Nut Jobs and Whore Doors

I currently have three jobs. They all get a different response. They all get the same response. Here's how these conversations usually go.


Job #1

Me: I work in talk radio.

Person I'm Talking To: You guys are all a bunch of right-wing nut-jobs.
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Job #2

Me: I work at a newspaper.

Person I'm Talking To: You guys are all a bunch of left-wing nut-jobs.
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Job #3

Me: I work at a pizza place.

Person I'm Talking To: You guys are all a bunch of drug-addicted nut-jobs.
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So I'm told I'm three different things (2 of which conflict) but the consensus is that I am a nut-job. I'll tell you this: Of those three things, I'm actually only one, and I'm not a drug-addict. That's all I can say. The rest is pretty obvious. I don't speak in a whiny harmless voice and wear women's jeans while quoting Ginsberg in my "Lisa Loeb Glasses For Men," so you can probably figure out which kind of political nut-job I am. But who cares about that right now? I'd rather tell you (once again)! how stupid I am. Here goes:

I'm supposed to transcribe the answers to our weekly surf column tonight. This involves me typing up a hand-written questionnaire from a local surfer to go in our paper. It's called "Surf's Up."

Well, I misplaced the questionnaire. And there was no room for error - I had to find it tonight. Not having it was not an option, because we have a deadline and there's no time to interview a new surfer. So I started tearing apart my room/office. (I do most of my newspaper work in the same place I sleep, watch tv, do it, and wash my hands: my bedroom. Yes, my bedroom even has a sink in it. I am so spoiled. It also has a whore-door - a door that the rest of the roommates can't see or use that I could theoretically sneak girls out of if I didn't want my girl roommates to see who I had leaving. (I'm actually pretty boring these days, I don't have time to also be involved with girls that I am ashamed of like I used to. It's not that a man quits wanting to be bad, it's just that he gets too tired to muster up the energy to be bad. It's the same reason crime rates go down among the elderly - it's just too damn exhausting to keep up that devil's pace. But you know those old burglars would still break up in your place if their hips weren't acting up. They aren't more moral, they're just really tired. It's the same with my whore-door. I may not use it - but I'm still glad to have it, just to know that it's there if I need it. It's comforting.)

Anyway, back to looking for my surfer questionnaire. I knew it was in my room somewhere. So I started tearing shit up! I opened every drawer, flipped over every shelf and looked through dozens and dozens of notepads that were stuffed with folded papers. This one particular folder kept reappearing and getting in my way. No matter where I was looking, that same manilla folder would get in my new pile and I would immediately throw it across the room to get the damn thing out of my way. After an hour of searching everywhere, I finally read what it said in big capital letters written in thick marker on that particular folder that I had been ignoring: "SURF'S UP QUESTIONNAIRES."

Somehow I overlooked that little detail every time I threw the folder across the room. Had the questionniare been unmarked and up in an oak tree across town, I would've found it. But you put that same questionnaire in a properly marked folder on my desk and I'm never gonna see it - in fact I'll throw it around like it's bothering me. I really should clean up this messy room full of papers. I look like a hoarder... with a whore door.

The End

P.S. I thought about using this title: "If I Don't Respect'em, I Can No Longer Inject'em!"

Would that have been funnier? I didn't use it, because it referenced only a minor part of the story. But I found it at least mildly amusing and wanted to type it one time. By the way, I think I've figured out how to get my computer to let me subscribe to you fine folks' blogs, but I'll have to do it later after I write this article on surfing. (Naturally, I don't surf.)