Imagine a world without hypothetical situations

Things happen. Things happen to me. I tell you about them. Well, high crimes, crimes while high, and a most indiscretions are better if not put to print, but other than that you get the day to day mundane details.

Like take the job search for example. I have a job then I don't. I get another and get canned. Then I start having to revise my expectations downward and begin to get into a world of easy to get yet unable to live off of jobs. I accept then unaccept them almost daily. Take this AOL job. I have all but told the guy I'll take it. It's a tech job...sorta. It's indoors. It's nearby. But it's only $10/hr. Please. Don't do the math. It's pitiful.

Well yesterday, right after posting about that job, Albertson's distribution warehouse called me and wants to interview me. I know, I know...change thirteen. Thirteen as in thirteen dollars and seventy-five cents to start. Fourteen fifty after ninety days and regular fifty cent raises until after about a year and a half I get to around seventeen dollars an hour. Not the money I was making in the navy, but combined with my retirement check, a comfortable living.

People, this is a general warehouse job. Forklift driving. Truck loading. Order picking. I love that stuff. One of my favorite jobs was a warehouse job at Tampa Wholesale Liquors. I loved driving the forklift. I enjoyed picking the orders. I even found amusement at watching the customs agent dragging the big boss back to the office by his ear after finding a little extra something in the boxcar from Canada. I truly enjoyed it. But, and like my girlfriend at the time this is a big but, it only paid $3.88/hr, which was eight cents over minimum wage.

It's the warehouse job that made me understand the term working poor. I was working hard and putting in 15 hours a week overtime. All my bills were paid, but my motorcycle was falling further and further into disrepair, I couldn't afford insurance, clothes or food. I was working all the time and still had nothing. Nada. Squat. So I joined the navy.

Anyway, should I pass the interview, I will take that job and hopefully put this daily job update business to bed. I just want a job with a schedule that I can plan fishing trips around.

Oh, as a side note, I read in the paper 2 days ago about a 12 foot alligator in the pond across from the distribution center's parking lot that had just eaten a local lady's dog. So what, you say? That's what alligiles and crocogators do, you say. The dog was a rotwieller, kiddies. That's a meal, not a mouthful.

Now I read a couple of weeks ago that a boa in or near the everglades, and apparently the everglades is where you dump exotic pets you no longer wish to board and care for, had eaten a rather large alligator and exploded. First, I am sort of impressed that the snake could manage to swallow a gator. Seems to be a pretty neat trick to me. And secondly, doesn't nature instill animals with survival instincts that make them intuitivly know things like "it's time to run" and "don't eat things that are bigger than you or you will explode"? So what happened? The boa didn't get the memo?

In the lower right corner of my truck's back window is a sticker of Betty Boop. In the lower left, a not very large sticker that reads "Unreconstructed Southerner". Yeah, I know. It's a real Pimp My Ride moment.

It's cold in Florididdy right now. What a pain in the butt that is. Right after I got into the argument with the wife that she should throw away most of those heavy clothes from Japan because, and dang it I did say this, "You really won't be needing those here. It just doesn't get cold enough." God must be a woman. A woman who enjoys seeing me me backpedaling.

I'm a middle aged white man. But I'm not clear on the law here and could use some help. As a middle aged man do I have to buy a Harley Davidson? Or only if I want to? Sarcasm... it's just one of the free services I provide here.

Actually, I'm really not that sarcastic of a guy. Nor am I very political. Or argumentative. Good googly moogly. I'm bland.

Last thing. I am starting to work on a screenplay, and I only say screenplay because I am not sure what to call it, for a short film. Very short film. Only a couple of minutes, actually. It is based on a mere three paragraphs I read that were a part of a story line within a storyline in a collection of Orson Scott Card short stories. THREE PARAGRAPHS! And I was thinking about them for days and days. It will be the first production (in hi def, too) from our new company. It will not be a particularly rapid project, I imagine.

Adieu, out, my little froggie friends
Ramblin' Ed