Things You Don't Want To Hear While Apartment-Hunting

1)
Landlord's phone rings.
Landlord: "Hello."
Voice on the other line: "Yes, this is the Massachusetts Department of revenue calling about your delinquent taxes."

2)
Me: "I wanted to see if your place is still available."
Landlord: "Trust me, you don't want to look for a place up here."

3)
Landlord: "You go down Route 8, then after the Cumberland Farms and McDonald's you tale a left and then a quick right and you're there."
Me: "Great! I'll meet you there in 15 minutes."
Landlord: "Oh, I'm not gonna be there. You're just gonna see it and call me if you like it."
Me: "How am I gonna get in to see the place if I don't have the keys."
Landlord: "Oh, don't worry, it's unlocked. I always leave the front door unlocked."

(Ironically, the front door was locked when I got there.)

My Brush With Death -- On the Hairpin Turn At Mohawk Trail, North Adams, MA

Being a native of Eastern Massachusetts, I'm used to Route 2 being an Interstate highway-type road. Out in Western Massachusetts, though, once you get past Gardner, it turns into backroads.

Tuesday I was on my way to North Adams, where it's not only backroads but also mountainous, as you're now in the Berkshires. I got a taste of this firsthand when I discovered that, as you cross the North Adams city line, Route 2 forms a hairpin turn. Your defensive driving skills and a guardrail are all that's stopping you from sliding into a ravine. Not good news for me, a stressed-out and control-freakish driver. Headed westbound, you're going downhill as you cross into North Adams so I slowed down to about 20mph and, despite some stress on a slick and rainy day, I negotiated the hairpin turn without incident, and the rest of Route 2 in North Adams was fine.

Then there was the trip back home.

On the way back, I took it even slower (10-15 mph). Of course, heading back east you're going uphill on the hairpin, and because I was taking it so slow, I didn't give the car enough gas. I stalled right at the turn.
And so I'm sitting there with my foot on the brake, I'm scared to bang it in reverse because I'm not sure how close I am to the edge of the road, and I'm scared to take my foot off the brake because I might roll in reverse, right into the guardrail and ravine, before I can get the foot back on the gas.

It's beginning to rain harder. Also, a car is coming up behind me.

I said to myself, "Great. This is how I die."

Then I said, "Here goes nothing," slammed my foot on the gas as quickly and as hard as I could and got my way up the hill. Shaken, but on the road back to Fitchburg.

If you want to see where this hairpin turn is, go to Google Maps and type in "Golden Eagle Restaurant, Clarksburg, MA" (it's on the Clarksburg side of the border with North Adams). Yes, there's a restaurant here. I look at it on Google and the hairpin turn doesn't look all that bad. I feel like a bit of a wuss. But I'm a Type A driver and I never like to feel that I'm not in control in the car. And, for about 15 seconds, I felt like I lost all driving control, and a quick perusal of the restaurant web site indicates the hairpin turn is 1,700 feet above sea level, and 1,700 feet is not a place where you want to feel out of control.

I will never take Route 2 all the way into North Adams again.  

My Week In Retail

While I was waiting to hear from a couple of other jobs, I was offered a job as part-time assistant store manager at a chain convenience store. My unemployment ran out a couple of weeks ago, so it was better than nothing. (I did get a lot of part-time job offers as my unemployment expired; not sure whether to categorize that as dumb luck or impeccable timing.)

Saturday: My first day on the job. Completely forgetting my Census Payroll Empire roots, I forgot to bring my checkbook so I'd have my routing number information handy. I try to recite it from memory. I scribble down a number that sounds vaguely familiar and move on. The store manager tells me that I'll probably be bouncing back and forth between another store in the chain that is scheduled to open in a couple of months, which in real-time means that the store will open in a year-and-a-half. The rest of the day I stock merchandise, which is a welcome relief. I hate dealing with customers. I'm in stocking heaven. The first day is great.

Sunday: Day off.

Monday: My first night shift. Also, after a quick tutorial, my first day running the cash register. Groan. Customer interaction. I brush up on my Spanglish and try not to let people annoy me. (When I'm a customer at a convenience store I annoy myself.) The night goes by smoothly -- only one customer throws f-bombs at me, and he seems like he's not all there mentally so I don't take it personally. At 8 p.m. the other assistant store manager tells me she can't believe I haven't taken a break yet and tells me to go get something to eat. At 9 she closes the store and tells me about thee time she got robbed. We reconcile the cash register. I was six cents over for my shift. The other cashier was $21 over. I survive my first night shift.

Tuesday: Day off.

Wednesday: I walk in and tell the store manager that I've been offered a job elsewhere that I will be taking. Part of me wants him to tell me to get lost. And really, it doesn't make sense to train me to do stuff when I'm not going to be there anymore. Instead, he begs me to finish out the week because he's understaffed. This means today (Truck Day) I have to unload 1,100 boxes off of the delivery truck. Only I suspect they forgot the extra zero at the end because it felt like 11,000 boxes. The truck was supposed to arrive at 11 a.m., but because the truck driver accidentally hit the gas instead of the brake and crashed into one of the other stores earlier in the day he's running three-and-a-half hours late. He finally arrives at 2:30 and we unload everything. Then he bitches about how we're not unloading fast enough -- because, you know, he didn't keep us waiting or anything. Anyway, great workout, although I'd much rather go to the gym for that. Also, on Wednesday, after three days we finally get in touch with the home office, and despite the fact that they acted like they couldn't be bothered, I pester them long enough for them to tell me that I did indeed get my routing number right. I can't believe I have that number memorized.

Thursday: Day off.

Friday: This is supposed to be my last day. I'm scheduled to work in the morning, but because I overcelebrated with some friends Thursday night I'm in no condition to work. I call the manager and ask if I can swap out and work Saturday instead (hoping he'll tell me to call it a career instead). He says, yes, Saturday would be perfect because he's understaffed.

Saturday: The least I can do for putting in minimal effort in my week in retail is get the staff a card, so I do and sign it. It's my final day and I'm back on register. This time I'm 76 cents over, I guess my counting skills are getting worse as I continue in retail. The manager comes in right as I'm leaving and I give him the card. He starts tearing up. He says he has the best staff ever, that he was impressed at how quickly I picked up everything and if it doesn't work out elsewhere to give him a call and he'll rehire me immediately.

It was a long week, but I learned a lot about myself, about what I'm capable of and how I can handle situations under duress. And now I have a Plan B, just in case. In that sense, it was totally worth it. 

The Unpredictabilities of Life

Life surprises you sometimes. I wanted to get a lot of writing done Tuesday and it never really happened. I got some writing done but not nearly as much as I had hoped or anticipated. I think it's a function of bad planning and procrastination. And now I'm blogging and it looks like Blogger has changed some things.

In the future, I will try to handle the unpredictabilities of life better. Hopefully the future will begin soon.

The OT I Didn't See

For the past few days my Internet has been spotty. I called Comcast and they scheduled a techie to come visit Sunday evening.

Also Sunday evening, the Bruins were fighting for their playoff lives, down 3 games to 2 to the Washington Capitals. The techie arrived and fiddled with some things and then found that a wire outside was frayed, and he needed to run a new line in. This meant he would have to take TV, phone and Internet offline.

Right as the game was tied at 3, going into overtime.

I tried flipping the radio to 98.5 (Bruins flagship station) but I got lousy reception. I sat there, without TV or Internet. The TV teased me, frozen to a picture of a Bruin carrying the puck in the Boston zone, while three Capitals lie in wait at center ice. I waited for an hour for the techie to run the wire up and restore services, knowing that at any point the Bruins season may have ended, or that the game might be well into double overtime.

NBC came back on at 7:05. Dateline NBC was on. Thus, the game was clearly over. I clicked onto NHL.com, where I discovered that Tyler Sequin kept the B's season alive.

I may have to cut off my Comcast on Wednesday night for Game 7.

Fenway's 100th Birthday Present For Me

Today Fenway is 100 years old. It's a quirky yet beautiful ballpark, and there have been quite a few memories here.

This year there probably won't be many, as the Sox have some awful pitching, sporadic hitting and lousy team chemistry and look well on their way to missing the playoffs for the third straight year. Today they celebrated Fenway's 100th birthday by losing the the Yankees 6-2.

Meanwhile, I'm having Internet problems at home so I'm at Barnes & Noble surfing the 'Net and the guy sitting in front of me gets up and his Red Sox sweat pants are, literally, halfway down his ass. He's going commando, too. Seriously, how do you not notice that as you get up from the table?

Perhaps this was Fenway Park's 100th birthday present for me -- a nearly full moon.

The Missing Pulitzer For Fiction

For the first time in 35 years, The Pulitzer committee did not award a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Th announcement was made earlier this week.

I haven't read any of the three finalists -- Train Dreams by Denis Johnson, Swamplandia! by Karen Russell and The Pale King by David Foster Wallace. That said, I have a tough time believing that in the past year there was no "distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life." And, like everything else in life, there are good years and bad years in fiction.

That said, you can say that about everything. I don't think either the 2011 Giants or Patriots will go down as one of the best football teams of all time, but that doesn't mean the NFL canceled the Super Bowl. They always hand out an Oscar for Best Picture, regardless of how bad the year in film is. And the 2012 presidential election will go on, regardless of how mediocre Obama and Mitt Romney are.

So I will say this because I'm pretty confident I will never win a Pulitzer: not handing out a Pulitzer for Fiction in 2012 is a lame decision.