Monthly Archives: October 2017

The sadists among us…

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I don’t like going to the dentist. You’d never know it from the amount of money that I’ve dumped into my teeth over the last 20 years, but I don’t. That’s probably why I generally put it off as long as possible between visits. I’ve convinced myself that the most logical approach is not to worry about it until something hurts and then I can have the issue addressed. Yes, I know that idea probably compounds the issues and means more time in the chair… but at least those times are less frequent.

I don’t mean to imply I have a random phobia of the dentist. It’s not like being afraid of spiders or thing that lurk in the dark. I avoid the dentist for good reason, the best reason – childhood trauma. My reluctance to fully commit to a modern dentistry stems all the way back to the early mid-1990s. That’s when the old dentist I saw as a kid decided that since it was a small cavity, he could go after it without Novocain and be finished in a jiffy.

As it turns out, having someone drill on a molar without numbing it up first hurts like a mother. I don’t recommend it. You might say that I’m pain intolerant. Being the rational creature that I am, I seek to minimize painful experiences. Which leads me back to the original statement: I don’t like going to the dentist.

I’m sure they’re perfectly good people and that they have the science to back themselves up… but you’re never going entirely convince me that dentistry isn’t just a vast conspiracy of the most sadistic among us to inflict pain on the masses under their diabolical cover as medical professionals.

The age of conquest…

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jdtharp's avatarJEFFREYTHARP.COM

Columbus Day is one of those odd holidays that no one enjoys unless you’re Italian, work for a bank, or find yourself in the employ of the federal government. There are plenty of hand-wringers out there who tell us that it’s Indigenous People’s Day or that there should be no celebration at all commemorating the arrival of Europeans in the New World – I also choose not to quibble about things like who got here when or whether it should be Lief Erikson Day. The concept of discovery is more important than the individual act itself. And to those out there wanting to argue that you can’t “discover” a place where people already life, I mostly say “nuts.” Columbus and his crew discovered territory that, to them and to most of Europe at the time, was new and wholly unexpected. Call it a flapjack and it’s still a rose by…

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What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Pulling it out of your ass. There are any number of things that you should never have to worry about pulling out of your ass – gerbils, light bulbs, the usual. If you spend enough time making the hard to do seem easy and the impossible just a touch harder than that, sooner or later people will come to expect it… and then that time when you can’t deliver there will be hell to pay. The longer I serve the bureaucracy, I realize Chief Engineer Scott wasn’t actually a miracle worker. He was an expert at pulling things out of his ass and had an unlimited pool of good luck. Most pools aren’t nearly so limitless.

2. Panhandlers. How high would you have to be to try getting money from me when I’m pumping gas? The fired and true death stare wasn’t effective, but the growled command to “step. back.” apparently got his attention. His mouth worked, trying to form words while his addled mind struggled mightily to come up with something to say and then he did finally backed away slowly. I’m not saying I would beat someone to death using the end of a running gasoline hose like a medieval flail… but I’m not saying I wouldn’t if properly provoked.

3. People. I know many of you will find this hard to believe, but I legitimately want to like people. I want to assume the best about them and hell, maybe even be friendly… and then I go out into the world and actually meet people going about their business and find myself wondering how the hell they function in society and how quickly I can get away from them and back into the peaceful, access controlled confines of Fortress Jeff. Every day that ticks by seems to leave me with that much less patience for suffering fools… and yet the sheer volume of fools that must be suffered appears to grow exponentially.

Leave, the annual kind…

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Today I was sitting at my desk around 9AM lamenting that it was only Wednesday and there were still hours to go in the first half of the week.

After a moment’s pause, I realized a few important things:

1) There is a three day weekend incoming;

2) I still have 40 hours of use or lose annual leave on the books;

3) I just got my 40-hour performance award (because I’ll take time off instead of cash money every time); and

4) Starting on January 13th, I’ll be earning 8 hours of annual leave a pay period in recognition of the fact that I’ve managed to not get fired or dropped dead since signing on with Uncle fifteen years ago.

After completing the required paperwork – because truly nothing moves in the bureaucracy without the required paperwork – I’ve effectively created a time machine by which I can skip one of the annoying days in the middle of the week and head directly into the weekend starting at close of business tomorrow.

That’s made Wednesday far more tolerable on just about every level.

The conspiring universe…

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​One by one the stars of my youth are disappearing, their work now just a memory stored in iTunes or on a plastic disk. It’s like watching a constellation you’ve known your entire life slowly shifting and changing its place in the night sky.

This is apparently staring into the teeth of your 40th year.

No one tells you that after half a lifetime of gathering together the thing you love, the universe will conspire to start slowly stripping those things away from you… and I’m not at all sure if its tragedy or farce.