23 September 2003 ~ Let your fingers do the walking...

...So, Jake and I have a job delivering phone books. Prior to this experience, I thought that phone books just sort of magically appeared in people's houses. It never occurred to me to wonder HOW they get there....

On our routes, we have seen some of the most fucked-up things... Seriously, there was one neighborhood where hundreds -- maybe thousands -- of family dogs were running around the streets in packs. This neighborhood was also comprised of nice, middle-class houses, each painted a nice, bright color - and each of which had garbage, children, rusted-out cars, and decrepit pets stacked (sometimes three or four deep) in the yard. Kids -- who, I suppose, lived in the nice middle-class houses -- played around in dumpsters, and pretended to steal Jake's truck. Then, one yelled, "look, a drug deal!" and off they ran...

Once, Jake saw a cat "without a nose! You could see inside its SKULL!" I saw a dog with a cataract so bad that you couldn't see the dog's eye at all...

Some houses have caving-in front porches, or stairs. These invariably belong to the cool, old houses and apartments. Why doesn't anybody ever fix OLD buildings? Old buildings are beautiful.

Once, somebody yelled at Jake that he didn't need no stinkin' phone books. But that was okay, because on that same road, a lady practically begged me to give her two or three...

I like houses where the Welcome mat says, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord," and there's a giant sticker in the window that says, "MEMBER OF THE NRA!!!"

Jake and I parked the truck one time in a quiet little neighborhood near a quiet little path next to a lake that neither of us knew about, smack in the middle of town. As we assembled phone books for delivery (you have to put them in plastic bags, since this is beautiful, sunny Olympia...), this couple walked by us with a young child and a purebred dog or two. I was profoundly disturbed by these people, but couldn't figure out why for about twenty minutes. Then:

"Jake...?"

"Yeah?"

"Those people there were, like, OUR age..."

"Yeah..."

"...And they looked so BORING..."

"They sure did."

"I can't decide if I'm jealous of them, or if I feel sorry for them. I mean, they've got enough money -- at OUR age -- to live in a neighborhood like this one..." It really was a nice little neighborhood. And about half of the houses were right on the shore of this mystery lake. "And they've got a beautiful little kid and a beautiful little dog, and they live next to a beautiful lake that nobody's ever heard of in the middle of Lacey... And their clothes were really clean... But..."

"Yeah," responded Jake, "But when do you think they last had any fun?"

"Exactly. You know, if I had enough money to live like they're apparently living, I wouldn't buy a house or whatever. I'd just take road trips back and forth across the country all the time and buy shitloads of coffee and postcards, and make love in every state, and sleep in hotels with those air conditioners that smell so good."

Jake liked that idea. We decided we never wanted to be so bland as those apparently pretty rich young people. So, humming "Ring of Fire," we continued delivering phone books...

~Helena*