Ideal

Someone who keeps my hours is inevitably exposed to lots of late night television and the inescapable horrors therein: infomercials. The most odious by far are the diet/weight loss programs that bombard you with before-and-after photos. And my reason for hating these infomercials isn't due to self-esteem issues or anything like that.

It's the women.

It shows these skeletal waifs who I am expected to accept as attractive, though I could probably play their ribs like a xylophone. Frightfully thin, jump-around-in-the-shower-just-to-get-wet thin. And I don't buy it. For many of these women, the before photos are far more attractive. One woman bemoaned that she used to be a size sixteen. She complained how she always felt fat, but now she was so happy as a size three. They show the before image, and I think, "Damn! She used to look really good!" Lush body, full of curves, with the classic hourglass shape. Some women are blessed with a figure that bears a little extra weight proudly, even if the woman herself does not.

It's a complete and utter shame. Women should be made of curves, not angles.

Seeing all this size bullshit (and bullshit it is--why are most women so sensitive that they can't stand to see a measurement label on their clothes?), I realized that I don't really know how the whole sizing chart is broken down. So I Googled, and I found this. I thought about the measurements I generally prefer to see on women, and this is what I figured: my ideal woman falls within the range of sizes ten to sixteen.

Just one more bit of evidence supporting the fact that I was born in the wrong century.

My Old Nemesis

Mark this well, folks. It won't be too often you'll see poetry from me. The sophistication grieves me. It doesn't help that I naturally suspect pretension when faced with any form of poetry. Nor does it help that I have no capacity to judge poetry.

***

I love the places where breath shows in the crisp air,

the times when we dimly remember skins and furs

and mammoth-tallow campfires,

and looking up at brittle-edged stars.

You notice things, appreciate them,

like the press of a warm body against you,

heat like a line of fever,

scalding so nice.

You shiver, the little muscle-trick to bring warmth

and remind your blood to keep flowing.

You ignore the burn of ear and cheek and nose,

and you sniffle and snort and snerk,

and you pretend it's not a bother.

Because really, who braves the cold anymore,

who opens up to the bracing bite

and in surrendering, conquers?

Who cannot venture forth lest they be zipped,

head to toe?

Rejoice! Rejoice where others cringe!

Fling wide your arms and cast off your coat!

Let it fly in the northern wind.

Fill your lungs and rejoice,

and watch your breath in the crisp air.

My pipe of briar, my open fire, a book that's not too new

Anyone who knows me personally will know also that I tend to gravitate towards the archaic. I prefer things of timeless style. Hence, my propensity toward wearing fedoras (not the stingy little trilby hats worn by today's wippersnappers), ivy caps in tweed patterns, and replica-WWII aviator jackets. Given all this, my newest fascination probably won't surprise too many.

About a month-and-a-half ago (the week before Christmas), I bought my first pipe. I'd been curious about it for awhile, but I never really planned on making the step. As far as smoking went, I was generally opposed, mostly out of my loathing for cigarettes. I had tried cigarettes before, and I found them somewhat disagreeable. The tobacco was so chemically treated that it left a residue in my mouth, the smoke was too harsh, and the only effect of the nicotine was to irritate my throat. I gave it an honest try, but decided it was not for me. (I'd almost decided the same for cigars, but I found that actual hand-rolled cigars are quite pleasant, whereas the machine-made ones are almost as bad as cigarettes.) Another reason was that I enjoy singing, and I know too many people who have affected their voices for the worse due to cigarettes.

With all this, I probably never would have considered pipes had I not started reading the Wheel of Time series. It presented the idea of smoking a pipe as an occasional treat, something indulged in every so often, but not done to excess. It made sense. I reasoned, with all the pollutants in the air and chemicals in our food, how much worse, really, would an occasional pipe be? (I've since read a study by the Surgeon-General's office which stated that a person smoking one pipe every two to three days actually has the same, if not better, life expectancy of the average non-smoker. Go figure.) And I didn't even have to worry about what the smoke would do to my voice. You don't inhale pipe smoke.

So I bought a pipe. I've bought a few more since. I've tried a few different kinds of tobacco. English blends seem to be my favorite; the smoky flavor of latakia is a true delight. And through the trial, I've discovered the differences between smokers. Those who smoke cigarettes always seem so harried to me. They get the nic fix their bodies crave and then they move on. Cigar smokers are more relaxed; there is technique required in properly smoking a cigar, and it teaches patience. Smoking a pipe, however, goes even further. It is a ritual. Fill the pipe (many different methods to choose from, three-pinch being most popular), perform a charring light, tamp down the tobacco, perform a true light, and then sip gently at the stem. Maybe you have to relight a few times; finishing a pipe can take an hour or more. Once the pipe has been smoked, you can refill or you can break the pipe down and clean it. The entire endeavor is calming, relaxing. It's a shame that it has fallen so to the wayside. Most of the time, when I go into a tobacco shop and ask for pipe tobacco, the clerk will point at a solitary bag on a barren stretch of shelf. Even then, it isn't really pipe tobacco. It's a bag of Roll Your Own cigarette tobacco--the companies label this stuff as pipe tobacco to avoid taxes.

So one more tally to mark me as an old fogey. I don't really care. In fact, I prefer it. There is vast, rich culture out there for those who are not afraid to fall behind the times. One more thing before I go. One of my managers asked me to carry a case of cigarettes from receiving up to the tobacco counter. Before I left on the errand, she asked if I smoked. "A pipe," I said. She shook her head. "I should have known."

"To walk peacefully with oneself in the woods. To boil one's coffee and fill one's pipe, and to think idly and slowly as one does it." Knut Hamsun

Further Misadventures

Sometimes my lunch breaks get a tad predictable. Whenever I'm stuck on a shift that only allows me thirty minutes to eat, I go for the quickest, cheapest stuff I can get. My current favorite is Asian chicken bites from the deli and a chow mein bowl. Because I had run out of chopsticks, I had to buy another packet (I swear, this is leading up to something).

When I got to the checkout lane, the girl there asked me if I really preferred chopsticks to plastic forks (my ability to eat with chopsticks has awarded me celebrity/freak status in the associate lounge). I said that yes, I liked using chopsticks. I paid for the items and, feeling it would be rude to walk off without saying anything else, said, "Chopsticks are fun."

She shook her head, saying, "I just don't think I could get the hang of using them." She closed out the register and began to walk away. Then she stopped. "I do like a big stick, though." Her friend at the next register started laughing.

Fortunately (?) my brain had shut down before I could say that I always did believe in the adage "Speak softly and carry a big stick."

In Which My Co-Workers Shine

Yesterday was mighty stupid, folks. To familiarize yourself with the inner workings of retail, you should know that some stores have an unloader team. It is their job to unload trucks. This is what they get paid to do. Every now and then, someone among their ranks proves himself as a valuable human being, and as such he is transferred to a different department (the use of "he" is not my chauvinism shining through; there are rarely ever any female unloaders). However, those who end up being unloaders for the entirity of their retail career do so for a reason. They are automata. They will stand around staring into space until prodded into action. Many of them are dumbasses. Some are downright fucktards.

This is their story.

Yesterday, we had to unload the frozen/dairy truck. This, in hindsight, is what allowed all of the stupidity in the first place. Things were moving along smoothly for about five minutes. We were placing the third pallet into the meat cooler when the guy I was helping started drifting toward the left. This would not have been so much of a problem, except that there was a laden cart right where he was trying to go. "Turn to the right," I said. Immediately, the pallet swung towards the left. "The right," I said again. "There's a cart over here". The pallet turns even more to the left. "The right!" I shouted. Yes, I was shouting at that point. The pallet turned even more determinedly to the left. I stood back, as the gap between the pallet and the steel bins was narrowing, and I did not care for my position between them. I looked the guy in the eye and said, "No, your other right!" Finally, he stopped. He pulled the pallet back. He straightened it up. And he once again steered it to the left. I walked away. It was only after I thought about it that I realized he probably thought he was turning toward the right. In order to push the pallet to the right, the handle on the jack has to be turned to point left, and vice versa. But I don't care. Bastard was still turning left.

Now, before this whole thing started, I had to re-arrange some items in the freezer. There was a pallet in the very back that I had to work (and wasn't able to get around to; go figure), so when the truck came in, I pulled it out of the freezer, so I could keep it toward the front. Now, I was not the last person to load a pallet in last night. That fell to one of the unloaders. In passing, he told me he had the last one, so I went about logging the truck, which involves recording time of arrival, as well as temperature of the pallets. After that, I still had things to do in dairy. Fast forward about an hour. I suddenly remember that I had to remove a pallet, and I had the sinking suspicion that the unloaders didn't put it back into the freezer.

And I was right.

Cursing, I found a jack and was about to return the pallet, when I opened the freezer door and looked in. There was still a jack under one of the pallets. That is a big no-no. Each jack operates on a pneumatic lift. If the air inside the lift is frozen, it compresses to such a point that the jack is no longer useable. So, cursing vehemently, I grabbed the jack, pulled the trigger to release the lift, and tried to remove it. Tonk! It wouldn't come out. I held down on the trigger to see if the jack was just being slow. Tonk!

Crap. I went to get Gary. Gary and I puzzled over it for a minute, before he decided it would be best to just remove the pallet and examine it outside the freezer. Once outside, it took a few minutes, but he was able to remove the jack. He pushed it back in, and then out, three times, making sure it was clear. He pushed the pallet back into the freezer. And then I heard, "It's stuck again!"

"The jack?!"

"Yep."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

So, out came the pallet, again. This time, when the jack came out, I used a different jack, from the other side of the pallet. Into the freezer. Tonk! My jaw dropped. I looked back at Gary. Gary was doubled over, laughing. Yet again, out with the pallet. This time, suspecting the problem was not the jack, I dropped to the floor and started looking under the pallet. After a minute, I came up with a block of wood. It had been catching under the jack, keeping it from lowering enough to be removed. A simple answer to a vexing problem. I started laughing, but I was still pissed off. It had taken us about fifteen minutes, and I felt dumb, but what really angered me was the knowledge that the other guy had given up without even trying.

I looked at Gary and said, "I either need a smoke or a drink. Don't really care which."