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From Twitter:
Just got off a call that summarizes my past 24hrs: "I meant to call you earlier, but the ambulance was here picking her up."

5:07 PM Mar 20th from web

The funny thing is: the ambulance could easily have been in reference to any of three different shes. Not an exaggeration.

5:38 PM Mar 20th from web

Explanation?

6:15 pm, Thursday, March 19th.

TheWife has just returned home from a long day's work. As she runs upstairs to change from corporate finery to evening relaxed, the kids sprint back and forth across our downstairs in mad, laughing circles. I am in the kitchen, trying to assemble dinner for the rampaging hordes. For the brood: smile fries, chicken nuggets, nuclear-colored yogurts. Seedless red grapes. Chocolate milk, in sturdy plastic cups. For us: marinated/grilled pork chops and steamed broccoli over cous-cous. I am in stress-cooking mode: barking at frantic, giggling, howling children as they roll in and out of the kitchen like swarms of tasmanian devils, then returning to stovetop and toaster oven to pull one item or another from the black and merciless claws of overcooking.

The phone rings. Then a second time. Realizing TheWife isn't going to pick up upstairs, I grab the reciever. Hello?

"Hey… it's JiF." (If you haven't read the linked story yet… do so first. Context is necessary.)

(My heart half-stops, but I will it fine: this could be nothing. It could be an RSVP to TheHurricane's upcoming birthday party.)

"I just got a call from the afterschool program. (Our son) is still there… nobody came to get him."

"Christ. You need us to pick him up?"

"Yes. Yes, thank you. That would be great."

"Are you in town?"

"Yes."

"So you're on your way?"

"Actually, no. I've got a meeting I can't get out of. I should be there around 8pm."

"…"

"Where's ElF?"

"She's not answering any of her phones."

"And you've got a meeting."

"Yeah. Thanks for this."

(inside my head: your wife – your raging alcoholic of a wife
– has vanished. Your son is sitting alone at an afterschool program.
And you'll get around to it in another two hours because… you have a
meeting.)

(I'm being unkind. I know this, But I think: this had better be one of those "miss this meeting, and you're fired" scenarios.)

I hang up the phone. Turn off the stovetop. Pull the nuggets and smile fries out of the toaster oven, and as TheWife walks downstairs I step in front of her and give her the news. I throw on my shoes & jacket, and am out the door in a minute. Five minutes later, I'm at the school. Their son is sitting on a bench next to two very kind, concerned-looking teachers. The boy doesn't make eye contact with me, as he puts on his jacket and we leave. He knows what it means when I pick him up.

We return to Castle TwoBusy, and for the next 1:45 we ply him with nuggets and juice. TheWife plays with him at our dollhouse. He perks up for a bit, and wrestles with TheHurricane. My daughters love him; he adores them; together they engage in a bit of role-play before he gets bored and moves on.

I wait for a phone call.

Finally: 8pm. I've just put the girls to bed when the phone rings. It's JiF. "I'm on my way. I should be there in about half an hour.

8:30pm. He walks through our front door. "I just spoke to ElF." Pause. "It's not good."

Us: "Yikes."

Him: "This has grown beyond my capacity to deal with it. Something's going to have to happen."

We offer sympathies. Whatever additional help we can. I say: if you need an extra pair of hands, or can't be at two places at once… call. We're here.

He leaves with his son. I turn to TheWife and say, "I'm just glad she isn't dead."

Then we collapse onto the couch. Fall asleep in front of 30 Rock.

6:55am, Friday, March 20th.

The phone rings.

(A ringing phone at that hour is never a good thing. Although I think: it's probably fine. TheWife has decamped for a predawn spinning class; the call may be her, with an offer to pick up bagels or something.)

I pick it up. It's not TheWife. It's… well, it's someone else. Someone close. Her voice is shaky.

She went to her OB yesterday for a checkup. She's at 8 weeks.

It did not go well.

She needs to go in to the hospital, for a procedure.

And her daycare lady is sick. And her husband is driving. And they have a very young son.

I say: "No problem."

Two hours later, I'm sitting in their living room. They are holding together admirably. I am making silly faces at their son, tickling him. Not talking about things. (I'm a guy. It's not my place. I will offer my help; I will not intrude.) We make a little small talk, and then they kiss their son goodbye. I do not watch too closely. I do not try to read their minds, to decipher the details and expression in their eyes. This is their home. It is a place of privacy. I will respect that.

And then they are gone. Their son and I stare at each other for a minute, sizing up the enemy. "Videos?" He is thrilled; mom and dad are far more responsible than me, but this is not a time for prudence. Let the cavalcade of Barney and Elmo begin.

The hours pass, as I sit in this strange house. I discover that a new dinosaur has arrived in the Barney universe since last I visited. It is orange, and no less murderously annoying than the other faux dinos. I wish for dino-on-dino violence, but none is forthcoming. Instead, they sing about friendship, letters and colors. (I wonder if dinosaurs are color-blind like dogs, and marvel at the irony of this eduational moment.)

I do not hear from them. I do not expect them back until early afternoon, but check the windows periodically. Wanting to offer them welcome, and respite. Wanting to help, despite knowing there's not a fucking thing I can do.

Later: an eruption of Elmo, and his annoying helpers. There is a woman dressed as a clownish man. She uses simple, silent movie-style comedy to illustrate one point or another. I hate her.

Eventually, I hop on their home computer. Check e-mail; imagine life outside of this bubble. I call TheWife, to offer a non-update. She hasn't heard from anyone about anything, either.

I send a note to a friend: bad things usually come in threes, and I'm well beyond terrified at what the afternoon will bring.

And thus, my cell rings just after noon. It's daycare!

(deep breath)

My daughter Rabbit was playing with an old wooden kitchen toy. One that had once apparently had a sink or something in the middle, but that had long-since fallen out. It had functioned fine ever since, as a plaything for 3-4 year olds for years, with no problems. Until my intrepid Rabbit came along and got creative. And somehow squeezed her head up through the tiny opening of the former play-sink. And. Got. Stuck.

And. Got. Frantic. And started screaming, and crying, and couldn't get out.

And the teachers tried, and couldn't get her free. And they called the center director, who couldn't get her free. And they tried, and they tried, and she got more and more frantic, and finally – some 15 minutes later – they finally shoved her back down (scrrrrrrraping her ears, scrrrrrrraping her head) and through and out.

She was very upset for a few minutes afterwards. But finally began to calm, after being removed from the room and brought someplace calm and quiet. Offered an icepack for her aching head.

At this point, they called me. The director's words: "We were about a minute away from calling 911."

The measure of this particular 24-hour period: an event involving my daughter that almost involved a 911 call didn''t even make the top 2 of traumatic events I was juggling.

A little before three, they came back. I made sure their son was thrilled to see them, and gave Mommy a big kiss. I tried not to make too much eye contact, and absolutely did not ask any questions. What could I possibly say or ask that wouldn't be horribly awkward? It was not my place. I helped how I was able, and tried to respect their privacy.

They thanked me, I said no problem. Left.

Went to daycare. Picked up my daughters, admiring the swollen redness of Rabbit's left ear. Asked if they'd removed the deathtrap from the school. (Yes.)

Brought the girls home, and got a call from TheWife. She'd just e-mailed JiF to ask if there was anything more we could do. She hadn't heard back. I told her: thanks. I think that at this point, we have the right to follow up and ask at least that.

Then, just before 5pm, the phone rings. I pick up; it's JiF. He says, "I mean to call you earlier, but the ambulance was here picking her up."

Jesus.

Turns out: she was a drunken wreck when he got home the previous night. He put her to bed. She woke up sober and repentant. Agreed to go back into the hospital. Said she was going to take a walk first. Came back 40 minutes later… drunk.

He was… he didn't know what to say.

Somehow, she went out again later – I don't know the exact details – and came back almost blind drunk. Apparently: she'd hidden bottles of liquor in bushes around the neighborhood.

Then she passed out on their back lawn.

He couldn't awaken her. He called for an ambulance.

He said, I'm exploring legal options. There are ways of having courts force someone into rehab. I'm going to try to make this happen.

I said, Jesus. I don't even know what to tell you, man.

He said, I know.

I offered our help, our support. He thanked me. Hung up.

I stood there for a while, just staring at the phone.

Waiting for it to ring again.

Welcome to the first of what may or may not prove to be a series of annoying cross-posts… sorry. If you feel so inclined, please click here to explore my newest waste of your time at DadCentric.

Thanks.

1. In what I can only presume will quickly prove a tragic error in judgment, your pal and mine PetCobra has invited me to join The Justice League the world-renowned staff of the guys at DadCentric. He's also asked me to commit to a 2x/week schedule of posting — and yes, I can hear you all laughing about that already.

Shut up.

2. I got a job! Sort of. What I got, to be honest, is a contract job that will last somewhere from 6-8 weeks, with a theoretical start date of next Monday. The pay is mediocre, but insofar as that mediocre still kicks the hairy, dimpled ass of unemployment any day of the week… I'll take it.

The toughest part, for me, will be the fact that this will take place at a decidedly business-casual environment… and I'm not really a business casual kind of guy. Think of me as a Yugo: a poorly-designed, completely unreliable, exhaust-belching nightmare with two speeds: full-on suit or casual.

My fear is that this might force me to buy a pair of khakis. Which could, theoretically, entail me going into a Gap or Banana Republic in a capacity other than that of carrying things for TheWife and making smart-ass comments about the club-friendly soundtrack. (You haven't enjoyed retail shopping until you've spent 20 minutes in a chain clothing store with me miming club dancing – replete with platinum-caliber white man's overbite – three feet behind you the entire time.)

I have a baaaaaaaaad feeling about this.

3. Jonniker had a babyker! But you know that already. Right? If not, feel free to pay her a visit and coo with wonder and awe at the small mammal she created.

4. Speaking of women's issues (note the smooth segue? That's why DadCentric called me up to the majors to the minors to the carnival circuit…) I was thrown a curveball recently when someone who will go unnamed (oops) referred to me in an e-mail as "little lady."

And did so because she was under the impression that I am, in fact, a little lady.

(To be fair, she figured out her error before I could pick my jaw up off the floor and correct her. But I guess that's the inherent danger in picking a stupid gender-neutral online pseudonym. Anyhow, no harm done. Although I do feel pretty. Oh so pretty.)

5. On a completely different note, I saw two (2) movies on NetFlix last week that I enjoyed thoroughly, and considering how I've badgered bored provided you with vast entertainment in re: previous viewing disasters, I thought I'd share a couple of positive reviews.

The first is an older British film called A Matter of Life and Death, which features David Niven in what can only be described as a very Heaven Can Wait-type thing. It was pretty damned fantastic, and all thanks for steering me towards it must be ascribed to The Velvet Blog, who hooked my interest a couple of months ago by posting the movie's opening scene… which I can, in all honesty, tell you is one of the most incredible opening scenes for a movie I've ever witnessed, and which affected me just as strongly the second (and then third) times I watched it.

The second… well, okay: it's Hamlet 2. And I cackled hysterically all the way through it. And now find myself singing "Rock Me, Sexy Jesus" to my kids on an almost daily basis. It's just wrong, wrong, wrong, and I don't know that I could have enjoyed it more.

6. I just got a call from the contract job place — they want me to take a drug test before I begin, which is a first for me. Looks like I picked the wrong week to give up horse tranquilizers.

7. Since I haven't creeped you the fuck out with a video in a while, I thought I'd leave you with the following exercise in good times by Idaho, one of my all-time favorite bands and a song/video that, personally, I find haunting in all kinds of fascinating ways. Enjoy!

A continuing saga of poor decision-making and one-hit wonders. In case you missed parts I-IV – and let's be clear: they were riveting – feel free to start here.

TONY CAREY: A Fine, Fine Day
You know who's bigger in Germany than Hasselhoff? Well, okay: that's a trick question, as obviously nobody trumps the Hof. But a close second? Tony Carey. That's right. Tony Carey. From what I can tell – based on at least three minutes of extensive research – he's built a tremendously successful career filling the beerhalls and schnitzel palaces of Deutschland with ravenous fans eager to share in the glory that is his music. And his hair. (It's a lot of hair. Very straight, very long hair. Basically, he looks a lot like a villain from an early-period Schwarzenegger film. Think Crisp from Kindergarten Cop.)

But all of that is beside the point — because the point is the song. The song! It's like Springsteen, only without the subtlety or lyrical eye! It's basically about a Jersey wise guy who gets out of prison, hangs out with his family for a bit, and then gets whacked. The plotline of which is recreated – in painstaking detail, with extra emoting by Carey – in the video. But even sans video (please note the usage of français, indicating the intense cultural relevance of this commentary) this is a song soaking in Law & Order-quality melodrama. In fact, in many ways, it's like the missing link between The Godfather II and Goodfellas/The Sopranos. With long, straight hair. It's contextually metatextual! Seriously! Sonny! Don't let them drag you away! Sonny! Nooooooooooo!

MADNESS: It Must Be Love
When I was twelve or thirteen years old – before I was a tormented enough teenager to begin reaching for the darker truths of post-punk and alt rock – I thought that love must be a lot like this song. A little off-kilter. Syncopated in all sorts of unexpected ways. Veering occasionally towards the goofy, then surging all together into a strangely beautiful and moving kind of harmony. And, at the heart of it all, an unexpected and wonderful flavor of happy. The kind of thing I'd want to hum and feel over and over and over again.

Turns out, I was a lot smarter at twelve or thirteen than I ever imagined.

KINGS OF LEON: Use Somebody
For better or for worse, I've always lumped Kings of Leon in with a couple of other groups into a vaguely-defined category of music I like to think of as "Bands With Lots of Hairy Southern Guys That I Don't Particularly Care About." Let's call 'em Hairy Southern Bands for short. You know the kind: it starts with My Morning Jacket and disintegrates rapidly afterwards. There's a lot of rawkin', and a lot of rollin', and at some points it kind of sounds like Skynyrd-meets-alt-jam-band… and pretty quickly, I wish I was somewhere else.

To be honest, I had no reason to think of Kings of Leon in any other kind of terms. Not that I'd encountered them at any great length, but let's face it: "Sex on Fire" didn't really dissuade me from throwing them in the Hairy Southern Bands closet (and what a hairy closet it is) (sorry: was that too Freudian?) and locking the door.

But. Then I heard "Use Somebody" on Pandora – I can't remember which station, and frankly can't imagine how this fits into the parameters of Slowdive Radio or A Northern Chorus Radio – and it blew my fucking socks off. Honestly. I couldn't download it fast enough, and I've probably listened to it two dozen times since then. And why wouldn't I? Crimony: if you could bottle the ache and passion in Caleb's voice, and the compelling multiple interpretations of the title/chorus, and the great build-and-explode of the music, and the gorgeous backing "whoa-whooooaaas," and that strong, gutsy solo near the end that ramps the whole thing up to another level… if you could bottle it up and spread it across an entire album, you'd have something for the ages.

That's not the case. But you've still got this song.

Sometimes, that's good enough.

(Curtain opens on dinnertime at Castle TwoBusy. The TwoBusy family are sitting around the table, when one of the 3-year old twin girls chirps up.)

Butterfly: Mommy?

TheWife: Yes?

Butterfly: What's an anus?

TwoBusy: (spitting wine across table)

(curtain)

Thanks to Steven Spielberg and E.T. (see 1:45 in the clip) for making this conversation possible.

It's all about having the right tools.

(Our hero TwoBusy picks up the ringing phone with trepidation. On the other end is TheAngel, his current favorite placement agency-type. On hearing her voice, he steels himself for rejection; yesterday, he had undergone a 90-minute interview – for a freelance job – TheAngel had set up with a notoriously hard-to-please client.)

TheAngel: Are you ready for some feedback?

TwoBusy (taking deep breath, then…): Okay.

TheAngel (dramatic pause): They were really impressed with you.

TwoBusy: Really?

TheAngel: Really.

TwoBusy: But they don't like anybody.

TheAngel: Well, they liked you. They were very impressed by how you presented yourself, your composure and depth of knowledge, your (let's just call it a portfolio of seal-clubbing work and leave it at that)… plus, they thought personality-wise that you'd fit in very nicely. (dramatic pause)

TwoBusy: …but?

TheAngel: But. They think you're overqualified. The VP's words were: "It would be like killing a fly with a sledgehammer."

TwoBusy: FUCK ME!!!

TheAngel (bursting out laughing): That's some fancy language there.

TwoBusy: I… I don't…

TheAngel: I know. It's crazy. They just feel that your strategic capabilities are so strong that you'd be bored with the projects they're looking at right now.

TwoBusy: But… but… I knew what the job was, going in. And I have no problem with that. I was just trying to paint a picture of myself as a guy who can bring both strategy and execution to the table.

TheAngel (reassuringly): They want to bring you in down the road for more high-level stuff, but they seemed pretty determined about this.

TwoBusy: I… AAAAAAAARGH! This makes no sense! I need the work, you need the business, they need to get the work done… can't we all just get along?

TheAngel: I know. I know. It doesn't make any sense.

TwoBusy: And you said they hate everyone!

TheAngel: They do! I wasn't kidding about that at all. I'm stunned that they liked you so much… and despite that, they still won't give you the job.

TwoBusy: It's because I'm too awesome. My awesomeness is holding me back.

TheAngel: Basically.

TwoBusy: So instead of giving the work to the guy who's superqualified and who would kick ass all over the place for them, they're going to look somewhere else… and I'm going to go back to repainting my kids' rooms.

TheAngel: Maybe I'll give them a call back tomorrow and see if I can reason with them. You'd think we could find a way to work this out. I'll do that, alright?

TwoBusy: Remind me to be less awesome the next time I go in for an interview.

TheAngel: I can do that.

TwoBusy: I could leave my fly open, or chew gum the whole time.

TheAngel: Perfect.

TwoBusy: Great! Wonderful! Thanks for the call!

TheAngel: Don't be down about this.

TwoBusy: I'm not. I'm so happy I think my head's going to explode.

(curtain)

1. One of my favorite words these days is free — and with that in mind, I invite you to join me in grabbing a free download of the entire new CD by The Hush Nows (Thanks to Bradley's Almanac for the hook-up)… who, according to the Boston Phoenix, "deal in the lush, sugar-spun melodies of shoegaze’s dreamy heyday while also punching up their songs with the hooky muscle of bands like Guided by Voices and Built To Spill." In other words, it's taaaaasty… and it's free. Enjoy.

2. Speaking of cool Boston bands worthy of recognition beyond Boston, Caspian is hard at work on a new album. Expectations – mine, at least – are sky-high following their astonishing sophomore effort, The Four Trees… although the accounts and sound-snippets they're offering on their blog seem to suggest that's not an unattainable goal. No idea of what I'm talking about? Think "Explosions in the Sky"… and then check out Some are White Light or Moksha on their MySpace page.

3. In case you're reading this through a feed and somehow are missing my brilliantly compelling music and book reviews (think of them as delicious side dishes, adding that certain je ne sais quoi to the overwhelming umami experience of my entrée posts), then I compel you – and I mean that in the purest Exorcist sense of the word – to check out Lowgold, one of my favorite new discoveries. In overall sound, they seem to echo Keane or The Perishers (or, in some ways, Coldplay — except for the fact that 1) they don't suck and 2) you don't feel like you want to slap them silly)… melancholy Britpop that goes down smooth and easy.

All of which was more than enough for me to track down and enjoy the bulk of their catalogue (used: otherwise, they're only available as pricey imports)… and then I discovered their videos, and my appreciation for them grew even more. Why? Because while their music is thoughtful and emotionally rich and more than a little on the dark gray side (witness the title of their 2005 release, Keep Music Miserable), their videos unveil a band profoundly unwilling to take themselves seriously. It's completely disarming, totally incongruous with the music itself, and absolutely charming. Witness We Don't Have Much Time below… and enjoy the lunging.

4. Clearly, I have an insatiable hunger for human flesh music… what am I missing? Who do I need to check out? Don't be afraid to make suggestions – hell, The Velvet Blog actually got me to like a Seals & Crofts song recently – but be prepared for open mockery. Just pretend you're feeding a live bear: things could go wonderfully… or tragically wrong. Either way, though, I (the bear) plan to enjoy myself.

Yesterday afternoon, I got a voicemail message from one of my favorite headhunters. She said she'd seen a job that might be appropriate for me on Indeed.com, and to give her a call about it.

Of course, as an active, avid and still-unsuccessful job seeker, I'm not only on Indeed (and about 20 other sites) every day… I'm hooked into daily e-mails which update me to every possible job that appears on the interweb that I might be qualified for. Subsequently, as soon as she asked the question, I had a pretty good idea of what she was talking about.

It was a job I'd first seen posted back in December – and had decided not to pursue – but that apparently was re-posted on Tuesday. A job with a local business to which, as I discovered when first looking into it before the holidays, I had some ties.

When you look at my resume, you see two long and fruitful tenures with two different organizations, and in between… a third, far briefer professional experience. After getting laid off at the end of 2001 (during the last massive recession), I spent the better part of nine months working for myself — picking up freelance work here and there, and doing a lot of home improvement stuff in the interim. TheWife's job remained steady throughout, fortunately, and the rather generous severance package I'd received allowed us to stay afloat without undue discomfort.

But as the summer of 2002 began drawing to a close, I was getting anxious. The professional landscape for people like me was barren – just a complete, desolate wasteland – to the point that I remember going entire months without seeing a single application-worthy listing on Monster or Hotjobs. So when this job popped up, I applied immediately… and was thrilled, a week or two later, when they called me in for an interview. Which seemed to go reasonably well; they were a somewhat different animal than my previous employer, but I felt confident (and apparently persuaded them, as well) that my skills would translate admirably.

For their part, they seemed a business in transition. A year and a half earlier, they'd been a thriving, growing concern… but any number of unspecified factors had caused them to cut personnel significantly, and abandon their office space for a weird sublet scenario where they occupied one small corner of another company's floor in one of Boston's larger office buildings. But they claimed: we are rebuilding. We will be great again. And so I, in no position to argue, believed them. An agreement was struck, and I was on to the next step in my career.

Things began to go wrong almost immediately. On the day I joined, there were probably a dozen people in the organization — four of whom were in my group. Two weeks in… one of them resigned. Four weeks after that, an EVP and leader of my group (and woman who hired me) resigned. Leaving me and one other guy, who I'll call Mr. Sparrow, as the entire department.

This was going well.

Meanwhile, I was becoming familiar with the dynamics of the organization. The President and Founder (and namesake of the company) was personable enough… when he was around. Apparently, he preferred puttering around his house in one of Boston's wealthiest suburbs to actually being on-site, so we rarely saw him in the office for more than two or three hours a day. And when he was there… well, he wasn't really there. One of my new colleagues told me that some of the employees called him "Mr. Magoo," and soon enough I saw why — whenever we saw him, he appeared to be drifting around aimlessly: drifting through the offices and cubes, utterly saturated with a kind of blind, blissful ignorance to any and every concern of his business world. One in a blue moon, he'd hold a meeting in which he'd throw out ideas – which we were expected to applaud for their brilliance and insight – and then he'd disappear again, back to his office refuge, back to his big black imported car, back to the safety of home.

Which led to the question: who was actually running the show? The answer was one of his two EVPs (and, soon enough, his only EVP), who we'll refer to here as The Wicked Witch of the West.

She was, beyond question, the single most violently insane individual I've ever encountered in any professional situation. I have no doubt she was legitimately unbalanced: completely irrational, unstoppably confrontational, given to screaming – yes, screaming – at colleagues and subordinates, and then in the blink of an eye or at the ring of a phone turning off the crazy with instant, impossible ease (think: flipping off a light switch) and launching into the most sickly-sweet, nausea-inducing fake…

This wasn't just a case of the inmates running the asylum. This was the queen of the whackos, taking control and driving the entire concern straight into the ground, while the one person – the only person – who could have changed things for the better allowed himself to be completely oblivious to the entire situation.

Which is why the business wasn't just downsizing as a function of reducing personnel and expenses; people were actively fleeing the company at top speed. The woman who hired me? Apparently she grew tired of fighting The Wicked Witch and Mr. Magoo, and decided for the sake of her own sanity to go off and try something on her own. As did my other 2-week colleague. As had, apparently, several other talented people over the course of the previous year.

But. I was new to the organization, and my confidence was shaky after nine months of wandering through the wilderness of unemployent. This was not a boat I was going to rock. Especially given: TheWife was pregnant. Knocked up. With our first kid. And would be going on maternity leave in the spring. Regardless of how quickly I discovered that there was something drastically wrong with this professional scenario… this was a job I needed. So: I buckled down. Took the screaming. Did what I could. Adapted when my collaborators dropped like flies around me. Took the screaming. Actually tried to take steps for the good of the "team" by helping them to find a replacement for the departed — my friend Swoosh. (Who has yet to forgive me, btw.) Took the screaming. And the screaming. And the irrationality. And the lies, about who told who to do what and when. And the pointed fingers, and the false accusations. And the screaming. And the micromanagement, from both The Wicked Witch and one particularly evil minion who was generally referred to as Mini-Me (given his apparent desire to emulate the Wicked Witch of the West in every way, shape and form). And the undermining. And the omnipresent disrespect. And the screaming.

I kept my head down. I weathered the beatings. I didn't complain, when my job evolved from what I was told it would be (doing something potentially interesting) into something completely different (a role vaguely related but so horrifyingly dull that I'd rather sell organs then ever contemplate doing that for a living again). I brought in my talented friend, and together with Mr. Sparrow we tried to do good work, only to be beaten down – time and again – by The Wicked Witch and Mini-Me.

I think it was February when I finally figured out it was killing me. The winter of '02-'03 was a particularly brutal one in Boston – I actually got mild frostbite on my cheeks just standing and waiting for the train one morning – and between the relentless cold and massive snowfall, it certainly seemed to reflect the joy of my overall experience. I remember one morning, coming inside after shoveling my driveway (this occurred before I discovered the rewards of snowblowing) foll
owing the winter's most recent slap in the face, drenched in wet snow and sweat…

I was literally shaking with rage. Because for the two-plus hours I'd been outside, clearing the wet, heavy snow away from our driveway, our back and front walks, our front and back stairs, stabbing downwards with the shovel and lifting up and throwing away great, sodden slabs of frozen winter torment… every time I stabbed downwards, and every time I threw my body into propelling the snow up and away from pavement, I was reliving every time I'd been screamed at, and belittled, and undermined, and lied to and lied about, and harassed and troubled and tortured by these colossal fucking morons. My teeth were locked in a rictus grimace. My fingers and arms twitched uncontrollably. I could hardly even blink, I was so overwhelmed by anger.

And TheWife – god bless her – said, "You can't do this any more."

I tried. I tried to keep it up. For another month, I tried. But things just got worse. Every day, in brand new and horrifying ways, things got worse. It was an utterly toxic environment, and every day felt like a kind of dying.

Finally, TheWife and I talked it over. And we decided. And so, in mid-March, 2003, I came into work, grabbed Mr. Sparrow, and said, "Let's go for a walk." I told him that I'd decided to leave. He was completely unsurprised. He was just as miserable as I was, but was accustomed to the beatings, and unwilling to take a stand (for himself, or for his people). He asked if I had anything else lined up. I told him: "No. I just need to get out of here." He nodded, then returned wordlessly to his office so I could give my news to the President, Mr. Magoo.

(Swoosh, needless to say, was thrilled. "You brought me into this hellhole, and now you're leaving me here alone?")

(I am such a good friend.)

So. I had my little talk with Mr. Magoo. Decided it was pointless to say, "I'm quitting because my hatred of The Wicked Witch of the West and Mini-Me has reached the point where, if I don't leave, I'm going to kill one or both of them."  (Only a partial exaggeration, by the way. I wouldn't have killed anyone, but odds of me losing it and finally – joyously – beating the crap out of someone were rising to dangerously high levels.) Instead, I manufactured an excuse about the way the job had changed from A (what I'd been hired to do) to B (what I was actually doing), and that it was time for me to move on. He seemed confused – what a pleasant surprise! – but had no choice but to accept my two weeks' notice. And a little while later, I walked out of his office, my heart absolutely bursting with glee. I had to restrain myself to keep from singing.

I made it through my two weeks, and – in what can only be described as a miraculously fortuitous confluence of events – made it through virtualy the entire 10-day period without speaking to The Wicked Witch or Mini-Me.

On the last day of March, I walked out of the building for the last time and stepped into a future defined by daunting uncertainty. The economy was still in the tank, and I had no serious job prospects to speak of. Because I'd resigned, I couldn't collect unemployment. In just over a week, my wife was going to give birth to our first child. And I felt. Fucking. Great.

Flash forward to this past December. When I first saw the job posting, and the company name rang a vague bell. And then I figured it out: this is the company that the EVP started, and for whom Mr. Sparrow is now a VP in his own right.

And what I'd decided was: my experience of '02-'03 was not necessarily the fault of either one of them, but nevertheless I wasn't eager to recreate that experience or any reasonable facsimiles thereof. And my ambivalence meant I didn't apply.

But. When my headhunter called… I figured that was a tipping point. I gave her a brief rundown on how I'd worked with two of the main people at this company before, and I wasn't sure if or how they'd react to my name. But if she wanted to try to get the ball rolling… sure: why not.

Twenty minutes later, she called me back. The first thing she said: "He hung up on me."

I burst into laughter. Couldn't help myself. Then she explained: she'd gotten through to him, then launched into her big headhunter pitch about everything she does, everyone she knows, etc. He was cold at first, then got borderline hostile as the call went on. By the time she mentioned that she'd seen the posting and that she knew me and would there be any interest… he growled at her, "That position's been filled" and, less than a minute later, hung up on her.

"Wow," I said. I was still laughing. "I guess he hates me."

"I'm pretty sure he hates me. I don't know how he feels about you." she replied.

And thus, the good times continue to roll.

A helpful suggestion from TheWife: If you're applying for a position as an Editor… you might want to consider not sending in the following to potential employers:

1) A brief cover letter that combines terrible writing and sentence structure with 2 (two) very obvious grammatical errors. Strike one.

2) A resume including 3 (three) typos that MS Word has gone to the trouble of underlining in zigzag red, thereby pointing out that you somehow managed to misspell client, frequent and policy. Strike two.

3) A resume that is still, in fact, in edit mode… with virtually all content highlighted in vivid red type and happy little dashed lines leading to chipper red boxes showing the breathtaking expanse of additional mistakes you made and corrected before hitting "save" and then deciding it was a good idea to send this in. Strike three.

TheWife's comment: "Good thing attention to detail isn't an important editorial function."