things I care about. It’s fucking annoying. I can go on for pages about why I think my fucking toaster is plotting to do away with me and when it comes to more serious things, all I can talk about is how the villainous boot in my Loyal Audience booed me.

I should settle for just randomly throwing words on to the page and hoping that they stick together and work.

So here goes nothing.

Pancakes. Spears. Bags. Kittens. Robots.

Bags of Kitten Robots eating Pancakes while wielding spears?

Okay, that was just fucking sad. Even my villainous boot imagery was better than that.

Not only is writing hard, typing the words out, for a two finger typist like me, is fucking hard. Even after all these years I need to look at the keyboard as I type. (If I do not, I end up with something like this, “I end up eubt sinrutbi ldun tsis,”) Yeah now that’s a skill that scientists in the sixties predicted we’d all need to have. Fuck rocket cars and laser guns and spaceships and all that fancy shit. In the year 2000, you’d better know how to type or you’re screwed.

I probably should not post this piece of crap. But I will. Because I fucking typed it out. My fingers are fucking bleeding. My forearms are in agony. I have tears streaming down my cheeks (I’m watching ET in my mind). My shoulders are burning. My nose is twitching. My teeth are gnashing.

Yeah, let’s end this before this turns into a quite hideous description of every part of my anatomy.

So, yeah, stuff.

A perfect Monday morning cannot be achieved without the Sunday Night Monday Morning Preparation.

First, return home tired and spaced out late on Sunday night. Next, fall asleep on the couch with the laptop precariously balanced on your stomach. Wake up an hour later to the smell of burning. The burning being you, since the laptop is back to doing its impression of a cheery furnace.

Curse for a while.

Divest yourself of the laptop and briefly consider getting of the couch, changing and heading to the bedroom. Reject the idea because you do not have the energy to get off of the couch. Stare idly at the ceiling for a while.

Continue the staring.

Realize that you still have your contacts on and that removing them is probably a good idea. Reject the idea because you do not have the energy to get off of the couch. Stare idly at the ceiling for a while.

Continue the staring.

Fall asleep in a little while.

Wake up. The cushion that you bought is fucking uncomfortable. Get rid of the cushion. Your head now feels like an overly enthusiastic bull elephant did the Mambo on it. Consider staring idly at the ceiling. Come to the conclusion that the ceiling is rather boring.

Continue the staring.

Fall asleep.

Wake up. At a half past nine. You are now really late for work. Consider your options. Briefly flirt with the idea of calling in sick. Reject it. Realize that it is now a quarter to ten and you haven’t gotten off of the couch. Also realize that your eyes are completely gummed up because you slept with your contacts on.

Get off of the couch.

Consider having breakfast. Reject the idea because it would make you even later for work. You are now so late that ten more minutes will not make a difference. The logical thing to do would be to have breakfast. Fortify yourself for the rest of the day.

Skip breakfast.

Lurch towards the bathroom. Make a small diversion to check your email. Reach the bathroom.

Start shaving. (Unless you have a beard. In which case, stop shaving!)

Finish shaving.

Brush your teeth. . (Unless you have a beard. In which case, stop brushing!)

Finish Brushing.

Step into the shower.

Realize that you missed a spot while shaving. Step out of the shower and finish shaving again.

Step back into the shower.

(Image of a ticking clock to show the passage of time. Restrained muzak plays in the background. Maybe Kenny G’s Songbird. A quiet voice says, “Your call is important to us. Please stay on the line. Your estimated wait time is fifteen minutes.”)

Step out of the shower. Since this is a family show, have a towel wrapped around you.

Grab the first pair of trousers that you find. Realize that all your shirts are at the dry cleaners. Also realize that you were supposed to pick them up the previous Thursday but had neglected to do so.

Curse for a while.

Hunt for a pair of socks. Find one sock each from four different pairs of socks. Continue to hunt.

Give up on the hunt and dig up a pair of new socks.

Comb your hair…Or at the very least make it less messy. The hair is in a state of active rebellion. Establish a “take no prisoner” policy and subdue the rebellion.

Look at your reflection.

• Bloodshot eyes. Check.
• Messy hair. Check.

Leave the apartment wearing formal pants and shoes and an old Virginia Beach T-shirt.

Drive to the dry-cleaners.

Fume silently in the line at the dry-cleaners. Finally it will be your turn. Pick up your clothes and exit.

Change in the parking lot. Put on the tie that you fortuitously left in the back seat on Friday.

Drive to work. Make sure that every single fucking traffic light between you and work is red. Also make sure that you get stuck behind someone doing thirty in a forty-five zone.

Curse for a while.

You’re at work. Hurrah! Do a little dance. Like the dance Snoopy does when the Round-Headed Kid brings him his dinner.