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Tuesday, March 17th 2015
Murphy gets a job at the TSA
Posted Tue Mar 17 2015 18:17
1 of 1 liked this
May 3
So I finally got a job. With the TSA. The interviewer was a little grumpy about my name being Murphy. He said it'd be better if my name was LaShawn or Wing Lee or Mahmood, as they liked being diverse. I told him my middle name was Pierre, which is Belgian or Swedish or something, so that made him happy. Anyway, ten bucks an hour, health insurance, and ten percent off at the airport food concessions! Vegan hot dogs here I come!
May 5
Training day. The trainer was this guy named Fritz. He had a really short haircut and tight leather pants. He yelled a lot and sort of stomped around the room, kicking his legs up high. Kind of reminded me of my third-grade teacher, Mr. Lunz, the one who kept on getting sent to jail. I didn't learn much in third-grade, which was great. He was a good teacher. Anyway, Fritz showed us how to use pepper spray, how to get people in choke holds and the proper way to conduct a full body search. He got one of the trainees to go up and help him with the full body search. A guy named Trevor. It was a pretty comprehensive search. I'm afraid I had to close my eyes a few times. Fritz got all red and sweaty while he was doing it. Then he pepper sprayed Trevor, right when Trevor was saying something about his lawyer. Trevor kind of screamed and thrashed around. It was pretty educational. Fritz said you can make salad dressing out of pepper spray if you're out of normal pepper. That's great. I love salad.
May 9
First day at work. These uniforms are awesome. The boots are great. Love the steel toes. We have a list of people types we're supposed to concentrate on: old white ladies in wheelchairs, little kids, fat white guys in business suits and soccer moms. I guess the terrorists are getting really clever about how they disguise themselves. My supervisor's name is Farood al-something or another. I can't really understand his accent. Or maybe he isn't speaking English to me. That's okay. My humanities professor in junior college said that English is an oppressive symbol of patriarchal colonialism, whatever the hell that means, so we should avoid speaking it as much as possible. I guess Farood had the same class.
May 10
Did my first full body search. It was an old woman who set off the metal detector like fireworks on the 4th. Except that's an oppressive white man's holiday. She said it was her bridge in her mouth, two metal hip replacements and a plate in her skull, but Farood told me they're always lying about these things. I snapped on my blue gloves. Her eye shadow was the same color. She was pretty squishy, except for her hips. I could feel something hard and rigid underneath all her fat. She said thank you very much, young man, and told me she'd have to fly more and then asked me when I got off work.
May 11
There sure is a lot of diversity in air travelers! That is good to see and it warms my heart because it means we are a real melting pot, or at least a stew, of a country. There was a lady (at least I think it was a lady) who came through dressed in some kind of tent. She probably does great with the mosquitoes when camping. She was looking through the part of the tent that would've been right at the top--you know, the slit that allows air to circulate. She was traveling with a guy dressed in white robes with a big beard and a doily on his head. He said I should not talk to her as I was a smelly infidel. I did a quick overhand stretch--I told him it was because my back muscles were tight-- in order to surreptitiously smell my armpits. I was still good. Right Guard is strong stuff. They both set off the metal detectors. Farood did their search, but he just did it by bowing to them. He said that works real well if they're not white or named Hank. They said something to each other, I think about Allah's Snackbar or something like that. That lady in the tent looked pretty hungry--or at least her size looked pretty hungry. Maybe it's a new place in the food court. I'll have to try it out. I like southern food. Then there was an old guy in a wheelchair. He was pretty suspicious, particularly when his false teeth popped out of his mouth and hit me on the arm. Farood pepper sprayed him and then said I should press assault and battery charges against him and also put in for a hazard pay bonus.
May 12
Nancy Pelosi came by! Wow. I'm still trembling. She normally doesn't fly commercial, but one of her aides said something about her Air Force jet being in the shop. She didn't say anything herself, but I think she looked somewhere near in my direction. She set off the metal detector and her aide whispered that it was because she was a cyborg and mostly machinery inside. We all had a good laugh about that. I didn't realize politicians are such jokers. It makes me feel good inside that our leaders have good senses of humor. Then they moved off down the hallway. She doesn't really walk. She sort of glides like Michael Jackson doing the moonwalk. She has mad skills.
Monday, March 31st 2014
Posted Mon Mar 31 2014 23:00
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One of my brothers worked for about twenty years down in the Amazon. While he certainly appreciated the place (after all, where can you go out and cut down your own mahogany and cedar trees and then mill them yourself?), he detested the culture of bribery that existed. Most encounters with the government tended to result in the bureaucrat du jour demanding their coin.
At least the Brazilians are honest about it.
Here in California, bribery is woven seamlessly into our laws and regulations. My job has me frequently interacting with various levels of government. Invariably, fees are required to do anything. Want to build something? That'll be 32 different fees, including fees for archaeological studies, biological studies, seismic studies, noise studies, traffic studies. One wonders, with so many studies, why the various planning departments of California do not hand out college degrees with their permits?
Recently, I was required to pay several fees for a permit. Business as usual, of course. The galling thing, though, is that the money paid does not equate in any way to man-hours worked by some government Joe on my behalf. The money merely disappears, vanishing in the direction of Sacramento with a great raspberry noise that sounds suspiciously like someone yodeling "Sucker!"
Having visited my brother in the Amazon, I feel somewhat nostalgic for that jungle. There, at least, the snakes don't pretend to be anything else. They bite you in complete honesty. In California, however...
At least the Brazilians are honest about it.
Here in California, bribery is woven seamlessly into our laws and regulations. My job has me frequently interacting with various levels of government. Invariably, fees are required to do anything. Want to build something? That'll be 32 different fees, including fees for archaeological studies, biological studies, seismic studies, noise studies, traffic studies. One wonders, with so many studies, why the various planning departments of California do not hand out college degrees with their permits?
Recently, I was required to pay several fees for a permit. Business as usual, of course. The galling thing, though, is that the money paid does not equate in any way to man-hours worked by some government Joe on my behalf. The money merely disappears, vanishing in the direction of Sacramento with a great raspberry noise that sounds suspiciously like someone yodeling "Sucker!"
Having visited my brother in the Amazon, I feel somewhat nostalgic for that jungle. There, at least, the snakes don't pretend to be anything else. They bite you in complete honesty. In California, however...
Friday, March 21st 2014
Posted Fri Mar 21 2014 18:00
1 of 1 liked this
Nov 3. Went drinking with the boys after work. Plenty of bars to choose from in Washington DC. Sometimes you can see one of the superstars like Henry Waxman or Joe Biden or Charles Schumer. They are real men! Makes me tingle all over to think I have the same employer as they do. The government. Bingley disagrees with me on that. Says our employer is the people. Huh. What does he know. He drinks Coors. I drink martinis with little umbrellas in them. Saw one of the Kennedys in the bar this evening. Wow! Not sure which one. He left with a tall, leggy blonde. Someone shouted "get a life preserver!" Must've been drunk. Reminds me. I need a girlfriend.
Nov 9. Job at the National Park Services is getting a bit routine. I enjoy clubbing tourists when they get too close to the Lincoln Memorial or to the Senate Building, but the bloom is off the rose. Yesterday, Harry Reid came down the Senate steps and thanked us for our hard work. At least, I think that's what he said. Words were kind of muffled due to the handkerchief he had covering his nose. Apparently he has sensitive olfactory nerves. I tried not to breathe in his direction as I had Italian for lunch. I still need a girlfriend.
Nov 22. Met girl of my dreams! Jill Schnabel. Bingley introduced me to her at a party. Apparently she was his blind date but they were not exactly meshing. Then he cackled like a crazy man and ran away. Jill works at the Department of Education. Policy writer. Went to Vassar and majored in post-industrial re-genderism. Jill is also a vegan wiccan and rescues pure-bred Tibetan mastiffs in her spare time! Very well-rounded! I'm in love. We're going to a sit-in at Georgetown next Saturday to protest their football team. Jill says football is a reactionary and antiquated leftover of our violent imperialist past. Refreshing to meet someone willing to make a stand. She says she's bringing pepper spray and will beat the crap out of any counter-protestors.
Nov 9. Job at the National Park Services is getting a bit routine. I enjoy clubbing tourists when they get too close to the Lincoln Memorial or to the Senate Building, but the bloom is off the rose. Yesterday, Harry Reid came down the Senate steps and thanked us for our hard work. At least, I think that's what he said. Words were kind of muffled due to the handkerchief he had covering his nose. Apparently he has sensitive olfactory nerves. I tried not to breathe in his direction as I had Italian for lunch. I still need a girlfriend.
Nov 22. Met girl of my dreams! Jill Schnabel. Bingley introduced me to her at a party. Apparently she was his blind date but they were not exactly meshing. Then he cackled like a crazy man and ran away. Jill works at the Department of Education. Policy writer. Went to Vassar and majored in post-industrial re-genderism. Jill is also a vegan wiccan and rescues pure-bred Tibetan mastiffs in her spare time! Very well-rounded! I'm in love. We're going to a sit-in at Georgetown next Saturday to protest their football team. Jill says football is a reactionary and antiquated leftover of our violent imperialist past. Refreshing to meet someone willing to make a stand. She says she's bringing pepper spray and will beat the crap out of any counter-protestors.
Thursday, February 20th 2014
Posted Thu Feb 20 2014 18:45
2 of 2 liked this
Sidney Carton. Fall, sacrifice, love and redemption, all the great themes of mankind and of literature (they're the same, aren't they?) wrapped up in one poor fellow riding in a tumbril. I realize we were all forced to read Tale of Two Cities in high school English, thumbscrews applied by the diligent Ms. X at the front of the class. Reading under duress does not engender affection for literature. However, I'm sure we can all get past that, given enough hours spent on our psychologist's couch.
So, if you haven't read Tale of Two Cities in a decade or two, get out your copy and dust it off.
Next week, depending on the weather and my digestion, my favorite character will probably be Sam Gamgee or Davey Burnie.
So, if you haven't read Tale of Two Cities in a decade or two, get out your copy and dust it off.
Next week, depending on the weather and my digestion, my favorite character will probably be Sam Gamgee or Davey Burnie.