Guilty By Association
Guilty by association: I tailor KKK uniforms. I always feel uneasy telling people that -- not because of the moral ambiguity involved in such work, but rather my phrasing. Is “uniform” the correct word to be using? Are they team?
Maybe I’m overanalyzing. I'm sure they wouldn’t mind me using the word “uniform”: it’s basically their mission statement, after all. I would say “outfit”, but it makes them out to be a gaggle of seven-year-olds at a dance recital. Ever been to one of those? I have, and it has taken years to suppress it. I don’t know what I fear worse -- a grove of Klansmen, or a mob of mothers living vicariously through their future-slut Sugarplum Fairies. Now I just go for the eye-candy.
The legal ones, I mean. Get your mind out of the gutter. Ah, Gutters -- tributaries of the roof. I wonder who invented the gutter; I would have liked to have seen the guy who said, “I know what I will contribute to society: I will make all the rain go to the same particular place, instead of letting it fall to the ground naturally.” Someone should have told him to get his mind out of the gutter... Now some pro-gutter aficionado is probably rolling his eyes, calling me a Philistine of home economics. And I’m sure he will later explain to you how gutters are an underrated modern advancement, and you will likely end up agreeing. And I don’t blame you. This mob mentality is typical; when it rains, it pours, that sort of thing. Perhaps it’s even a part of human nature: hence, my line of work.
Like I was saying, I’m not proud of this. And I’m a proud person, I’m not too proud to say it. Do those negate each other? Maybe I’m not as proud as I thought. But the bills don’t pay themselves – just everyone else. When you think of it that way, making money is the epitome of selflessness: ‘You can’t take it with you’, as someone once said. Imagine if banks upheld that policy.
I once entered a bank with a buddy of mine, and there at the window on the other side of the counter was the most beautiful woman I had ever laid eyes on. I told my buddy, I said, “I think I want to ask that cashier lady out on a date”. My buddy quickly responded “teller”, so I did. The woman naturally recoiled from my advances, so I withdrew.
I know a thing or two about withdrawal. My mother was a heroine addict – she couldn’t get enough of Jane Austen. Once we couldn’t go on vacation because the BBC had just released a new miniseries. I still have never seen the Grand Canyon. She said she wouldn’t be able to enjoy the scenery without knowing how Pride and Prejudice ended. I found this mildly humorous because in terms of unpredictability, watching Pride and Prejudice is like watching Classic Sports. After twelve hours of Colin Firth’s expressionless face, I wondered how anyone could be satisfied with any conclusion other than unspeakable homicide -- but, as expected, Smart Strong Woman gets her Frumpish Antagonist, and all is right in the world; my apologies for the spoiler. I hated my mother for her addiction. Sure, my father was an actual heroin addict, but it never stopped us from having fun. Talk about a shot in the arm. Oh well; You can’t take it with you, as I said before that someone said before... I don't know if the phrase currently applies, to be honest. But it certainly makes shopping more harrowing.
I knew a man who would return his entire living room every ninety days to the local superstore, capitalizing on their generous return policy. I would see him moving his couches, big screen television – everything – into a little $20-a-day rent-a-van quarter-annually. “Are you moving?” I would ask, knowing full well he would later return with a new batch of everything. He would smile, maybe wave a little. It was sort of our thing.
Last November, though, he rolled into his driveway with that old blue Buick of his empty-handed. “What happened?” I asked him. And he stamped out a cigarette as he said, “I just realized what I have been doing with my life. And it made me a little sad, I suppose.” And with that, he went inside.
About a week later, however, the truck is back. So I take my stroll down the block and ask, “Are you moving?” in my typical cadence. And he smiles at me and replies, “I think I’m going to, yes... I think that I’ll give it a try.” And turning his keys, he drives off, never to be seen again. And even though I made that story up, to alleviate my hearing that he had shot himself inside his empty living room, I smile nostalgically. Because I would have respected that, you know? Trial and error...
Someone once asked me how I got into what I do, and after careful consideration I responded, “by getting out of what I did.” And I was pleased with myself, because I hadn’t really told him anything about me at all.
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