Post #99

Six months ago, completely without warning or consultation with the author, my overpaid, unqualified management group broke faith with my loyal quintet of readers and moved the blog to a large sports conglomerate network that shall go nameless here.  That unidentified group said if I mentioned their name, they would sue me senseless and I think they might.  Ruthless corporate shills.  For the purposes of this article, I shall refer to them as greedy corporation E.

As an enticement to my management group, stock options were promised by greedy corporation E but didn't materialize, truckloads of cash were loaded up by greedy corporation E but got lost en-route.  Or so I was told.  I know somebody got paid and you can rest assured, it wasn't me.  If I don't get the money, I hope Ashley Fox got it.  She lost her job too.

While the blog languished under corporate oppression, very little content of worth was published.  I tried but I couldn't deal with the tiny, gray cubicle and piped in Barry Manilow music.  Freakin' Barry music.

Anyway, after unsuccessfully chasing the pot of corporate gold, I return the blog to these environs like a North Korean dissident crossing the DMZ.  The blog is once again free of corporate oppression, but no promises are made or implied regarding the creative inspiration.  You get what you get.  

When I was a kid, perhaps ten or twelve years old, my family sometimes shopped in an old, rundown country store. As I think back on that store now, I remember wandering the isles, walking on the worn-through linoleum tiles, looking at the different packages and boxes and things for sale, reading the magazines and waiting for my parents to finish their shopping. I picked items off of  racks just to touch, turning each over to look at what was written on the back, then put it back on the hook backwards, for no reason other than I just had to do it. I didn't break anything, but I must have touched everything. I think I was the inspiration for the original 'No Loitering' sign.

I loved that store because you could get lost in there for hours. If you got hungry, the candy was in the center isle between the comic books and the cigarettes and I have to admit, I borrowed the odd candy bar over the years. Camping supplies, jeans and t-shirts were in the back, next to the beer and the ammunition. Christmas gifts and toys were available twelve months a year on a rack in the front. It was the only store in the world where you could buy a Santa hat in July.

On the wall behind the cash register was a stuffed deer head that I swear looked right at me no matter where I was in the store. If I stood by the fried chicken rack, that deer stared right at me. It was like he was daring me to reach around the glass display case and snag a chicken wing. If I stood over by the O-Boy-Oberto sausage rack, the deer watched me there, waiting for me to graduate from misdemeanor chicken-wing borrowing to full blown O-Boy-Oberto felony.  That deer head was supernatural.  Watching.  Waiting.  Judging.  

Next to the deer was a dusty, stuffed buffalo head. The buffalo head was so old it looked like it came west with the original pioneers. Or, maybe they found a dead buffalo and built the store around it.  That thing was huge.  I guess I am not sure how that buffalo got there and I don't remember much more about it other than it was old and I always wanted to get one of those feather dusters and a ladder to give it a good scrubbing.

Perched by the dusty buff was a nasty looking stuffed jack-a-lope.  Even though he had a sour expression, I really liked that little jack-a-lope.  It was only a quarter as large as the deer head and the deer head was half the size of the buff head but I imagined that he was the leader of the three, if such a leadership role existed.  The jack-a-lope just looked like he had seen a thing or two.  He looked capable, and maybe if you got locked in the store at night and were alone and scared, you would go straight to the jack-a-lope for help. 

In case you don't know, a jack-a-lope is an extremely elusive and rare creature that looks remarkably like a really big jackrabbit with a pair of antelope horns strapped onto it's head. How they shot a live jack-a-lope is beyond me and the question haunts me still, “How does one kill a jack-a-lope?” I wondered if they used the ammunition from the rack in the back of the store or did they need to order some special jack-a-lope bullets. No idea.

The store was rebuilt shortly after the arson investigation and subsequent insurance claim and as luck would have it, the jack-a-lope didn't survive. The fire and gasoline fumes must have been too much for his aged pelt and he succumbed. So sad.

We all hold something back to protect ourselves. It's not a big deal like Spiderman wearing a mask to protect his true identity.  I mean really, everybody gets that, right?  Spiderman can't just wear a Peter Parker nametag around and expect to go home to a safe apartment at night. 

I am not talking about Spiderman here, I am talking about the difference between the person we are and who we want the world to know.  That difference between those two identities might be something big or small, and maybe you think you are completely honest with how you deal with the world but I am saying you aren't.  We show the world a face, and in truth, we hide who we are and we all wear a mask.

So I thought about that for a while and figured out that there are three masks that we show the world. Here are our human masks, described in stages.

1. Stage One – This is what we show the general public. We all put a bunch of BS into this one. It's stuff you tell your co-workers like “You should meet my Mother-in-Law. She's great!” and “I would love to help you move. Oh, wait, did you say Saturday?  Saturday is the day I work at the food bank. Sorry.” Basically, this mask is where we are all liars.
2. Stage Two – This stuff has substantially more truth in it, but is generally disseminated on a limited distribution list. We only reveal this crap after we have known and trusted someone for a long time. This is what you tell your spouse after fifteen years of marriage and five glasses of wine. It generally goes like this; “Darling, do you remember when the police came by the house last spring and asked if I owned a .38 magnum and I told them no? Well...”. You have to trust a lot to let this stuff out of the bag. 
3. Stage Three – Do you remember in second grade where every second Tuesday was sharing day? You could bring a toy and tell the class about your toy, or if you had lice in your hair, you could bring your half used bottle of industrial delousing toxin and show the class that. It was sharing day and you were encouraged to share. Well, Stage Three is the opposite of that. Stage Three is stuff we should never tell anybody. Just shut up and bury it away.  Bury it deep.  This is the way-weird things you do when nobody is looking. Of course, I don't do any of that, but for you other folks that do indulge those weird, freaky, fantasy events, this is where you should keep your mouth shut. No good will ever come of it. Confession might be good for the soul, but only your dog should hear this stuff and even then, you tell him after he is at the end of his travels and you pre-dig the hole in the back yard.

I have a Stage Three confession. I don't want to talk about it, I just feel I must. I know I shouldn't say anything, but nobody reads this blog anyway so what the heck.  Here it is. Last night, I dreamed. I dreamed about...It's hard to write down. I dreamed about...please don't tell...I dreamed about... about...Idreamedaboutwinningmyagegroup. There, its out. I feel a lot better, but I don't want anybody to know. I am pretty sure my dog is the only one who reads this, so my secret is safe and I already dug the hole in the back yard.   

I sent in my money for Whistler, or I should say, I sent in somebody's money. My roommate's Christmas present is half of a Whistler slot.  It's the gift that just keeps on giving.