Years ago, I had a themeless website where I collected and recorded things that interested me. I don't know what became of most of the stuff, but one thing I managed to save was a series of posts I wrote that I titled: "John Prine, You Wrote My Life."
In honor of John
I have no doubt John's songs have written millions of folks' experiences. These are mine.
John Prine, You Wrote My Life
a life unstuck in time (to borrow a phrase from Kurt Vonnegut, Jr),
so this story can go on and on in dis-order, added to at any time the whim (or need) arises
Chapter 8
Sweet Revenge©
---Sweet Revenge
I got kicked off Noah's Ark
I turn my cheek to unkind remarks
There was two of everything
But one of me
And when the rains came tumbling down
I held my breath and I stood my ground
And I watched that ship go sailing out to sea
Joani and I had the bright idea that we'd drink the champagne in the office while everyone else was out to lunch. The firey little redhead had finally gotten fed up with her disgusting and inconsiderate boss and quit. This cold, wintry San Francisco day was her last at that job. She'd blown a fuse and said a few choice things that made her last two weeks a bit tense. I think she said something to the effect that she'd rather sniff farts out of theater seats for fifty cents an hour, although those were not her exact words.
My early days of working in downtown San Francisco were a series of one bad job after another. I was getting pretty good at jumping from a frying pan into a fire. This particular job was at a small insurance brokerage - three salesmen, two secretaries, a receptionist, and a part-time accountant, who managed to juggle the books so completely that a three-month audit only drove the IRS agent to tears.
Joani's replacement was a far cry from the lively, fun-loving girl she had been. Mary was like an old hound dog - droopy eyes, hair plastered down on her brow, slow to move and reluctant to work. It was almost unbearable even to look at her. It seemed that she'd expire at any moment.
And the woman was odd. One day the receptionist came back into the office from visiting the ladies' room down the hall, red-faced and flustered. When I asked her what was wrong, she said she'd opened the restroom door to find Mary down on her knees, shoulders to the ground, and bare butt in the air. The explanation was that she had gas, and if she elevated her rear higher than her stomach, it could pass more easily. And the reason her skirt was hiked and her underwear down was in case there was any "substance" that passed along with the gas.
But I digress.
The bosses were bent out of shape about Joani having quit, seeing no fault of their own in the matter, so Joani's last day was not a celebratory one. She and I decided it should be otherwise, however, so I bought a bottle of champagne and brought it up to the office. We were alone for the lunch hour, so we thought we'd pop the cork and toast her freedom from the tyranny and low pay of Ellis & Company.
Neither of us had ever opened a champagne bottle before, and somehow the job fell to me. After struggling a great deal with it, I got the cork out. Way out. It shot to the ceiling, connected with a fluorescent light cover, and careened to East Jesus, or somewhere equally inaccessible, because we never did find it. Where the champagne went was another story, however. It erupted out of that bottle so fast I didn't have time to get it out of the way of my desk. We had typewriters in those days, and I guess it was fortunate I didn't ruin a computer. After I got Joani up off the floor and in control of her laughter enough to help me, we spent the rest of the lunch hour throwing open windows and trying to dry out papers.
We never got time to drink the quarter inch of champagne that remained in the bottle.
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