S*cks to Be Me (#4): Fire and Ice

Okay, so as you’ll recall, I’m doing a massive and tedious overview of the fun things that happened to me over the last couple of months of 2008. I know you’re enjoying it. I can tell by the way that your eyes are going glassy. And that expression that says, “Please kill me.” And, ‘course, the snoring. Ah, the joys of charisma.

Where was I? Oh, right. My trials and tribulations. So, to date, I’ve covered the Flying Eye From Planet Zork, the demonically possessed Academic Committee, and the Dishwasher that hated me. Last week, I’d just left off with the discovery that our furnace needed to be repaired. Or else we’d all freeze to death. And Giant Killer Polar Penguins would show up in the living room. And eat us. And nobody wants that. It would make them sick. And heaven knows they’ve suffered enough. Global Warming and all that.

Right… the furnace.


*

A few words about the furnace.

We need one. We live in the greater Boston area. While it is true that Boston doesn’t get as cold as, say, Bismarck or the Ross Ice Shelf or the typical response to my attempts at dating when I was single (six of one, thirty-seven of the other), it can still get pretty durn chilly.

Now, we have something called “oil heat.” This means that once a month or so a big truck shows up outside our house, sticks a hose into the basement, and fills up this huge tank. Oh, and then another hose attaches to our bank accounts and does something similar but in reverse.

I’d never even seen oil heat before I moved East from New Mexico, ‘lo these many moons ago. It seemed kinda primitive. Like having coal. And steam engines. And a neighbor named Barney Rubble. But, everyone assures me I’m wrong. They lean back on their rocks, pick their teeth with mastodon bones, scratch themselves under their loin cloths, and explain patiently that I just don’t understand because I’m a Hick from way out West where no one can talk intelligently about Art and Culture.

*

A few more words.

Every time the oil truck pulls up outside our house, I get pissed. Big time.

This isn’t just because it’s expensive (though God knows it’s that), and not because the oil smells, and not just because I know we’re sitting with a basement chock ‘o block full of a highly flammable material.

I’m pissed because we don’t have to be here. And by “We” I mean everyone.

You see, let’s face it, one of the biggest contributors to the current Recession (I’m writing this in 2009) is the cost of energy.

Oh, yes, there are lots of other factors. There was the Bush II administration, which was an economic disaster. And, there’s the war in Iraq, which in retrospect now appears to be about the dumbest sh*t thing done by an American government since Prohibition. And there’s the fact that two of our fearless leaders, Bush 2nd and Reagan 1st, tried to fund the government by means of deficit spending on a titanic scale and pretty much put us in the poor house at the same time.

AND there’s the fact that everyone got Ayn Randy over the last few decades and deregulated everything so that bankers in their vast wisdom could burn-through billions in lousy investments and really snazzy lifestyles.

But, come right down to it, the fact that gas hit four bucks a gallon and was headin’ toward five … THAT did us really serious harm. Maybe more than everything combined.

And the funny, scary thing is that I don’t hear anyone talking about that. I hear words about stimulus packages and nationalizing banks and dropping a few car execs outta their own DELETED private planes…but not energy.

Which is really serious because the hard, nasty fact of the matter is that no matter how much money gets thrown at what, no matter how many Democratic Congressmen pose majestically in front of Cspan cameras, no matter how many Republican governors announce that they won’t take any Federal money because they’re just too damn moral…

We’re not going to get back to the kind of standards of living we once knew until we get energy prices back down to where they were in the 1960s


*


Oh, and if you’re wondering, the reason we’ve got high energy prices…?

Well, yes, there’s been gouging. Oil companies haven’t exactly gone out of their way to limit their profits to the merely fabulous (as opposed to the frankly obscene). And there’s been competition from new economies like China and India.

BUT, the biggest single reason for our problems has nothing to do with Conspiracies at Halliburton, or price fixing by OPEC, or even wars in the Middle East…

It has to do with the pure, simple, inescapable fact that we’ve pumped most of the oil out of the ground that we can get.

And it ain’t coming back.


*

Okay, more on that in a moment. First, let me tell the story about the furnace. So, when we bought our house ‘bout fifteen years ago, there was of course an oil heat burner already in it. It’s a hot water system. That means that an oil fuel flame heats up water and sends it both into our radiators and to our faucets.

Now, from the day we moved in, we noticed that we didn’t exactly have scads of the stuff coming out the taps. Martha and David, both of whom kinda like cold water, didn’t mind much. But, me . . . well, remember, I grew up in a desert. For me, showers in this hosue were a continuous opportunity to practice those operatic screams that usually accompany testicular compression. Which, come to think about it, also happens to me when the water’s cold enough. But that’s another story. For another day. When I feel strong.

But, with the passing of years, the water began to get colder and colder. Finally, even Martha and David began to complain—which is saying something since either one of them could go nude bungee jumping off an ice flow. Not that they would, you understand. But, they could. You know. If it were required or something. Say, to save humanity from invading aliens. Which never happens. But it’s comforting to know we’ve got the option.

So, anyway, I decided to look into getting a new furnace. At the time, we had an oil contract and a service contract with a certain company—let’s call it Grifter, Angle, and Scam (GAS) Ltd.

I went to them and said, “Hey, what does a new furnace cost?” They responded, “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.” I said, “Come on, how bad it can be?” They said, “Ha, ha, and double ha. You don’t wanna know.” I said, “Sure I do. I’m tough. I can take it.” They said, “Well, okay, but remember, you asked for it.” And then they gave me a number.

Think the GNP of Guatemala. Then add a couple of zeros. And I’m not talking on the front end. I’m talking on the back. And on the wrong side of the decimal point to boot.

I turned a whiter shade of pale (not an easy thing) and went off looking for second and third (and fourth) estimates. Finally, I found a local plumbing company that offered a wee bit lower price than all the others. So, I gave ‘em the go-ahead and the next thing I knew we had a basement full of guys who were all sweating and swearing and doing faintly mysterious things with screwdrivers. And then, the next day, they all went away again leaving behind a brand new furnace and a very large bill.

Okay, I thought, well, at least that’s over. Everything will be fine. It’s got to get better.

Right? Right?


*

Two years go past. The local plumbing company that had installed our furnace . . . disappears.

And, one morning, last year, a little after Thanksgiving, we noticed …

It was cold.

Really cold.

And no matter how much we turned up the heat, it never got much warmer.


*

Okay, now getting back to why I’m mad.

We’re out of oil. Or, at least, we’re out of oil that’s easy and cheap to get. We plowed through it like alcoholics in a liquor store and now we’ve got the hangover we damn well deserve.

The kicker? The thing which is really, Really, REALLY infuriating? We don’t have to be in the situation.

We’ve known this day was coming. Forty years ago, we were talking about it. In 1968…that is, nineteen-sixty-freaking-EIGHT … we were talking about it.

Five years later, in 1973, the Arab world clamped down on oil exports, and Richard Milhous Nixon . . . that’s right, Tricky Dicky… launched “Project Independence,” which was supposed to free of us of dependence on foreign oil. And, you know what? It could have worked. But, then the Arab world relented on the oil exports, the Nixon administration got Watergated, and the whole thing ended with a whimper.

But we STILL could have pulled it out. In 1979, yet got yet another massive oil crisis. Jimmy Carter (remember him?) launched yet another attempt at energy independence. He called for massive investments, both public and private, into synfuel (i.e., oil substitutes made out of coal and other relatively plentiful carbon fuels).

Except, once again everything came to naught. OPEC lowered oil prices a notch and, worse, Reaganomics was on the horizon. All The People Who Knew Best announced that synfuel was uneconomical. Carter got kicked out of the White House and we happily went back to buying things we couldn’t afford with maxed-out credit cards while the President from Hollywood nodded off in the corner.

*

But, the point is, we KNEW this day was coming. We KNEW what was going to happen. It was no surprise to anyone.

But we did nothing…NOTHING…about it.

We could have used those forty years since ’68 preparing. We could have been developing new technologies, making our machines more efficient, building synfuel plants…

But we didn’t. We just assumed that since there had always been cheap energy before, there would always be cheap energy again.

And now . . .


*

Oh, and by the way, if you’re looking for villains in this story, there’s plenty ‘em to go around. And not just on the Right and in Big Business.

Sure, the Right and Big Biz have quite a lot to answer for. Conservatives were busily claiming there wasn’t an Energy Crisis (“we’ve always found more oil before”) right up to the day the pumps went to $5 a pop. They’ll probably be saying the same when those pumps go completely dry.

And Business…? Well, good old Detroit was making Behemoth Petrol Pigs when the whole damn world wanted smaller, fuel-efficient cars. And the big auto companies refused to do anything different even when they were nose to nose with death everlasting. (I’ve heard that once, when a group of experts confronted some Detroit executives on the fact that neither the market nor energy efficiency favored big cars, the execs said “Americans will buy whatever car we care to market.”)

But let’s not forget the Left. Let’s not forget all the Greenie-Weenies who opposed every technical innovation in energy production—quite literally from nuclear to windmills—but who have demanded that their standards of living (not necessarily ours, but theirs) remain exactly as they are.

This is known, in case you’re wondering, as being a Goddamned fool.

*

Okay, but getting back to my furnace…

So, last week, I told you all about how I finally called the furnace repair guy. We gave up on GAS Ltd. a long time ago. We’ve got a new oil company, the folks there actually seem trustworthy.

The repair guy shows up a couple of hours later. I walk with him downstairs and explain the problem. “Doesn’t sound too bad,” he says as we enter the back room where the heater is. He takes one look at it.

“Eeek,” he says.

“Eeek?” I ask.

“OhmyGod,” he adds.

“Ah,” I answer, wittily.

“You put this in yourself, didn’t you,” he says.

“Ah, no.”

“You had an uncle do it. Or a cousin. A crossed-eyed inbred albino cousin who watches cannibal movies a lot.”

“No…”

“Then who DID put it in?”

I told him the name of the plumber.

“Really? I didn’t even know he was out of jail yet.”

“Argh,” I say.


*

Make a long story short, the furnace had been misinstalled. In fact, at least according to the repair guy, it may not even have been legal. Certainly, it wasn’t up to code.

And, once more, there was a bill involved. A large bill. A breath-taking bill. The kind of bill that you don’t take home to meet mom. Because she might have a heart attack.

But, at least, now we’ve got hot water. And I don’t scream so much while taking showers. It confuses the dog. He thought plumbing just sounded like that. I’ve considered investing in a couple of army surplus air raid sirens and firing ‘em off now and then. Just to, you know, reassure him.



*


One last rant for the day, and then I promise I’ll quit.

To repeat, forty years ago . . . forty DELETED years ago . . . we could have addressed this problem. We could have made the investments, built the infrastructure, and perfected the technologies that would have kept energy costs cheap for centuries to come.

But, we didn’t. And, now, the day of reckoning is at hand.

We’re going to have to work really hard to get back to where we were. We’re going to have invest in whole new ways of producing energy. By that, I don’t mean just solar, wind, and tides . . . or any of the other trendy things that are supposed to be so green and friendly. I mean things like controlled thermonuclear fusion, or, failing that, lots of nuclear reactors. No kidding. Safer nukes, but nukes all the same.

Moreover, at least in the short run (and quite likely in the medium) we’re going to have to do some really distasteful things—like burn more coal, mine “oil shale” deposits, and exploit “tar sands.” (Look ‘em up if you’re interested.)

None of this is going to be fun.

The kicker? Once again to repeat myself, I hear no one saying any of this. I hear no one telling the world exactly what’s going to happen, and why. I hear no one saying what needs to be said. And doing it honestly.

Which makes me worry. A lot.

*

But, anyway . . . back to the furnace.

So, there we were. After the Flying Eye, the Academics With Their Heads Up Their Astrolabes, and The Dishwasher from Hell, we’d had the Heater That Didn’t Heat.

But, now, I said to myself, everything was Fixed. Now, I added, Everything Will Get Back to Normal. Now, I concluded, Things Will Be Just Ducky.

That’s what I said to myself.

Gosh. Golly. Gee. Wiz.

I say the darndest things sometimes.

Which is code for “Really, Really, REALLY Stupid.”


*

Next time, Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls of all ages . . . we’ll have yet another little tale of my happy adventures in 2008.

It’s entitled “I’m dreaming of a damp Christmas. In a Swamp. Just before the Blizzard.”

Loads of fun.

So, don’t touch that dial…

Onward and upward.

















Copyright © 2009 Michael Jay Tucker

S*cks to Be Me (#3): The Attack of the Killer Appliances (from hell)

Hi, Everyone,

As you know I’m doing a brief (but painfully tedious) series of Xcargos on recent events of my life—events which, at the time, seemed as much fun as a proctology exam performed with a Roto-Rooter. By Hannibal Lector. During a sleet storm. But which, I’m sure, will seem quite amusing in a few years. I’ll look back and laugh. And laugh. And laugh. And they’ll come and take me away. Ha. Ha.

Where was I? Oh, yes, my recent life.

When last we visited Our Hero (that would be moi), I had just received a short note from a certain graduate program to which I had devoted four years of my life. And, as you’ll recall from last time, the aforesaid note said … in effect, bottom line, stripped to elementals . . . Drop Dead, You Stinking Asshole. But in a scholarly and professional way. Very mentoring.

Ah, the joys of academic life.

So, anyway, I had just gotten over that and figured that Things Have To Get Better.

Boy.

Was I wrong.

*

Now, some background. We live in a house. I know that’s a surprise. I know you were expecting a cave. Or maybe a yurt. Pitched on the wild and windy plains of Mongolia. Or New Jersey. But, no. A house it is.

In the aforesaid house, there is a kitchen. In the aforesaid kitchen, there is a dishwasher.

Or was.

Now, here in the U.S. of A., we celebrate a thing called “Thanksgiving.” For those of my readers who come from foreign shores or Mars, this is a happy holiday where-in we celebrate the survival of the Puritans who would have starved to death had it not been for friendly Native Americans who subsequently got killed a lot by the aforesaid Puritans. And the moral of the story is Let The Bastards Freeze In The Dark.

To continue, in the US of A, Thanksgiving comes in November. That’s not like Canada, where it comes in October. But, then, that’s just like Canadians. Pushy bunch. Always trying to get ahead. And saying funny things with “ooot,” in them. And tossing big rocks around and calling it Curling. Clearly a vast plot against us. Probably involves trained attack-beavers.

So, we were getting ready to celebrate Thanksgiving, a process which involves a whole lot of cooking. Martha, my beloved spouse, does all the cooking in our family. This is because I don’t cook so good. Heck. I cook awful. Last time I tried it, the microwave ran away from home. And the EPA landed an air-sea-land SWAT team. And I’m still paying off that Haz-Mat suit for the dog.

This means that I do the dish washing. That’s fine. It’s a task up to my level of competency. Well. Almost. Though sometimes those Brillo pads get a bit tricky.

Anyway, it was a week or so afore T‘giving, and I had just fed the dishwasher a couple of pounds of china and a gravy boat, and then I flipped it on, and then . . . then … then . . .

Did you ever hear a brass band playing Sousa tunes run head on into a rock crusher?

Sounded sort of like that. But louder.

*

So the d’washer was dead. No problem, I thought. I can fix it. I went to get my screwdrivers.

And, several hours, I realized I couldn’t fix it. The problem, I later learned, was that the washer was relatively new. Where the older versions were all springs and cogs, and I could get into ‘em and fiddle around, the new ones have a little circuit board that controls everything.

Okay, I thought, and I called a repair guy.

He shows up a little later. He smiles. He’s nice. We talk about politics. We walk into the kitchen. He looks at the d’washer. He says . . .“Oh, Christ.”

“What’s the matter?” I say.

“You know the little guy who was the loneliest man in appliance repair?” he asks.

“The Maytag repairman?” I say.

“He croaked,” he replies.


*

Here’s the story. We had bought a Maytag washer because Maytag was a really great brand. But, in 2006, Maytag was acquired by Whirlpool. The new company wasn’t stocking the old company’s parts.

So . . .

That circuit board?

I could go whistle in the wind for it.

*

Okay, we say, no problem. We’ll just go buy a new dish washer. I mean, what the heck, it’s only credit card debt. And besides, once the economy melts down some more and there are riots in the streets and firing squads in sushi bars formerly frequented by billionaire bankers, who’ll notice?

So, off we go to Sears. We go in. A couple of clerks sorta of notice we’re there. They wander over and ask, “You don’t really wanna buy anything, do you?” We confess that maybe we do. They mumble something and take out an order form. “Okay, if you gotta…”

We point out a dishwasher and tell ‘em we want that one. “Fine…(sigh).” They start filling out the form.

“So,” I ask, “when can we get it delivered?”

The clerk looks at me. “Delivered?”

“And how much does it cost to get it installed?”

“Installed…?”

“Yeah, you know, plugged in. Hoses connected. That sort of thing.”

“Ha...ha ha …Ha Ha Ha….HA HA HA!”

“And, maybe, you know, take away the old washer.”

“HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!”

“So, you don’t do that anymore?”

“HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA…”

I would have asked more questions but they were rolling around in the aisles and flailing a lot and I was afraid they’d hurt themselves. So, at this point, we stole away as silently, and as mysteriously, as we’d come.

*

Okay, making a long story at least a little shorter (albeit not much), the next day or so we went to Gray’s, which is a cool little appliance store we have in the Boston-area, and got a Frigidaire. And they were willing to install it. So, day is saved.

Of course, they can’t install it before Thanksgiving but that’s okay. And, when the big Turkey day rolls around, we have a great time. Our son David, one of his friends, and a student of Martha’s all come and join us, and afterwards they pitch in on the dishes so I don’t have to do ‘em all. Then, we achieve Turkey-coma and all’s right with the world.

Except…


*

Except…

You remember last time I said something about icicles forming on my nostrils?

*

It was about a week later. Turkey-Gobbling Season was being replaced by Xmas-Shopping-Mania Season.

It was also brutally cold. Boston tends to be warmer than, say, North Dakota, but, still, it can do a pretty good imitation of Ice Station Zebra when it puts its mind to it. And that particular day was . . . nasty. As in 16 degrees on the outdoor thermometer and that’s not counting wind chill and cars aren’t starting and the dog is hiding under the sofa and saying something like “Don’t bother yourself. I’ll just stay inside. And if I should happen to make a little deposit behind the TV set, why, heck, you probably won’t notice until August.”

But, I’m not bothered. We’re warm and safe inside, after all. I teach online at Northeastern and Cambridge College, so I don’t even have to leave the house. And the appliance wars are over. Things Are Getting Back To Normal.

So thinking, I spring out of bed at about six o’clock. I head into the front room for a bit of coffee.

Say, says I, it feels kind of cold in here. No problem, I figure. I just need to turn up the thermostat. Which I do.

Funny thing. I don’t hear the furnace go on.

No problem, I think. Just needs a few minutes to warm up. I go pour coffee. I notice there are ice cubes in it.

Huh.

I go turn up the furnace again. And again fifteen minutes after that. And again ten minutes after THAT.


*

Martha wakes up at about seven. “Say,” she says, “is it just my imagination…?”

“Yes,” I say, somewhat hysterically. “It’s your imagination. Complete delusion.”

“Or does it seem awfully col…?”

“No,” I say, grinding my teeth, “it doesn’t. Warm and toasty.”

“Like the furnace isn’t …”

“It’s not! It’s not!” I say, frothing at the mouth.

“Hmmm,” she says.

“Right,” I say, despairingly, knowing when I’m beaten, and go call the repair guy.


*

I hang up about fifteen minutes later with an appointment for the afternoon and, I figure, about a $1000 repair bill in the very near future.

Well… I think . . . well, at least, it’s not gonna get worse, right? I’ve had the Eye, the Letter, the Dishwasher, so, now, just seems like things have gotta start looking up. No doubt. Absolutely. 100%.

So, I head back to my office, and walk past the stairway to the basement.

And, as I go I hear, very faintly, a Sound.

Of dripping water.

But that’s for next time.

Onward and upward.





















Copyright © 2009 Michael Jay Tucker

S*cks to Be Me (#2) -- The Mail

Hello, Everyone,

So, as you know, I’m in the middle of an ongoing series regarding my happy experiences during the last couple of months of 2008 . . . those care free days when Geo-W. was still in the White House, the economy was melting down to a puddle of radioactive sludge, suicide bombers continued to blow themselves up in Iraq, the Taliban was preparing to take over Afghanistan, and…oh, yes!... mega-rich mega-brokers on Wall Street were complaining bitterly that they couldn’t possibly get along on a mere half million dollars a year.

Ah, good times . . .

But, this series is not about all those big national things. This series deal with my own PERSONAL experiences during those giddy days of wine and roses.

Last we left off, I’d just found out that a psychotic killer cyborg-qua-lobotomist from the future was going to jam an ice pick into my left eye. While giggling. And humming Barry Manilow tunes.

It’s the Manilow that hurts.

*

Well, actually, that wasn’t what I’d found out. I actually learned that I had to have cataract surgery. Which, these days, is an outpatient procedure that’s actually less painful than having your teeth cleaned. Well, maybe with a sandblaster. But, the point is, ‘taint that bad.

Except, of course, as I explained last time I have … issues …with eye surgery and I came home from my exam with a mild case of shock. Very mild. Oh, so mild. Oh, so very, Very VERY mild. You betcha. And the occasional fits of hysterical screaming? Heck. Lots of people get those. Particularly in Boston traffic. So, I fit right in.

Anyway, I got home and figured that heck, golly, gee . . . at least the day couldn’t get worse. Right? Not possible. Of course. So I parked the car and wobbled up the front walk. And if my knees buckled now and then and I almost collided with the rhododendron out front, well, fortunately we have no fault insurance. And besides, the plant should have seen me coming. And where the heck was its turn signal? That’s what I want to know.

Anyway, I got to the door and there . . .there . . .

There…

Was the mail box.

*

It was big. And sinister. And ominous. It was stuffed with . . . things. Bills. And junk mail. And credit card offers. And You-May-Have-Already-Wons. And solicitations from guilt-tripping social causes—“At this very moment Baby Seals and Easter Bunnies are being eviscerated by Dick Cheney and former Enron employees and you’re just sitting there and letting them do it (You Bastard.)”

And . . . one more thing.

A letter.

From a University.


*

Now, in another Xcargo column, I have already described my adventures in graduate school. So, today, I’ll just provide the quickest overview of the whole business for those who, alas, may have missed my deathless prose on same.

Suffice to say that, some years ago, I decided to go back to school and get a Ph.D. in history. Don’t ask me why. I think it had something to do with masochism. Or maybe it was an LSD flashback from all that Acid I dropped in the sixties. Except, oh, wait, I was 11 in 1968. And I never dropped any Acid. And if I had, I’d have picked it up and carefully put it in the trashcan. Like the good Cub Scout I was. Keep America Beautiful.

So…

Anyway, I went back to school. I was in a program at a certain University that shall remain nameless. I won’t tell you which one. No sir. I’m way too moral for that. You bet. Besides, I wanna have a lawyer on call first. Never can tell.

I will tell you that it’s a college about sixty miles from where I live. It’s roughly halfway between the Big Important Schools in the Boston-Cambridge area and the Big Important Schools in the Amherst-Northampton area.

This particular school would like to be a Big Important School too. And in a couple of disciplines, it is or will be one soon. Its departments of Education and Geography are world-class. And it has something called a Center “For Holocaust Studies.” No. Really. There is such a thing. And this school does it well.

But, then, there’s the college’s Department in History. And that Department is …

Ah…

Er…

It definitely is. No doubt about that.


*

Anyway, while I was that this School I had to have a committee of three professors to oversee my dissertation. At first, I thought of them as being wise, insightful, and kind. And, I’m sure, that they really are all those things. Not to mention very, very Scholarly. And Professional. And Insightful. It says so. Right on their box. And by their own admission. Quite loudly stated. And re-stated. Again and again and again. So it has to be true. Doesn’t it?

And besides, if, with the passage of time, I came to call them “Larry, Moe, and Curly,” “Tweedledee, Tweedledumb, Tweedle-dork,” and, of course, “The Hood, the Blob, and the Ugly,” well, then, those were just the affectionate little pet names that a student brings to those of his mentors he truly admires.

*

And, so, as I glanced at my mailbox I discovered…right there, between the Visa bill and the Cable ad (“Sign Up Today and Get Our Gratuitous and Excessive Violence Channel For Free!”) . . . was a letter from My School!

Far out!

You see, I’d been having this wee little problem with my School and my Three Professors. Specifically, I would send them chapters from my dissertation and then . . . weeks would pass. Or months. And I’d not hear so much as a word. My emails would go unanswered. My phone calls would go un-returned. I’d thought about trying carrier pigeons, but I couldn’t fit the coop on the roof. And the neighbors kept complaining about the large mounds of guano on the front porch. Which is surprising. Cause you can sell that stuff. Fifty cents a ton. Great source of nitrogen. Could have been a valuable source of income for the Neighborhood Association. And, besides, it wasn’t nearly as messy as the time I had the Bat Ranch in the Basement.

Anyway, two months before, I’d sent them a completed first draft of my dissertation. But, I hadn’t had any response. I had sent them multiple emails and asked about it. But, I’d only gotten a couple of mysterious notes about maybe they’d get around to reading my material after Thanksgiving. Or just as soon as hell froze over. Which ever came first.

So, I was really kind of excited to see that envelop sitting there. I unlocked the door, hurried inside, opened the letter, and …

…learned that my professors were refusing to work with me any longer.

*

I’ll spare you the exact text of the letter. Suffice to say that there was an informational component and an emotional, unstated component.

The informational component was that two of the professors had decided that I was impossible to work with and they would therefore have nothing to do with me ever again.

The emotional component . . . well, that was much more subtle, more complex, more cryptic. But, I think if the text were subjected to rigorous analysis and learned deconstructive review, it would boil down to: “You’re ugly, and your mother dresses you funny.”

Don’t you just love rational deconstructive analysis?


*

In retrospect, I have to admit that it was really rather clever of them. In effect, they forced me out of the program without ever actually having to confront me about it. After all, they could say, I could always find other professors willing to serve on my committee.

Except, the Department is tiny. There weren’t a lot of people to work with. And besides, even if I found a new committee, it would mean starting all over again. It would be years before I finished the research, much less started writing. And, even then, what chance did I have of getting the dissertation accepted when three of the department’s leading lights (including the Chair) had already told me to go suck an egg?

So . . . not to put too fine a point on it … and applying rigorous analytical techniques . . . I concluded …

I was screwed.

*


Actually, I suppose, they didn’t do that much harm. They denied me the doctorate, but, quite simply, I’m not sure that having it would have bought me much. Yes, not having a Ph.D. means I’ll never teach at a Big University and be “Tenure Track.”

But, let’s face it, that wasn’t going to happen anyway. I’ve done a little research and it turns out that of all the major professions, the Academy is the most “ageist.” That is, if you’re middle aged or older, you don’t get a job. Period.

I’m fifty-one.

Then, too, there are not that many jobs out there to get. When I decided to go back to school, everyone said, “Do it! Because all those Baby Boomers are going to retire soon! There’ll be lots ‘o slots open.”

Except . . . guess what? The Boomers can’t afford to retire. So they’ll be there ‘till they rot. And, besides, even if they do quietly pop off to ye ole’ happy hunting grounds of rigor and scholarship, their former positions are not being refilled. The economy is so f*cked up at the moment, and there are so many adjunct faculty members willing to teach for peanuts, that when some Tenured Tracker goes away, most often his/her fulltime job goes away too.

And, finally, you don’t really need a Ph.D. to teach in some places. Community colleges, departments of continuing education, private high schools . . . these are quite happy with the Master’s. In fact, I’m teaching a couple of college classes right now. No body seems to mind that I’m not Doctor Mike.

*

Still…

Still…

It hurt. A lot.


*

I was pretty good with it for the first couple of hours. “Well, at least that’s over,” I said to myself. No more fighting to get even the slightest hint of a response from the Three Stooges. No more grinding my teeth when they did bother to reply, usually with fairly overt insults.

My wife, Martha, got home. I showed her the letter. I said I was fine with it and everything.

“Uh-huh,” she said.

We went to bed. I told her again about how peaceful I felt. “I’ll probably sleep better than I have in months,” I said.

“Uh-huh,” she added.

I put my head on the pillow. Right, I said. I’ll sleep better than I have in ages. Sure. Absolutely. 100%.

*

Amazing what you can find on TV at three in the morning. Did you know that for a low, low down payment of $26,170 you, too, can get a timeshare at Gator Swamp Spa and Resorts?

Comes with its own bug-zapper in the bedroom. And an elephant gun. For the extra big mosquitoes. During the off season.

*

It was about three days later that I finally went to sleep. At least for a while.

And it was about a month after that—just a little before Christmas—that I stopped waking up each night at around two and staring into the dark. For a couple of hours. Listening to Martha’s breathing, watching the green glow of the clock face, feeling eternity slip past, one moment at a time.


*

Ah well. Didn’t mind the insomnia, really. Gave me lots of time to plan out my new video game. “Godzilla Visits The Academy (And Goes Freaking Ballistic).”

Should finally give “Grand Theft Auto” a run for its money, you know?


*

But, anyway, like I said, in a couple of weeks I was getting better. I wasn’t exactly ALL better, and I was still having these embarrassing moments when I’d be found curled up in the fetal position under my desk, but …better.

And the reason? Because of logic. My precise, steely, geometric LOGIC.

My logic was as follows: I am going to have my eye gouged out and I’ve just been screwed out of four years of my professional life. So . . .

It’s gotta get better. Hasn’t it?

Right. Just has to.

And thinking thus, one Saturday morning shortly thereafter, I woke up in a cheery mood. It was a sunny day. I didn’t have to work. Yes, sir. A lovely day. And things were gonna be fine. Just you wait see. It was going to be all butterflies and warm fuzzy puppy dogs for a least a year.

So, I rolled out of bed with a smile on my face and a song in my heart.

And noticed there seemed to be icicles forming on my nostrils.

But that’s for next time.

*

Onward and upward.























Copyright © 2009 Michael Jay Tucker

S*cks to Be Me (#1): The Eye

Hello, Everyone,

So, a few of you have asked “Where the ding-dong doodlewoops have you been these last few years and how come you haven’t had time to write Xcargo? I mean, would it kill you to call once in a while? Let us know if you’re alive or dead? I mean, REALLY.”

The answer to your question is simple. I’ve been busy. Very busy. VERY busy. As in oh-jeez-ya-gotta-be-kidding busy. As in, “Come on, I couldn’t make this stuff up” busy. Or, at least, couldn’t make it up unless I was on serious drugs while watching horror movie DVDs and juggling running chain saws and walking a tight rope. Over a blast furnace. Or Dick Cheney. Six of one…

Anyway, so just to bring you up to speed, and provide a little insight into my existence, I’ve decided to do a new series of columns that will relate the story of my life, and the lives of my loved ones, from November 2008 to New Year’s Day 2009.

I call it, “S*cks To Be Me,” and I’m hoping you’ll enjoy it as much as I didn’t.

It’ll give us yet another interest in common.


*

So, as I say this is my history of the last few months. Now, truth to be told, I may not get all the details right, but that’s ‘cause my brain is fried. But, not to worry, no trans-fats were harmed in the process.

Where was I? Oh, yes. So I hadn’t had an eye exam in a few years and I had noticed that my vision was getting a little worse. Probably needed new lenses, I said to myself. And, oh, by the way, I’ve been nearsighted since I was about six. My parents wondered if I might have a slight vision problem when I started walking into walls. But, of course, they couldn’t be certain because given a kid as spacey as I was, well, you know, walking into walls is par for the course. (THUMP. “Oh, he’s in the living room. Check the TV, would you?”)

So, anyway, I make an appointment to see (or, least, stare blearily at) my local optometrist. She has me sit down at look at one of those of little vision charts. “Okay, with just the right eye, read the lowest line you can see.”

“AQZIB.”

“Fine. Now the left eye.”

“F …I…R…E…E…X…I …T.”

“Uh, Mr. Tucker?”

“Yes?”

“That’s the sign over the door.”

“There’s a door?”


*

Then, after the exam, she said cheerily, “You have a cataract in your left eye that’s the size of dinner plate and could result in total blindness unless it is treated now.”

“Ack,” I said, wittily. “Erk,” I added, perceptively.

“So,” she continued, “what they’ll have to do is gash your eye open with a rusty fish knife, pop the old lens out with a grapefruit spoon, and stick in a coke bottle bottom as a replacement.”

Well, actually, that ISN’T what she said.

Actually, what she said was, “Cataract surgery these days is an outpatient procedure, totally painless, and then afterwards you’ll have nearly perfect vision in that eye.”

But, that’s not what I heard.

Still, as my former dissertation committee members said just before they threw me out of their Ph.D. program, reality is Socially Constructed and ergo in the eye of the beholder.

Or, in this case, the cataract.


*

I wobbled out of her office and into the lobby.

The Doctor, sensing (perhaps) my discomfort—maybe it was the fits of uncontrollable hysterical weeping, but you never can tell—followed me out and reassured me about the surgery and explained that her diagnosis really was great news because my insurance would pay for it all and afterwards I’d have things like depth perception. Which is a handy if you are, say, driving and you happen to discover (just a little too late) that the big blur to the left is actually a 16-wheeler hauling toxic waste, high explosives, radioactive isotopes, and several large crates of crazed attack gerbils. Who are grumpy. All at the same time.

Okay, I said, and started the process of making appointments. When all was said and done, I was set up to go on December 15.


*

I then headed for home—wrestling, as I went, with a major attack of sheer, unadulterated, super-charged, purified, new and improved . . . terror.

Here’s why. I have an interest in history. I’m not, according to my former dissertation committee, a Fer-Real historian. That requires a level of mental constipat…eh, that is, scholarship for which God or Nature did not prepare me.

But, I do have just enough knowledge of the past to be all too aware of what cataract surgery USED to be like.

Now, today, it really is an outpatient procedure. You go in. They sedate you. The doctor makes a micro-incision and performs the repair. Then, the incision closes up all by itself. When I had mine done, I was reading again that evening.

BUT, that’s today.

Not that long ago, it was quite a different story. And not a pretty one.

It used to be that cataract surgery was a major undertaking involving fun things like the total removal of lens in the eye, stitches in the eye itself, and, then, wearing huge glasses for the rest of your life. And you still didn’t see so good.

Did I mention the STITCHES in your eyeball?

Think about that a little. Go ahead. Savor the image.

*

It didn’t help matters that when I was very, very young, I actually saw a couple of people who’d had this kind of surgery. I remember one of them, a little man who worked at a newsstand downtown, whose lenses where so thick and so powerful that his eyes seemed vast, as though they occupied half his face.

I’m sure he was a really nice guy. But, to me in all my vast experience as a four-year-old . . . he looked like something out of a Japanese Monster Movie.

*

Now, as I understand it, modern cataract surgery only began in 1949—just sixty years ago, as of this writing. I’m 51, remember, so that’s not too long before I was born. Or, anyway, way too close for comfort.

But, taking up the story again, ‘round abouts ‘49, a British doctor noticed the interesting fact that when some British pilots had gotten bits of their Plexiglas cockpit domes into their eyes during crashes and dust-ups with the Beastly Hun (that was back before Germans were cool again), the material was “inert.” That means the eyes didn’t seem to mind the stuff being in there.

Well, if that was so—thought the good doctor—then you could build a new lens out of transparent plastic and put it into the eye itself. Good-by coke bottle bottom glasses. And good riddance.

But, you still had to get the eye open first. With a knife. And then close it up afterwards.

Did I mention STITCHES in the eyeball?

Good. Just checking.

*

So, all through my childhood, the standard operating procedure for cataract surgery was that they performed the operation with a (gulp) scalpel, then they sewed up your eye (double gulp), and then they put you in a bed with sandbags on either side of your head. So you couldn’t roll over. And disturb the stitches.

As in STITCHES.

As in little bits of string. Sewn into and through your eyes.

As in . . . ARGH.


*

But, all through the 1960s and 1970s, doctors figured out new and better ways of opening up the eye, removing the cataract, and installing a new lens. By the 1980s and 1990s, it was painless. And they’d figured out how to do microsurgery so they didn’t have to open up your eye with razor blade any more. And they’d come up with soft lenses that can slip into the eye with a minimum of fuss.

Actually, the lenses are pretty terrific all by themselves. They fold in half, you see, so they can enter the eye through an incision no bigger than a ladybug’s left nostril.

Very cool, really.

*

So, today, except in extreme cases, cataract surgery is quick, painless, easy, and completely safe.

And my rational, logical, coherent, and well-informed brain knew all that.

Except…except …

My irrational brain was going…

THEY ARE GOING TO PUT STITCHES IN MY EYE!!!!

*

While driving, and well before I got home, I had also invented this fascinating image . . .

Basically Freddy Kruger in a white coat. With a dental drill. Talking about corneas.

Ah, the gift of a vivid imagination. Wonderful, really.

*

Anyway, that’s where I was, psychic-spacewise. Not a great place, but, what the heck (I figured), at least I’ve made the appointment. Might as well get it over with. And, besides . . . besides . . . after that shock, the day just couldn’t get worse. I mean, it just couldn’t.

Could it?

Naw. Not possible.

So thinking, I pulled into my driveway and looked up the walk to the door. And, there, in the box, was . . .

The Mail.

But that’s for next time.

*

Onward and upward.
























Copyright © 2009 Michael Jay Tucker