"Friday" story time 2- Nationalist Drama, Other

Since it's Friday, I'll now post the Friday story, which is done on Friday. And not 2 weeks late. Which doesn't matter, since nobody is reading this anyways. I'm off the hook! Phew

Rosie

It was stifling, absolutely stifling. And the humidity- well, you couldn't have that many bodies in one place at one time and not have the air be sticky. Beth was glad her hair was tied back underneath the hankerchief, or it would have been completely frizzy.

"Beth! Come down from there!" yelled Mr. Jacobsen from the ground. Tall, with dark hair pomaded down, wearing glasses- at any other time, he would be a handsome man. But right now, he was just another Joe who wasn't over there fighting for the freedom of the world. Sad, Beth thought, and she finished welding up the final piece of the fuselage. She flipped her mask up

"I'm coming down, Mr. Jacobsen!" Her work pants slid smoothly over the steel wing, and she dropped lightly down to the ground. She smiled at him- not so bad, really, but not like her Charlie over there in France. Clark Kent to her Superman.

She smiled, thinking of him, "What can I do for you, Mr. Jacobsen?"

He glanced down at his notepad, then looked at her through the thick frames, "Uh, Beth, Paulie is sick today, and we're behind schedule- I need you to go into the Furnace for me."

Some other workers had started to look down at the conversation, and their expressions of shock were the same as Beth's. "Mr. Jacobsen, no woman has ever worked in the Furnace before- why not get Bill or Sam to do it?"

"Bill is an old man, he'd be overcome. And Sam- well, you know how Sam is- he's liable to get killed in there. Look, Beth, I need you-just 100 units, and I know that Charlie would want you to.."

Her venemous look stopped him cold, "All right, all right! I'll go in, but don't you talk about Charlie! And you owe me big time for this." With that, she walked off.

---

Where the plant was stifling, the Furnace was choking. It was a small room in the corner of the building. It's like Hell, Beth thought as she stood, the heavy asbestos apron and gloves itching her skin. Jutting out from the wall like a dragon's maw was the actual furnace, with a table stacked with blocks of iron to the left, and a press to the right.
Each plane needed a type C cog for the bomb bay doors- without it, they would not open. Additionally, the part was determined to be crucial enough that they couldn't be made off-site. Each bar needed to be melted down, poured into the press, pressed into the correct shape, and then hand-trimmed to the proper measurement before they would be ready.
And Beth had never done it before. She looked at the charts on the wall- they were dusty with iron shavings, which she brushed off with her gloved hand. Everything seemed easy enough, so she turned to the stack of bars and counted them- 25 bars, just enough to make 100 cogs. That meant she had to be perfect. She grabbed the first bar, and her biceps strained as she lifted it off the stack. These were so heavy, much more than anything she had had to weld. She managed to half-drag it next to the furnace, and grabbed the door to that flaming gouge set in the wall.
The smell of burning asbestos assaulted Beth's nose and she looked down at the singed material. The door was open and pouring out was heat unlike any she had known. Already sweating, she felt faint in the asbestos clothing. Beth shook her head and looked around- there was nothing to grab the furnace door with. She was wondering how she was supposed to get the bar in the furnace when she noticed a small crank wheel on the right side of the furnace. She turned it and slowly, with shrieks and groans, a smooth bucket with a spout at the top rose from the depths of the furnace, eventually resting at an angle. The room wavered in front of Beth momentarily, then she moved over and deposited the bar in the bucket with a loud clang. It was obvious that the bucket couldn't hold more than a single bar at a time. She cranked the wheel again and the bucket lowered into the heat.
She picked up the snips and pushed the furnace door closed in a move that seemed to chill the room. Beth turned back to the directions- 3 minutes and the bar should be melted. She counted silently in her head, removed her glove and wiped the sweat off of her brow. Finally, the time was up. She maneuvered the door open with the snips again and was assaulted by the heat once more. Worse, with a loud bang the bolt holding the furnace door shot down, and the door soon followed. Beth danced out of the way, and the door came to rest near the wall. Crap, she thought, Well, there's no fixing it now. What time was it? It was awfully hot, and when she moved near the furnace she thought she could hear the workers chatting as they threw more fuel on the fire.
The rest of the job was easy. The melted steel poured easily into the four different molds, and she placed them on the opposite side of the room to cool them as quickly as possible. Just like that, 4 down. Only 96 more to go. And that had taken 20 minutes. The heat was becoming unbearable.
---
They found her, the next day, on the floor, a filled mold in her hand, the furnace had not been started for the day. When they woke her, gave her some water and told her where she was, she was anxious to know if she had finished. Mr. Jacobsen straightened his glasses, cleared his throat and looked away.

"Beth, I should never have made you go in there. You didn't have a chance at actually reaching the number I asked for- I'm sorry."

Beth was crestfallen. "Well, how many did I do? I lost count after 48..."

Jacobsen blinked, "No, my dear, you don't understand. You didn't have a chance at reaching that number, but you did. 100 cogs, and although the last four had to be snipped clean, you did it."

With that, those around her began talking at once- offering congratulations, commendations and expressions of joy. And at the plant, the legend became known as Beth vs The Furnace.

---


I hope you enjoyed the story- I really hate it, myself. I backed myself into a corner, however, by starting without a clear vision of where I was going with it. Instead, I said "Self, let's not do a dramatic war story, but instead focus on some other part the world at that time." I agreed with myself and so I had a topic. But it was a fool's game, and in the end, I feel like I burned that story worse than my mom could do cooking. Zing! I still owe 2 more stories, so hopefully they'll be of higher quality.

I'm so excited I will shriek like a cheerleader

Ok, my curiousity is getting the better of me- I'm gonna do the roll for tomorrow's story tonight.

1st roll (theme): 6 (Drama)
2nd roll (period): 11 (Nationalist)
3rd roll (conflict): 4 (Other)

This one should be interesting- a dramatic piece with an original conflict. I'm interested in seeing what other kind of conflict I can come up with, or something strange.

I'm feeling kind of bad- the last few entries haven't been rife with my attempts at humor. I will try and rectify that by offering an amusing anectdote from my work today.

My job is somewhat unconventional for a white collar office environment- I first discovered this when people decided to have a nerf assault against the financial department. There's something odd about seeing otherwise grown people stalk around an office building.

Another oddity: there's a lot of drinking going on. I would estimate that at least half of the office parties include alcohol. The upside to this is obvious- the far more perilous downside is that karaoke becomes involved on occassion. If you haven't heard "Convoy" by a socially repressed software developer, then you have not lived, my friend.

Today's antics revolved around my own and two other's nuptuals. A well-intentioned "bachelor party" was planned. I had foreknowledge of the event, of course, but my blood ran cold with what these nerf-wielding alcoholics could be planning. Did I mention that there was cross-dressing at the Halloween party? Indeed there was, and joined with it was abject horror.

Surprisingly, it was relatively tame. Some drinking, sure, and a gag gift of edible underwear. A cake with a scantily-clad woman, but nothing more risque than you'd find at a Spencer's gifts. I'm not sure what I was expecting, really- not strippers dropping from the ceiling or anything, but it seemed strange from a company that's so permissive in other areas. I guess it's just proof that we are still a very puritanical society, comparitively, and particularly sexually. I find it humorous, actually- commercials, movies and tv shows leave nothing to the imagination, but we're expected to turn away from those things and pretend they don't exist. But it's okay to show extreme violence, for example. We're just a weird people, but I think we already knew that.

Now, bring on the comely ladies with skirts that bare everything...to the ankle!

Drunk Stripping Whores for your pleasure

First off, let me say I had fun posting that bizarre story. I just know that next time I'm going to have the prehistoric romance category.

I am getting blissfully married in about a month. For me, this is fantastic- getting married is one of those things I was skeptical about my involvement in for a long time. I think there's a lot of people who get into their mid-to-late twenties and see where their parents were at their age and freak out because they're in no way prepared to be in the same position. I would say that 85% of my friends are that way- they're still kids, in a sense, still having fun. I would make a proposal that we extend lifetimes by a decade and have a second round of "20s". But that damned Bush would veto it, I'm sure.
In spite of that, I am very ready to be wed, and particularly to the girl I'm with. I knew it was time to propose when I stopped asking myself questions about whether I'd be happy with her, whether she could live with me, and most importantly, whether she would eventually run off with some model/doctor from Brazil who lures her away with promises of free candy and plastic surgery.
The wedding is set- although she has done the majority of the work, I have endeavored to keep my complaining about it all on par with her own- it's important to share things in a marriage, and I feel it necessary to do my own part. Please note that I plan to act similarly during childbirth and child-raising. If I can brainwash whatever kids we have into being little copies of me, then I have succeeded as a father.
The only real thing that remains is the all-important bachelor party. The very image conjures up a swirling cacaphony of booze and paid-for boobies. In a way, it's very appealing and I have no problem if my groomsmen hosts decide to do that. But then there's Micah.
Micah is a pseudonym- in fact, I just made it up. Micah is the part of me that does not belong in this time. Micah is the part of me that would fit in well as a pirate, or an explorer, or somewhere in the hallowed Time Before Penecillin. As for a physical description of Micah, my best guess would be somewhere between Mark Twain, Colonel Sanders and Blackbeard. When he comes in force, my dearest and fondest wish is to go run off into the woods and disappear for a month.
It's not something to be sad about, really, except for the partial temporal disquiet I endure. In the largest sense, Micah really provides me with what I feel to be a Victorian sensibility.
It because of that that the idea of strippers and booze seems less interesting, than, say, going camping at a lake and sailboating, then coming back and hanging out around a campfire with my friends. It's perhaps a romantic ideal, and I know it puts me at odds with a majority of the population, but it's really the way I am. Even I'm raising an eyebrow incredulously, now.
I think that, in reality, what matters to me most is being with my friends, no matter how we spend the time. If that's out in the woods or in a strip club, I'm not unhappy about it. Of course, if it is a strip club, it's gotta be that one with the girl with the huge....dancing ability.

Friday Story Time 1: Classical Horror, MvM, MvH

Teutoburg

The mud was cold and thick, and smelled of blood and shit. It was raining, as it had the entire time they'd been marching. From his position behind the natural hedge, Decimus Gallus could see little beyond the far copse of trees. Around him, men were staggering to their feet and scraping the filth off of themselves as best they could. The groans and crying of those not yet dead permeated the path. Decimus felt the bile rising in his throat, and he leaned over, vomiting at the sight of the slaughter.

It was the third time they had come, and the most fierce. Tired, wounded and dazed men looked to the sides as the fur-clad men boiled out of the trees. And those men came upon them, shrieking and roaring like beasts. Decimus has tried to rally his men, exhorting them to form up, but Julius' neck had been snapped and Lucius was gone. He saw Varus, the general, from afar, but only for a moment before his leg came out from under him and the mud flew up and the darkness enveloped him.

Decimus limped over to a form half-buried in the mud; he kneeled with a wince and, with some effort, rolled the body over. Petrius, and his arm was gone, and his throat torn out. Deep gouges in his skin- bite marks, and no wonder- the Teutonic tribes often used dogs in their attacks. Decimus felt himself become sick again at the idea of his longtime friend gone, his corpse in this stinking mud.

He rolled over, and sat on the swampy ground for a moment, and was overcome by what he saw. Not more than one man in three was rising. Three legions had come, and now perhaps a third were still alive. And they were out there, watching and waiting for the moment to finish the battered Romans off. Decimus began to cry, and buried his face in his arm, that his compatriots would not see him unmanned. All of his men, dead. They would all die here, even Varus. The sobs choked him, but after a moment, he had control of himself again, wiped his eyes and stood. He had failed his Emperor and his men, and knew what he had to do.

He calmly walked off the path, into the trees, and unsheathed his sword. The wind swirled his cloak around his ankles.

"Here they come!" came the cry from the road, just as Decimus was placing the point of the sword on his chest. Men scrambled to find weapons, to find shelter from the attack. Decimus looked up, and saw the throng of men running towards him. And blinked.

The men alternated their runs, dropping to all fours, then again on their legs. They were wearing furs- no it was their fur. Great and shaggy and horrible, and slavering as they approached. Not men, but no beast he had ever seen. Decimus scrambled to grab the handle of his blade, and his fingers brushed against it just as he was bowled over by the man-beast. He could smell it's sweaty hide, a earthy scent for a moment, and then he was tumbling into the road, face first into the mud. He rolled over, and his arm was pinned and crushed as one of the creatures leapt upon him.

His vision was blood, but the creature was clear before him. Flat-nosed, with dirty shaggy fur, and black eyes. The mouth was human, though, but for those sharp fangs that gleamed yellowly- it seemed to be grinning. Decimus closed his eyes and pushed himself further into the mud, the rain spattering his face with flecks of dirt. And then something warm splattered on his face. He opened his eyes and saw the pilum jutting through the creature's abdomen, the sharp, shiny head of the weapon gleamed. The creature wavered for a moment, then collapsed onto Decimus, driving the pilum into his thigh, and pushing him further into the mud, which welled around his eye sockets. He began to scream for help, but the only sounds he heard were of men and beasts screaming, fighting and dying.

And the mud rose.

Friday story time

As you may know, this entire blog is really just a way for me to excercise my writing muscle. I don't often get the chance to do it when I'm toiling away at work, and I'm generally not very enthusiastic about it when I'm home- it's mainly because games and snacks are there, and neither lends itself to focus.

With that in mind, I've decided to give each Friday a special designation as "Story Time". How it works is as follows: I will roll on my Chart-0-Setting (which is to follow), and then create a short story based on that setting. So, without further ado, here's the Chart-o-Setting

1st die roll (8-sided die)- genre:
1. Comedy
2. Horror
3. Action/Adventure
4. Fantasy
5. Sci-Fi
6. Drama
7. Romance
8. Roll twice (choose two)

2nd die roll (18-sided)- period
1. Prehistory (?-10000BC)
2. Antiquity (10000BC-400BC)
3. Classical (400BC-400AD)
4. Dark Ages (400-900)
5. Middle Ages (900-1350)
6. Renaissance (1350-1500)
7. Elizabethan (1500-1700)
8. Colonial/Napoleonic (1700-1830)
9. Victorian (1830-1880)
10. Industrial (1880-1920)
11. Nationalist (1920-1950)
12. Cold War (1950-1980)
13. Modern (1980-2004)
14. Near Future (2004-2100)
15. Middle Future (2100-2300)
16. Far Future (2300-?)
17. Other (Original time period)
18. Roll twice

3rd die roll (5-sided die)- conflict
1. Man vs. Man
2. Man vs. Nature
3. Man vs. Himself
4. Other (?)
5. Roll twice

Now, using the wonderful die roller at http://www.irony.com/igroll.html, I can choose the setting. So, for today

1. Roll = 2 -Horror
2. Roll = 3 - Classical period
3. Roll = 5. Reroll- 1,3 - Man vs Man, Man vs. Himself

Ok, stay tuned for the first installment of Friday Story Time. Stay tuned!

Employment vs. Unemployment

(Note: With a slip of the finger, I wiped out the original post. It was epic in scope and yet intensely personal in feeling- truly a tour du force. Here is the second version, which should live up to such great sequels as Godfather part III, Rocky V and Jurassic Park III).

Approximately one week ago, we hired a person for an IT position opening. Yes, it was an actual job, not just one in the meat preparation industry. After a lengthy search process, we found "Larry" (not the person's real name). Extremely qualified and affable, the 26-year old was hired, and the land became green and fruitful with his coming, and the corporate masters grinned.

The only problem was that he was an idiot and a complete liar about everything. Not just content to falsify his academic record, he also thought it was a good idea to estimate his previous salaries at double what they were. Yes, he tried to turn a "D" into a "A", and no matter how much whiteout you use and how steady your hand is, your dad knows about it. Well, Dad found out about it and "Larry" was escorted unceremoniously from the building.

I'm not what part of the brain controls acting like a moron. Normally intelligent, functioning people do horribly irrational things: Talking on the phone and eating while guiding a 2000 lb piece of metal at high speeds, bringing small children into movie theaters that have other people in them, clicking on links in their email that promise sexual/financial improvement, and playing the lottery. Some idiots even lose an entire post because they can't operate a computer correctly. Things like those that Larry does transcend these and must be filed into "abject stupidity". They're the kind of things that make you want to ask the person, "Excuse me, but if it's not too much trouble, could you please leave? And by that, I mean the planet. Earth. The one you're standing on. Thanks."

Keep in mind I don't like pointing out stupidity in other people, because I will invariably do something so moronic that it trumps anything you can think of. None of us are excused from this condemnation.

As usual, I have destroyed my original point entirely. To return to it, let's go back to the mental image of "Larry" being escorted out. In my own mind, I see the door to the outside as an allegory- Larry was being escorted to the wonderful world of unemployment, which is a bright, shining place, but only from the outside looking in. I look fondly back on my own days of unemployment, wiser for having experienced them. It's kind of like how people can look fondly back on their childhood where they lived in a crack house. The negative images have softened and blurred, until everything is just a hazy dream where Julio didn't actually cut the whore's throat for squealing to the cops.

Unemployment is like that. Unemployment is what we would all like to be doing, if it paid better and had benefits. And yet, it is what it is. There are a number of enjoyable aspects of unemployment:

• Sleeping in
• Doing nothing of value to humanity
• Not showering for days on end- because where the hell do you have to be?
• Catching up on your favorite soap operas
• Daydreaming about what it will be like when you win the lottery with the ticket you just spent your last $5 of unemployment on
• Daydreaming about what it will be like when your brilliant idea for a mobile barbershop takes off the ground
• Reading blogs endlessly and surfing for porn 24/7

Even better, companies don't even want you to come in anymore to drop off resumes. The Internet has made the unemployed person's life better- no more dressing up just to give your resume to some withered old receptionist who probably just tosses it in the trash when you leave. Now you can blaze through hundred of Virtual receptionists whose email addresses lie in some dank, unused corner of the web. It's a much more efficient way of being shot down for a job without having anyone look at your qualifications.

That's not to say it's all loafing and daydreaming. There are actual downsides as well. They are:

• Ramen noodles are 10 for a dollar. Welcome to your new diet.
• Horrible depression and the sinking feeling that only luck landed you your last job and that nobody else will ever even give you an interview, much less hire you.
• The interminable countdown to when your unemployment checks expire.
• Your friends and family will avoid you, your girlfriend will file a restraining order and your pet will run away/need expensive surgery. Also, there's zombie pirates.

But hey, nothing's perfect, right?

Damn you laziness

What is it about our personalities that makes us lazy? And when I say "us", I mean "me". I don't think of myself as a lazy person, really. I keep a clean house, I cook dinner and I graduated college in four years. And yet when I come up with an idea that is so brilliant, so guaranteed to make money, I will quickly endeavor to fulfill that goal, letting nothing stand in my way.

Until the second or third day, usually.

I'm not sure why this is. It doesn't always happen. I dropped about 25 lbs a few months ago, and that required some willpower on my part- it's hard to not eat things that are especially delicious, but I did it.

I'm beginning to think it's because I attempt things that are relatively insurmountable in everyday life. I love games, for example, and I'm constantly thinking of new games. I excitedly write up half of a rulebook for the game, and then the project falls to the floor, unknown and unloved. Oh, I may make a halfhearted attempt to resurrect it's corpse, but it's like a puppet dancing- it will never be a real boy, so why even try?

It could also be an addictive behavior. We all know that drug addicts know that they need to stop, but they're still out there, injecting and snorting and God knows what else. Smokers cling to their cigarettes as if they were tiny pieces of flotsam, puffing and huffing and thinking of that old lady with the hole in her neck. Likewise, I am addicted to doing things really half-assed. Where's my 12-step program? Where's my DTRH-A Anonymous redeemable chit? There are more of us out here than you know. I imagine that the automobile would have been invented in the 18th century, but Ben Franklin was too busy with those French ladies.

Join with me, brothers and sisters and transgendered and hermaphrodite and asexual half-asseders. Proclaim your laziness to the world. Only then can we truly stand up, raise our fists in defiance, and then plop down on the couch again in exhaustion looking for some good cartoons.