While writing this on Monday I should be looking forward to my day off today … but I am not.
I’ve grown to dread the day before vacation starts because any and everything that could ever go wrong will go wrong on Vacation Eve. Just today, there have been issues with our website, the E-edition of the paper and with the hitchhiker Managing Editor Bryan Hanks has kept locked in a utility closet since Cinco de Mayo.
I kept telling Hanks he needed to poke a few holes in the top of the box, but nobody listens to me.
Additionally, Tax Deduction No. 2 decided to stage a one-woman production of “Phantom of the Opera” at 4 a.m. Her rendition of “Magical Lasso” might impress the snooty New York press, but at the time, I would have preferred a reading of John Cage’s “4’33”, which is just 4 1/2 minutes of absolute silence.
John Cage was a real card, but I’ll bet you a VHS recorder he came up with the idea to record four minutes of silence after a prolonged period of sleep deprivation. Either that or he was a chronic shoe sniffer; who knows.
Honestly, I thought I’d outsmarted the Vacation Fairy this time. See, I’m taking today off in order to work on a couple of non-Free Press projects. I figured since I’m working on a vacation day, it would cancel out any karmic retribution that could be heading my way.
Maybe — just maybe — I’d try to sneak in an hour of couch time between arguments over the cover of my band’s new album and Tax Deduction No. 1 screaming about Tax Deduction No. 2 trying to shake down her dolls for rent money.
I mentioned these phenomena (which I pronounce “fa-nom-i-na” as a tribute to the Muppets) to The Wife who — to my surprise — did not immediately shoot down my theory. She recalled during her tenure at an office supply company that even if she was getting out of work one hour early for a doctor’s appointment, inevitably, a truck supposed to deliver a desk and chairs to a church would mistakenly deliver a video poker machine to a day care center.
This vacational virus has infected others as well. You can bet your last can of Tab on a massive crime wave hitting within 30 seconds of Hanks driving over the Lenoir County line. If Hanks and Publisher/Editor Patrick Holmes happen to be on vacation at the same time (sharing a booth at Anthrocon), invariably there will be a breaking political scandal, an illegal Nab lab explosion, and a UFO landing on top of the Walmart — usually about five minutes after the paper has gone to press.
If I can get this column done, all I’ll need to do is write two album reviews and get the music charts together — two things that usually happen on Tuesday. This would normally mean just a few more hours’ work, but wouldn’t you know a two-hour conference call/web seminar is scheduled for this afternoon?
That adds up to an additional half-day of work just to be able to take a day off to work on two other jobs. Surely this isn’t the kind of thing that would inspire a Woody Guthrie song, but it’s still a bit of a drag. It would almost be less work to not take the day off.
On a happier note, this web conference call just introduced me to the term “multiple fetches.” Also, when I logged into the meeting, I forgot to mute the microphone on my computer, thus nearly rupturing the moderator’s eardrum. A colleague and I took turns dropping in coughs and other inappropriate bodily noises whenever a moment of silence presented itself during the presentation.
I’d hoped to craft a decent ending to this thing, but it’s impossible to do so while participating in a software tutorial that would give Bill Gates a case of irritable bowel syndrome. As a small tribute to George Carlin, I will admit to having no ending for this piece and take a small bow.
Jon Dawson’s columns appear every Tuesday and Thursday in The Free Press. Contact Jon at 252-559-1092 or jon.dawson@kinston.com. To purchase music, books and authentic replica moon rocks visit jondawson.com.