September 4, 2006

Your friend Behr would like to reminisce about one of his favorite American holidays, Labor Day with you today on another occurance of this day!

Labor Day is a favorite day because it gives us pause to celebrate how American greatness has been built on two hundred plus years of utilizing cheap labor in the form of poor and near-poor people and drunks and other persons who would otherwise be stealing or asking for money at the bus station with a placard (large paper used as a sign) and a cup, perhaps with a musical instrument not tuned so well, but also perhaps not. At one time the Italians also used monkeys and winding organs for this purpose but we put them to work as well and drove our their inherent laziness which resulted from birth in Italy and needed to be driven out with American gumption.

One of the stories I like to recall to other successful Americans during parties, sometimes other parties than Labor Day parties depending on how much attention I have drawn to myself and how many stories I have in my memory mind and how much storytelling will be expected of me, goes back to the days when I was just starting out on the road to becoming a valued American. I was selling high powered vacuum cleaners door to door* and I was in one of the wealthy suburbs of old Baltimore. There was a large house on a hill and I hoped to make some sales there. A party was happening there, and I later discovered the man who owned the house was a Great American who was part of a family of captains of industry who had made great use of capital and cheap labor to build a successful financial empire and become Great Americans every one of them (except for one child born with polio and mental retardation in the 1930s who mysterious vanished along with two cinder blocks on a family boating trip in 1943). This man had just won a long fight with communist labor union organizers who sought higher wages and better compensation packages for the poor and unremarkable workers in his manufacturing plants and was celebrating with other Great American friends this noble victory over communism. One of the ways in which he was celebrating was by lighting cigars for himself and others with hundred dollar bills. This was a great inspiration to me at the time and set me on the correct path to becoming the Great American I now am. One of the greatest symbols of success in this, the greatest nation in the solar system, is having the freedom to do what we wish with the money we make in the course of being Great Americans.

I harken back to my youth, growing up in a house right next to the Berlin Wall. I would know the brave soldiers who patrolled the wall and made sure no one tried to go over, under or around it and sometimes we would play jacks or dodge ball or other traditional German games. At one point when I was six or seven, the two soldiers who were patrolling the wall near my father's house had met a couple of buxom German beauties who were showing ample cleavage in an attempt to distract them from their duties. They wished in the worst way to use my father's house to act upon their natural animal lusts with these ladies, but they were tied to their duties in guarding the wall. What I did then I believe truly laid the groundwork for my future adult life as a Great American. I offered to guard the wall for them while they used my house for the purposes they sought to use them for although I made them promise not to do anything too outlandish because my mother was a strong and willful woman who always knew what was going on even after it happened hours or days later. During their enchanted time in the house, which went on for nearly two hours, I found myself distracted somewhat by the piercing wail of one of these buxom women (both of which turned out to be communist transvestites, but that is a story for another time). Despite these distractions, I was able to see two men attempting to climb over the wall and used the powerful rifle my soldier friends had given me to use in doing their duties while they did their duties to shoot both of the men. One was killed instantly as bullets tore through his worthless chest. The other was wounded and in pain, so I went over to him and reminded him there were reasons to respect rules and authority (although likely in more childlike terms as I was only six or seven years of age at this time) and proceeded to fill his mouth with worm-ridden dirt after he started yelling at me in German about how the wall needed to be knocked down and other assorted nonsenses. After I finished him off by placing the sidearm loaned to me by one of the soldiers into his mouthy mouth and pulled the trigger, I sat and contemplated my patriotic actions and did not speak of them ever again until I was in a pub in England in the early 1970s. I was there having a pint (which is what they call a glass of beer in England) after having a great deal of trouble placing a call through to my father who was back in the states (this was during his work as a spy) and so I told the story to a friendly but angry young man who said his name was Robert or Roger. He seemed very interested and took a lot of notes regarding details of my story, but after he told me he was in a band, I told him I would have nothing to do with rock and rollers because they were a hotbed of homosexuality and communism.

School has begun again in the Greater Baltimore School System and last week I was told that there would only be one remedial science class for me to teach, but due to my performance and status as a Great American, the principal wanted to offer me additional duties in the form of substitute gym teacher. Apparently one of the regular gym teachers was wounded over the summer playing the Great American game of baseball on the American Legion circuit when a fastball whacked him ever so hard in the noggin and caused him long term hospitalization and Vietnam flashbacks. I jumped at the opportunity.

In checking out the first squad of boys for Behr's first class of gym, I found it easy to split them into two groups, the first being the strong and virile young men who had the potential to become Great Americans and the weaklings with acne and glasses who were destined to a life of being poor and working in the manufacturing plants for the strong and virile Great American types. Immediately I knew that I had a calling from God to set the wheels in motion early on so that they weaklings would not become tempted or seduced by the buxom transvestites who herald the advance of communism and the destruction of our great nation.

My program, which began with my first class before the break for the celebration of Labor Day, is surely in place for a semester of learning that will be more than these fledgling Great Americans and sickly weaklings (who would not even make it away from their mother's breast in infancy if we let natural selection and survival of the fittest have its way - and like I always say, we let the communists keep our sickly weaklings alive through cajoling so if they live, to the manufacturing plants with you for whatever work you may be barely capable of doing). In my gym class I have given the strong and virile youths opportunity to play basketball game or football game at their command while I make the sickly weaklings with acne and glasses spend the entire class doing sit-ups, push-ups, lap-running and spending time on their knees balancing a soccer ball on their noses. I have encouraged the virile youth to mock these weaklings so they can begin to learn their place in our great way of life and also to occasionally engage in ritual humiliation. One of my favorite virile boys in my class has developed his own special way of humiliation which has earned Behr's Seal of Approval, this special way being coming over to the weaklings while they are trying to exercise the Behr way and breaking wind into their mouths, choosing a different sickly youth each time for best maximum effect. I have also utilized the making of the taking of cold showers by the weaklings after gym class while the virile youths stare at them and laugh at their lack of manly prowess as an important part of the educational experience.

I must now finish my coffee and get ready for day of celebrating. Thank you for all your kindnesses and remember to salute the flag.

*Company will not be named due to no longer feeling willing to endorse their products due to an issue with severance pay and accusations that I acted improperly with a potential customer by engaging in unwanted "play" by inserting a finger into her vagina after slipping her a mickey. This may have happened, but I did not lose the company a sale. I knew she had not intention of buying a vacuum cleaner due to the George McGovern bumper sticker on her Peugeot, so I did not lose the company a sale so there was no harm done and I was treated unfairly by persons on a witch hunt.

Happy Labor Day, indeed. Well, here is my daily rambling in the daylog.

Firstly, I think it is way cool how this place has an experience system that lets you level up. When I submit this writeup, I should level up, making me level 2, which I believe will bestow upon me the ability to upvote/downvote.

My love overseas has pissed me off terribly bad, so I showed her the consequences. I doubt I'll be hearing from her for a while...

Maybe it's all for the good. The woman is stubborn, ridiculously sarcastic, pompously self-righteous, the Navy has changed her... and not like fall leaves, either.

Perhaps I should take a moment or two to elighten any of you who have been following my recent daylogs about this whole situation with my dearheart.

Back in High School, I remember when my Mom would always say "Don't ever get with anybody, you have too much of your father in you. Your wife will hate you and your children will despise you." I have since then come to realize that she is simply letting her bitterness talk, as she knows she will never be with another man, and has completely and totally given up on romance. But when I was 14-19 years old, these words were far less than the encouragement I felt I needed. So I got desperate. I fell in love with a girl in the marching band. She was a late bloomer (I myself have yet to "bloom"... are we on the same page, here?), and I believe I scared her with my talk of undying devotion and loyalty. It was a little deep for her very non-romantic (surprising, for a girl) heart to accept, and she fled.

Sometime early in our senior year, I having decided to leave her alone completely some months previously, she came to me, and wanted to spark a friendship. I would buy her lunch, and we would talk about video games and anime and cool books and stuff. Then graduation day came.

Over the summer, my best friend moved to Tennessee, and this was harsh on me. One day, said girl from band had called me, and was trying to cheer me up, and suddenly she said: "Why don't you come over here?"

Alright, cool, I thought. I get to see her house, her stuff, her family, etc. This started us on a pattern of visiting one another. Shortly after a mutal female friend of ours joined the Navy, band girl said she was going in, too. We spent most of the time before she went to boot camp together having our usual innocent fun.

One of my most notable memories of this time was when I went and ate chinese food with her, this was the first time in my life I had chinese food, and I was 19 at the time. That night, when we got back to her house, we were in her room. I was watching her play Final Fantasy X, when she abruptly got up and started putting lip gloss on. I watched her pretty lips as she applied it, and did that little thing girls always do when they are done with lipstick or gloss to make sure it is spread evely. And out of the blue I popped the question:

"Can I kiss you?" I had never kissed anyone, had no idea how, but I knew I wanted to kiss her. She looked at me strangely for a minute before saying "Like Brandon White did?"

"No, not like that, just mouth to mouth, no tongue or anything."

She said no. I thought this was terribly unfair, because I did just buy her an expensive chinese meal, and at least I had the decency to ask. Brandon White hadn't done shit for her, and she let him french kiss the hell out of her once, without him even asking, just because she was "curious."

Well, bummer. But I got over it. She went to boot camp, a month or two later, she was back and in much better shape, but not much different spiritually. We continued our escapades, me writing stories, her illustrating them, and all that other fun stuff we did, when she finally said, "I get to go to Japan!"

Japan is a place she has always wanted to go. And she got her wish. I went with her and our other friends the night she went to the airport. It was the last time I hugged her and looked into her eyes. I didn't care if it gave me false hope to do so or not. She hugged me more tightly than she hugged her own father. Then she turned around and got on the plane.

It has been about 7 months since then, and we have been communicating through email regularly. I have noticed that all our other friends get the "Oh hi how have you been" emails, while she saves all the deep, intricately detailed ones for me. Well, having recently visited this girls best friend (the one that first went into the Navy), she advised me to try to make a move. I said I didn't want to because I knew it would just cause band girl to freak out again like she did in High School.

I was right. Nobody has faith in my intelligence! So now we are arguing again, and as I said earlier, if I get a reply any time soon, it will either be out of luck, or because she wants to fuss at me some more.

I don't care. I was going to be patient and wait for her to realize that I have been the one who was always there, but to hell with it! Maybe she was right. Maybe she isn't worth wasting my life for her to come to her senses. Plenty of other fish in the sea, and all. Well, time to bait my hook, I guess. That's really a bad way to put it, I know, but I am only human. I need company just like anyone else. And so much of my time feels wasted these days. My best friend did end up coming back to North Carolina with me, but we are in such positions now that I don't get to see him much anymore. I have been meaning to have a serious talk with him about the turns our lives have taken recently. Also, he is considering getting contacts and cutting his hair. If he cuts his hair, it will break our "contract." In the tenth grade, we took a vow to grow our hair long together. That was in 2002, and as you can imagine, our hair is pretty long by now. A few people even think we're brothers, but we have obvious differences. His eyes are hazel, mine are blue, he wears a mustache and chops, I keep a clean shave (and always have since I was old enough to start shaving), he has sheer brute force, I have staying power, etc.

But yes, I am fortunate enough to be off on this Labor Day (even though I had to sleep half the day because I just got off work at 7 this morning!). I will likely spend the rest of the day doing laudry and messing around on the internet. I never cease to be amazed at all one can see on this wonderful site that is E2.

The receptionist at work is new. I think the usual receptionist is on vacation.

At work around 1pm last Friday, the new receptionist phoned me at my desk. She asked me if I'd ordered a cheese pizza. I said no. She sounded disappointed. I asked why she was asking and she said that someone had delivered one and she didn't know who it was for. I asked if there was a name or phone number on the order and she said no. I said "too bad" and ended the conversation.

This is one of those odd occurrences that most of the time people would just shake off and forget about. But I can't help thinking there's something going on.

First or all, why pick me to call? There's hundreds of people in the office and any of them are just as likely to have ordered a pizza. It's not like I'm hosting a lunch meeting; she'd know that because she has access to the conference room booking system. I've never ordered a pizza to work before so it's not like there's a precedent. It makes no sense to call me.

Next, why did she say it's a "cheese" pizza? Why be that specific? When the delivery guy arrived and said he's dropping off the pizza, did she ask what's on it? How does knowing what's on it help to find the person who ordered it? I could understand if a bunch of different pizzas arrived at the same time, then you might figure out whose is whose by toppings, but I walked through the lobby a minute after she called and there was no other pizza guys making deliveries.

Why was there no name or phone number on the order? Every pizza place always asks for at least a phone number, but when ordering to an office I'd assume that they'd ask for a contact name too. No name and no number is really odd and doesn't sound plausible.

Maybe she was just checking up on me. Maybe someone wanted her to call me and see if I was at my desk so they could get me. Maybe there's a sniper on the roof of the building across the street. He phoned the receptionist on his way into the building to make sure I was there, in position. It's a conspiracy.

What if the real receptionist isn't on vacation? What if the sniper and the new receptionist had her whacked so the new receptionist could take over the job and monitor my movements?

You know, just after she called about the pizza I left my desk. I had to go to another room to work for a couple hours. I wonder if that saved my life? Just after confirming I was there, I left. The sniper missed me.

And when I left my desk right after her call, I had to walk through the lobby past the receptionist to get to the other room. I smelled no pizza. There was no confused pizza man waiting for her to find the orderer. There wasn't even an abandoned pizza on the counter.

I don't think there ever was a pizza.

I think someone's setting me up for something.

Maybe I should call in sick tomorrow.