I flat-out don’t trust people who not even once in their lives have they ever had a dinner knife in their hand, glanced over at a particularly obnoxious dining companion, and thought to themselves, “It would be so easy . . .”
Mind you, I don’t necessarily trust people who have had that thought either, and I certainly don’t trust those that have ever acted on it . . . but that’s for different reasons.
I don’t know the details, of course, and, truth be told, I don’t really care to right now. As I’ve said before, while I have a deep-seated need to know everything eventually, the operative word in that sentence is “eventually.” Sanity annihilating, soul blasting knowledge can be delayed until I’m ready for it, for instance, and to that list let me now add any knowledge that might get me interrogated and/or tortured. I don’t do well in those situations; I giggle at odd times, make my inquisitors all fussy and cranky, and it’s just not worth the hassle.
But all jokes aside, this candle is for . . . hmmmmmmm . . .
For the sake of amusement, let’s call them Mr. & Mrs. Smith, if only so I can link to a picture of Angelina Jolie.
This candle is for you, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, you were great babysitters.
But I’m glad you didn’t quit your day job.
I didn’t know anything about this at the time, of course. I only found out about it years after the fact, much like I found out about his offer to teach me how to drive at one point. On one hand, I can’t help but wonder “what might have been” had the offer reached me in time . . . but on the other hand, I seem to recall hearing a story about how on an ice-covered road he demonstrated repeatedly how easy it was to get a car to fishtail, get it back under control, and then fishtail it again, so it’s not like I don’t understand why the offer was never passed on by my parents.
I did know they were “friendly spies” by the time they “retired,” at least. I put retired in quotes because the week after their “retirement,” they had civilian jobs that took them overseas to a variety of volatile regions. As I recall, I believe my exact words were, “Retired. Sure they are!”
And of course they weren’t.
Real spies never look like spies. I should know . . . I used to be babysat by some.
Seriously.
They were family friends, and to look at them, they were a couple you probably never would have looked twice at. He was a little on the small side, quiet and quirky about eating vegetables (corn was the exception because it wasn’t green) . . . and had about as many different sets of identities (complete with paperwork) as some people in this debt happy country have credit cards. Oh, and apparently he was quite skilled at what might discretely be referred to as “defensive and offensive driving.” She was outgoing, funny, and even a little audacious. She was in addition, I’m told, an absolute master of the arts of surveillance.
These were the people my parents left me alone with so they could have a nice night out, and yes, my parents knew they were spies.
I’m not sure if that makes it better or worse.
The other day I was thumbing through a women’s magazine in a waiting room, and came across this survey question asked of one thousand men:
“Which would you rather be trapped in an elevator with, a Playboy model or an elevator repair technician?”
The results were overwhelming in favor of the Playboy model as the obvious answer, and this was presented with the usual nod and wink about “guys being guys,” but hang on a minute. Did anyone at the magazine consider that elevator repair technicians frequently need to be outside the elevator to get it moving again?
Since last week’s trial run of my resuming a work schedule and going through files went so well, this week it’s time to up the ante. This week my writing goal is to start writing a short story on Monday, and have a decent finished product no later than Friday. (In the interest of full disclosure, knowing I was going to do this, I settled on an idea I liked over the weekend, but, aside from a few jotted notes, didn’t start putting it to paper, so to speak, until this morning.)
All in all, L. was pretty cooperative with my work schedule last week, and it wasn’t even the best of weeks for him or me, so I feel the odds of success are in our favor.
So now it’s time to roll the dice and find out.
Life is intrinsically, well, boring and dangerous at the same time. At any given moment the floor may open up. Of course, it almost never does; that’s what makes it so boring.
It depresses me sometimes just how much of humanity’s collective talents seem to be channeled toward creative ways to express their bigotry and hate. Mark my words, should humanity ever meet or create silicon-based life (as opposed to humanity’s own carbon based), somebody is going to come up with a clever line of silicon bashing propaganda encouraging humans to only “socialize” with humans, and base their campaign on stressing the importance and moral correctness of “carbon dating.”
Yes, yesterday’s post meant I am returning to work at long last. This week my set hours could be best described as part-part time, mostly taken up with getting my files back in order as much as possible following an unavoidable hard drive wipe, but it’s a start.
Time to start shaking off some dust.
– Traditional* returning to work song
* It may be only my tradition, but it remains a tradition none the less, and has been since Mr. A.S. first introduced me to the song years ago.
Candles & Curses 