Isaac Whatever

I think I am now an official employee of Wal-Mart. God I hate myself.

Anyway I went to go get the drug test today. They're not letting new employees pee in a cup at the MEC center anymore. Oh no. I went over to a shady ass converted house that touts itself as "High Tech Surveillance" or some crap. Emphasis on the "high tech" they sure had enough hidden cameras. I wonder if I'll be seeing pictures of myself on the internet later trying to aim my wang at the little plastic cup.

I had heard that Wal-Mart was cutting back on employee benefits. I didn't realize that as a new employee, on my very first day, I would see such a dramatic and tangible effect of this new corporate strategy. I had expected something like a 10% cutback in stock options or something, not having my wang exposed to dirty and uncomfortable surroundings.

Not to even mention that it would be much easier to fake a sample at this shady-ass establishment than at MEC. Also I saw them giving a polygraph (lie-detector) test, and they were actually yelling at the lady taking the test. I dunno if you guys are familiar with polygraph tests, but it is imperative for the tester to ask the questions with absolutely no emotion, otherwise it destroys the validity of the test. This lady was screaming, "if you don't answer this question, you will fail the test! You will fail!" I wanted to stop in and tell the lady that if she does fail the test, she can simply sue this "high tech" place for screwing the test over.

So don't work at Wal-Mart, I guess. Anyone want to start a union?

Buddhists believe that while all of the beings that live in the universe all occupy the same dimension or whatever, they occupy very different realms. Thus you can walk over and touch a bird or other animal, but every single need and want, hope and desire, fear and terror that you feel is completely different from the animal's.

The animal lives its life in constant terror, running about aimlessly, always hiding, always afraid. You run around, filled with desire and hope, trying to grab everything you can before your short life comes to an end. Thus, in the animal realm, the primary suffering is constant fear and violent death, and in the human realm, it is constant desire and short lives.

Gods, in the realm above humans, suffer primarily from an unrestrained self nature. This doesn't sound so bad.

The normal way for a human to become a god would be to practice the dharma, collect much merit, purify one's karma, and then after death seek rebirth in the god realms. Now, however, we may have another way. Technology.

We are approaching a new horizon in the study of our own bodies. Soon we may have the means to extend our lives beyond our most fervent imaginings. We shall stand in the bright light of our own dreams, living forever, with limitless power. We shall find ourselves become bootstrap gods, our power and our beauty lasting forever.

Anyway we should keep working on nanotechnology and life extension. It's good, important stuff.

More intimidations ensued. I remained cooperative. If they really were looking for the people who used to live in my apartment and had gone around running up a bunch of debt, then I would be happy to help Gloves and the Golfer find their guys. Unfortunately they seemed to believe I was spinning a web of lies.

Around this time Gloves said something (while flexing his fingers menacingly) to the effect that it’s his job to F people up, and he gets paid to do it, and he’s prepared to do it. The Golfer just said, “Yeah.” I agreed. I noted their obvious preparations in wearing gloves and carrying a golf club. “It’s a cane,” said the Golfer.

I mentioned, in a sort of affable way, that my father is a lawyer. He said his great-uncle was a judge. “How interesting!” I said. I tried showing him my ID. He didn’t really look at it. I suggested that he talk to the landlord and see about getting a forwarding address. Finally, I asked if he was sure he had the right apartment number eight.

“Show me another number eight,” he said. I walked them across the parking lot the next building, and showed them the number eight. All the buildings in this apartment complex have number eight apartments. The Golfer seemed dismayed. “You think you got the wrong apartment?” he asked Gloves. They looked around a bit, seemingly disoriented. I was incredulous. How could they not have noticed that my apartment number eight wasn’t the only number eight? What were they going to do now, walk around to all the number eights and try their intimidation act there?

As they left, the Golfer had the good grace to say, “Thanks man, sorry for wasting your time.” I replied, “Sorry (for not being Eddie, I guess), and good luck!”

A short while later the police arrived. The whole time I was being intimidated we were standing exactly where I wanted to stand, that is in a well-lit public area. A guy and a young couple had actually walked by during the scene, and had obviously noticed that some stuff was going down. So someone had called the cops. I wasn’t really planning on calling. It would most likely be a waste of time for them. Gloves and the Golfer were just going to leave, and the cops would scout around for nothing.

I was still standing outside, this time just making sure that my friends who were on their way wouldn’t get harassed by anyone. The cop asked if I was the one who had called. “I’m not the one who called, but I’m the one who got intimidated,” I said. I gave the cop descriptions of the guys and told him which way they had been walking.

Then I came inside and had a beer.

And that, my friends, is the first serious threat I have ever gotten, and my first interaction with the thriving but mostly incompetent criminal underworld of Southern Indiana.

On a side note, the guy probably saw my laptop, so I’m going to be locking my doors more now and locking my laptop to my desk when I’m not around. What a hassle.

Anyway, it soon developed that he was involved in some kind of dope deal with this Eddie Price or Prize, and Eddie had taken off with his money or something. He seemed to think that this Eddie lived in my apartment, and was in fact in my apartment at this very moment. And with this, we entered into an age old logic problem. How exactly do you prove, to an unbelieving and unwilling party, that you are who you say you are, or are not who you say you are not? He was vastly overestimating my (and Eddie’s I suppose) capability for subterfuge.

He also seemed to think I had cussed him out at some point in the past. And he had whistled for his friend who “Has a golf club.” What’s more, any time I would step sideways or shuffle around (it was cold out), he would say something to the effect that nobody would be F-ing running away from him.

I told him that the people living in my apartment previously had apparently run out on some debt. When I first got a phone line from Sigecom, I got calls from a collection agency looking for this Emily person who used to live there. I cancelled my line from Sigecom for this exact reason.

He thought maybe he was the guy who had called about that. He said, “You did cuss me then, didn’t you boy? That was a mistake, boy. You called me a bunch of stuff didn’t you, you called me a heathen.”

A heathen! Hah! I don’t call people heathens. I don’t generally use silly, outdated insults. I told him so. He said he put some gum over my peephole. I said, “What does that have to do with anything?” Then I remembered the gum thing. That was months ago! I told him that with the short time the average tenant occupies these apartments, he might find it helpful to accelerate his intimidation schedule, or he’s going to miss some people.

Around this time his friend showed up, limping. He had taken a really long time to get there. As he walked up, Buddy Gloves said, “There’s my friend now, he’s hurt but he’s got a golf club.”

The Golfer was an even smaller guy, skinny, with a big trucker ballcap and a bad limp. He was using a putter as a cane. A putter, by the way, makes an ineffective weapon in the close quarters we were in.

I wrote this a few months ago. The exact date has been lost. Probably May 2nd.

Last night, around 11:00, I heard a knock at my door. A particularly loud knock, now that I think about it. At the time, I didn’t think about it, any more than Kevin did. We were sort of expecting JB, Mike, or Fish. So Kevin opened the door.

A guy I didn’t know stepped blinking into the room. He was wearing dark clothing, and asking for “Eddie.” “Eddie who?” I asked, “There’s no Eddie here,” I continued.

He seemed annoyed. He stepped further into the room, and began looking intently at Kevin, who was playing poker on his laptop. At this point, I realized that several things were wrong. He wasn’t exhibiting normal looking-for-a-guy-not-sure-this-is-the-right-apartment behavior. He was coming further into the room, instead of staying outside the doorway.

He was also keeping his hands behind his back, and I was catching a hint of black leather or something on his hands. I decided that I didn’t want this guy in my apartment anymore. He seemed really interested in Kevin, who was oblivious, and Katie didn’t seem to have caught any of these distressing details either.

So I got up and put on my shoes. I told the guy that the mailboxes downstairs had names on them, and the best way to find a guy in these apartments is to look down there. I quickly and quietly locked my door on my way out, with a behind the back movement that I’m sure the guy didn’t notice.

Once we got down to the hallway between the apartments, where the stairs are, I showed him that whoever he was looking for didn’t have a mailbox in this building, and therefore was unlikely to live here.

He said that this guy travels around, and was unlikely to have a name on the mailbox. He also mentioned, somewhat heatedly, that this Eddie guy F-ed him out of some $400. He crossed his arms over his chest, and I took a good look at him. He was around 5’7” or 5’8”, stocky, with something of a gut but not obviously overly fat. He might have some muscle on him. He had glasses, and was balding. He was otherwise unremarkable except for the gloves he was flaunting and trying to make threatening gestures with. They were black leather gloves. I was unimpressed.

So I was down on the beach in Panama City, messing around in the waves. It was nice. The first few days there the waves were pitifully small, but then they became larger and larger. A storm in the gulf somewhere I imagine. Anyway I was stoked. Finally we were getting some waves worth getting the bellyboards out for. So I got to tool around for one day in the big waves, having some fun. The next day, as I prepared to go out again, the guy in the lawnchair shack stopped me and told me that it was a "red flag."

Allrighty, I'll keep that in mind. So out I went. The waves were even better that day, and I was catching waves from out past where I could touch all the way in to the beach. Then the sheriff came driving up, stopped, and got on his PA. The bastard told me to stop swimming or I'd get a hundred-dollar fine! WTF?

So I came in and the lawnchair guy explained it to me. It's some new deal. When there is a red flag up, nobody is allowed to swim. It means that the waves are too dangerous or some shit. Bullshit! The waves were way smaller there than I have ever seen them in the Pacific or the Atlantic, and everyone was freaking out. Bottom line the waves were not bad. I understand that on the first day the waves were kinda big, two people died.

I dunno why they died. Anyway, the Fuzz can't say to Mrs. Idiotswimmer that she was being a fucking retard and shouldn't have let her 4-year-old go swimming in the ocean without watching him. Because they'd get sued, maybe, I dunno. Anyway these people ruined it for everyone, by getting fucking killed.

So after a few more red-flag days, and some more hassling from the Fuzz and the Lawnchair Hut Guy, I pissed in the lawnchair hut and drove home. Fucking Panama City. I hope this red flag shit destroys their tourism industry.