WHAT REALLY ANNOYS ME
Is being part of a captive
audience,
having to be back at school
after 20 years in the field
because they say I need an
effin dog license —
life experience ain’t good enough for bureaucracy.
Stupid domestic things annoy
me
like when he opens the shower curtain
from the wrong side,
tears the curtain from its
hooks,
and I’ve replaced it three times
in the last six months.
OK, so wet towels and
clothes
heaped on the shower rod
don’t help either.
I gotta remove everything
before I can close the shower curtain
or let the floor rot.
Then there’s the eternal hairball
question
for which he seems to have tunnel vision.
I don’t have a wolfman carpet
of bodyhair
and what little I do have isn’t gray. Yet.
I haven’t had to pick up
after a man most my life
and I’m way too old to start learning now.
What else annoys me?
When
I’m late for a job, when it matters.
Or when I’m early and it doesn’t matter,
or
when it does matter, I don’t get paid,
or brownie points for it.
Here I am giving away
quarter hours for free.
They add up. In four days, that’s one hour gratis.
Rest assured, they’d dock me
if I took that unpaid hour off
by turning up late 4 times in a row.
Or wat about when the effin
mailman
dismantles the cheesy mailbox letter carrier
a stupid wire that passes
for an outbox
that would collapse beneath a hummingbird
but it’s cemented into the damn
wall
so we’re stuck with it.
The landlord, see, he’s an
architect,
but doesn’t have to live her, so he thinks it’s quaint
like the cannibal light fixtures
that assassinate bulbs on a regular regime.
What annoys me?
When hoodlums and druggies
siphon my gas
and I don’t have a gas gauge
and have to think fast
physics,
rolling down the onramp backwards straddling curbs
avoiding oncoming cars
in
order to roll into the gas station
and my truck stops short of
the pump
and everyone just watches me as I push it to the pump,
no matter that I could be
injured
or wearing a neck brace.
Or when I crammed the gear
shift
to get around some cow
and the bleedin thing comes off in my hand
and I’m in third gear
and
there’s a bleedin’ steep grade ahead
and the guy ahead’s driving
so slow
you’d think he was pedaling
the damn thing backwards.
What really bugs me
is when
the renegade slugs
who’ve recently relocated under the kitchen sink
slime the clean dishes,
especially the rim of the wine glass,
and I’ve only just noticed
after I finished the wine.
When I can’t catch them,
even at 4 am, except the time I was up that early,
late for a commercial shoot
and the slugs were out in an
enmasse orgy
and me, stepping on them barefoot in the dark.
You think it odd that I’d
have slugs in the kitchen?
You would too if the landlord
suddenly sprang it on you
that after months of false alarms,
he was going to paint the
house
and we had to move everything from the patio
into the kitchen, including the slugs,
whose progeny have migrated to tbe bathroom
and have taken to sliming
what’s left of the curtain.
At least my truck’s safe
from invasion. So far.
But lately I’ve been finding
them in the classroom,
parading around the podium
but the teacher never seems
to notice.
TAKE 2
What else annoys me?
What
really annoys me?
When I’m late, when it matters,
that the teacher makes an
example
of my tardiness and it’s not my fault
that
my truck decided to have an elder moment.
Or when I’m early, really
early (rare)
and it doesn’t matter
or when it does, then I
don’t get paid for it
or even get brownie points for it
and all the others glare at
me
cause they had to lift all those chairs without me.
Or when the mailman trashes
the mailbox
every time I pin bills to the outbox wire
not that I have any
money
and I have to climb into the
bougainvillea thorn bush
to retrieve the wire only to
find my now late payment.
I hate it when my truck
won’t start
on certain preassigned hours only it knows about
because I once left my lights
on in the Caldecott Tunnel
and hoodlums nicked my jumper cables
and when I finally did get
it started,
the gear shift just came off in my hand
and I’m holding it like a
crowbar or a cattle prod,
wondering what to do next
as there’s nothing in the
manual
to cover such contingencies
and I’m definitely in third
gear
and the hill ahead requires serious planning
and some wanker is driving
in a vacuum,
solo, or maybe not even that.
Or when the day starts out
rough
and you just know it won’t improve with time.
Like scooping hairballs out
of the drain
and they’re slimy cause he’s been hawking
in the shower again.
Or when the renegade slugs
under the kitchen sink
slime the clean dishes and it took me a week
to get
the courage to wash them
‘cuz it wasn’t my turn, as he defected. Again.
Or when I catch those slugs
at 4 am
except the one time I was actually up at 4 am
from the dawn side of the
blanket,
not the late-night side,
late for my first and probably
last commercial call
which I got only by default because I’m not SAG
and there’s a strike on and
I’ve been bussed
to a secret location two hours north, so I’m stuck here,
and the slugs were out
en masse
some kind of orgy on the countertop and floor
and I’m stepping on them
barefoot
and it’s not even a full moon. They like full moons.
I find it odd that someone would
think
it odd that I’ve got a lot of slugs in the kitchen.
They’re not MY slugs, so to
speak,
though they don’t pay rent.
I’ve been catching them for ages
because the landlord,
after months of waffling
sprang a paint job on us one Sunday morning
and how I had to haul all my
potted plants
into the kitchen
and now the house is lemon
yellow,
with blue-black trim and salmon barf pink walkways and curbs.
It looks like a theme park
replete with pink flamingos,
only they’re made of plastic
and they don’t eat slugs,
and the mailman comes up the
path
in his pith helmet and shorts like it’s a safari
carrying more bills, and he slips
on a damned banana slug,
and then, tries to blame me!
9/6/2000
Justin Chinn, Creatiive Writing 605-01
In Class Writing Assignment
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