Which Is Where We Are Now

I slog through another day at the Daily Show. I edit word documents. It’s very tedious work.

Then its evening. I’m in the hotel room of Stuart and Colbert doing some menial tasks. Occasionally, they wisk in and out, busy with the show.

Then, I’m in a large airport mall, very posh. I must be on the fifth floor. I look at a new phone to buy. I pick one out, looking at my own phone to view the opinions. Colbert is in the ads for the phones. He talks of the 4th dimension and I crack up because I get the inside joke: it’s a dig a 3dsi, doing one dimension better.

I swipe my card on my own phone to pay. The authorization screen indicates Claudia Anderson. Something is wrong. I tap on the authorization pad. It takes this as a signature.

I’m dismayed. A new saleslady gets a different model phone, one I really want, and takes my card.

“I work for the Daily Show,” I say.

“Oh, is that so. You know Jon Stewart was just given a commendation by the Pope.”

“Well, I used to work for it… not directly, through an office in Fairfax.”

In my parent’s basement (simultaneously on elementary school grounds), I’m teaching a football class. At first, we just play football for a couple downs, which goes pretty well. Then I get a clever idea: I’ll have each student contribute to teaching the class about football between downs, the least knowledgeable teaching the basics (they can be assisted as they teach) and the most knowledgeable teaching the interesting details.

The first forced teacher is one of a couple of Latina women. She can barely speak English. I tell her we are talking about football. Then I realize that that’s confusing because she might be thinking of soccer when she hears football. I say “American football”, but I’m not even sure she understands that. Meanwhile other students — the young, strapping men all ready to play — are getting bored and antsy. They just want to play. Everyone just wants to play and are just stifled being forced to play parts as teachers, especially when fun and the independence of simply playing a game is so close at hand, especially when this little teaching idea is so not working.

I’m in my room, which is an apartment in a high-rise. White paint, somewhat spacious. I look at my computer books sitting on a milk-crate used for a mini-bookshelf. They are old and useless now. Newer and more convenient information is available on the internet. I remember that I keep them for sentimental reasons. I look through the books. There is maybe one page of sentimental attachment in each book. Time to get rid of these books.

Back at Pizza Hut. Back at the cut table. Things seem nice and easy, only the pizzas aren’t matching the tickets. I wait for the mismatches to clear up, but they don’t. I begin to label the pizza boxes with marker, then realize that one of the pizzas is double boxes and the ink on the inside rather than the outside. Drivers come and help out. One of them counts the pepperonis on the pizza to make sure there is the right number — wow, that kind of detail is not called for in this hodge-podge, and what’s with the handling of the food. Despite my inability to match any pizza with any ticket, the drivers seem to find their pizzas and the cut table clears up. The pizza belt speed slows down, then speeds up. Still, no matching.

It’s late at night and I leave church service early. The parking lot is full.

A lady cop approaches me as I get to my car. She asks me if there are any drugs in the back of my trunk.

Though I’m aware of my rights for her needing to present a search warrant to search, I yield and open the trunk. It looks clean and spacious despite some knick-knacks. It’s quiet large.

As we talk, I become aware drugs in red packaging are taped to my chest. They’ve been there for a couple of days. “How could I have these on me for a couple of days?” I ask myself in surprise, “At least I must of showered.”

She notices how puffy I look in my shirt and asks about it. I pull off the taped drugs and hand them to her — only I’ve pulled out a large, unopened package of cocoa-puffs. So, I’m safe.

We go into a building. Into a small couple of rooms. She knows I still have drugs taped to my chest but she isn’t going to arrest me. She asks about my brother. I say he’d never take drugs or be in anyway involved. I go to the bathroom sink as we talk.

Next day, I drive to and pass through a second-hand store that some friends of mine work in near the courthouse.