Caustically Optimistic

Mc Rib

One of the things I loved about teaching directly under the sun in Phoenix was the ability to leave for lunch.  We would usually just go to Wendy’s, McDonald’s, and when the gods of cellulite smiled on us, Chino Bandito.  One of the things I don’t like about schlepping cars is all the eating we do. 

Now, we do eat better as we make more money than teachers.  Yes, Valerie, I come home and roll around in my money.  We eat well, but we eat a great deal and often.  I’m still a big fan of the fast food but my coworkers are not.  They want to keep the local restaurants open and vibrant. 

I was surprised the other day, when my friend Sara posted on her Facebook that she had a Mc Rib, when we were thrown into a frenzy to find them.  My coworkers love barbeque and are very discerning about what barbeque they eat.  I was shocked that they not only wanted to find as badly as I did, but also engaged in my practice of calling everyone and everywhere that might have the answer to my question.  We called every McDonald’s in our county, the close ones in surrounding counties in Kentucky and Indiana.  I also called a few in Cincinnati that were (falsely) reported to have them. 

I mean, really, it’s probably not even pork and I have no delusions that it is actually rib meat. 

We then sent juvenile text and Facebook messages to Sara about her Mc Rib eating self.  How dare she bring up yet another Mcdeficiency of Kentucky and high point of Nebraska?  I regret that because I hate to be the tool that is an Internet/Text Message tough guy.  I just want to have a Mc Rib.  Today at Qdoba, the tool at the counter was telling my mother and I about how they do things in Germany – without realizing that she’s German and I grew up there – all I could think about was, “Great, now he’s ruined my burrito by reminding me it isn’t a Mc Rib.” 

I felt like an oldster on the phone telling the one guy, Nick, that in my country when I was his age they had Mc Ribs all the time and it was as ordinary as a hamburger to see it there.  Nick promised that he’d call us as soon as they bring it back because it is apparently not a big mover here in Kentucky – the fattest state where they’ll eat just about anything and the highlight of their life is a horse race that, if it lasts two minutes, is a bad one.  I promised Nick that in return that I’d name my first son after him but Sarah asked me to stop doing that because the poor kid already has a name longer than most princes of minor principalities. 

Please feel free to mail me a Mc Rib.  Just don’t mail it to work, because while I will still eat it I wouldn’t want to have to share.  

$65.50

We now have a swear jar at work, if we say a bad word then money goes into the jar.  Our Boss thinks this will clean up our language. I work with an attorney who is taking a break from practicing law and we were tasked with developing the rules and payment schedules.  The system is byzantine and complicated and there have been, in the two days we’ve had it, at least twenty appeals.

Our boss’ tab is about $65.50. 

Before you comment that it is ridiculous that an adult would need a swear jar at work to curb their enthusiasm please consider the fact that we are a step below prostitution in the hierarchy of noble professions.  I call the system bzyantine, not just because I love anachronistic and antediluvian words, but also because I’ve drawn up rules and payment schedules around people I don’t like.  There are people who will pay dearly just for greeting me in the morning, at least until we have a meeting to formalize the rules, payment schedule, and appeals process. 

Before I downed about seven dollars into the jar myself, I agonized about how to use this jar to my advantage.  The first rule clearly indicates that the traditionally accepted four and five letter words couldn’t be used – even if they were found in scripture.  I did not get it included that replacements for those words when clearly intended to be replacements would count.  I did get included that hate speech toward demographic groups – even when one is a member of said group – included but I couldn’t get ‘assault on the English language’ included because only three of us are native speakers.  I am happy that I got unkind nicknames thrown in there because I am tired of anyone who isn’t my father calling me, “junior.”  Well, if you were Sean Connery I’d let you do it so I could pretend for a hot minute that I was Indiana Jones.

I was able to write in many things I wanted to stop at the office, but I am unable to get people to stop talking about their personal lives.  I have a coworker who is into something I find distasteful and I almost threw up in the trashcan today when our coworkers interrogated him about it.  Now, before you send me a barrage of comments about being a judgmental cracker, I know. I really don’t care about what you do in your personal life.  I sincerely do not care; don’t tell me about it – even if I do it my personal life.  I care if it presents a public health hazard or if it makes me heave into my own trashcan.  It’s the one time I miss working for my last principal: a woman who had an ironic detachment between her own foibles and her persecution of others – she’d have crucified the offending individual long ago.  This drek doesn't fly in an office full of women, it does in an office full of men (exception number four is that you can curse in a foreign language if you're the only one who understands what you're saying).

It’s also impossible to speak intelligently on the topic of Mazda or Honda’s engineering without using the word, “shit.”  I’m going to learn the Japanese word for “shit” so I can say that instead.  I’m sure no one will look it up when I say, “The Japanese word for this engineering is, ‘daiben,’ and the German word is, ‘überlegen.’”  In fact, I can think of nothing else I want to do all day beyond use the prefix über and curse in foreign languages – besides put in eight to sixteen hours of honest labor. Beyond the ability to earn a decent living I want to be able to curse in Japanese and add über to words higgledy-piggledy.  Bubbe always said if you didn’t have anything nice to say, say it in Yiddish.  Hondas are drek.    

It’s going to be überimpossible for us to clean our farkakt mouths if we keep building and discovering loopholes in the system.  Then again, if we didn’t, it wouldn’t be America.  

upon our homeward way

There’s an old joke that I really enjoy that is alternately about growing up down the street from Jesus or growing up as Saint James the lesser (traditionally understood to be Jesus’ brother).  The gist of the joke is that it must have been hard growing up near/next to someone who was perfect and didn’t give his mother any trouble, “Why can’t you be more like that Jesus down the street who always does his homework?”  

My friend Nici has consumed my thoughts and prayers as of late; it’s why I haven’t been blogging.  I don’t want this to become a compendium of my stages of grief.  In church this Sunday we sang, Savior, Again to thy Dear Name, and it took me through the entire process all at once.  I was pretty angry because in a prior hymn we sang that God always takes care of his faithful servants and all I could think was, “yeah, right.”  This hymn, however reminded me of the truth of the matter that if life isn’t easy, then following Christ doesn’t make things any simpler.  The lines that hit me follow: 

Grant us thy peace upon our homeward way;

with thee began, with thee shall end the day.

From harm and danger keep thy children free,

for dark and light are both alike to thee.

This also reminds me of the joke, that I would realize wasn’t funny if I were a mature adult, because Nici and Matt have been so human but also on perfect pitch about how they’re feeling and their faith perspective.  I’m sure to a greater extent than I am; they’re having moments of anger, guilt, and remorse.  I almost never feel remorse and I’ve felt it more since Matt summoned us to Texas than I’ve felt it my whole life.

I will always love Nici because of her incredible example of what it means to be a friend, to love someone, to be a teacher, a Christian, a Lutheran, and now she’s teaching us – always a teacher, that one – to cling to Jesus no matter what.  Matthew as well, who I am more crushed for than anyone, and her parents.  However, all of these people can be falsely accused of putting on a brave face for the adoring public but I believe that they are buoyed by an incredible faith that their reward is in Heaven, that Jesus will see them through this. 

 The vast, unmapped parts of my personality that are largely selfish and immature I harbor this tawdry resentment that Nici is being like Jesus – perfect to the last.  However, in this season of thanks it breaks my heart that I will bid farewell to a friend while being thankful that her suffering is going to break way to glory in Paradise.  I am alternately thankful, and I feel this is perverse, that Nici has taught me one last thing.  I’ll always remember so much about Nici but it will always stick with me how her every remark and action came off as well scripted as something from Larry David even her final act. 

Shakespeare said that nothing was good or bad, only thinking made things so.  Obi Wan told us that much of what we cling to as true depends greatly on our point of view.  The author of this hymn, who was Methodist so I’m not going to linger on that, reminds us that what we view as dark and light are immaterial to the Lord.  Dying isn’t good but neither is it bad.  The bridge between an event and an experience is learning.  I’ve learned from this experience, my faith has been challenged and it has matured and grown.  While my feelings are still very raw on the topic I know that my friend has been a good and faithful servant and will be going Home soon, and our tears – as Hazel has taught us – are tears of jealousy because her reward is won and ours is yet to come. 

Now, I need to go and live a life as Nici has shown us as possible: as a good and faithful servant.  I will never be the picture of grace and faithfulness that Matt and Nici have been.  I’ll never be a teacher of her caliber; I will never have a heart that big.  What I can do is turn the heart that I do have, my whole heart, over to my faith and to my work, to my Lord, and live in a constructive and helpful way – the way she has. 

In this season of thanksgiving I dislike being thankful having had something but I’ve got to change that perspective because a good example is never lost, a good friend is never lost, and our Lord is never lost to us, either.