Not Non-Fiction

A typical day of my adult life, as imagined by me as a kid, watching television, circa 1979:

I stumble out of bed and wander aimlessly with my eyes closed. Because I’m not fully conscious I step out of the window and wander onto a construction site where a series of well-timed girders lifted by cranes carry me up at least a dozen floors of an unfinished skyscraper. I make my way along more girders, blissfully unaware that I’m over a hundred feet off the ground and step into a large steel pipe just as it passes by. The pipe is lowered to the ground just in time for me to step out of it. I walk back into my apartment into the bathroom where I manage to shower, shave, and get fully dressed, somehow without ever taking off my full-length pajamas.

My roommates and I who, in spite of all having full-time jobs, are always in the apartment together, discover we don’t have the month’s rent which is due today. Or we had it and misplaced it under the couch cushions, or accidentally handed it over to the neighbor with his morning newspaper and now he’s on a trip to Paris and we have no way to get into his apartment to get the envelope with the rent in it.

I set off to take a part-time job, in spite of having a full-time job, that’s guaranteed to pay me just enough money for the rent. Rent, in fact, is our only expense; food and a constantly shifting wardrobe just somehow take care of themselves.

Getting to the job involves a car chase. I’m not sure exactly why it involves a car chase but I’ll be driving a Cadillac Fleetwood nine-passenger sedan–green, of course–at high speed around corners and over hills, flying into the air, possibly while chased by police, or just by another person who will be conveniently stopped by a passing train.

Inevitably two guys will be carrying a large pane of glass across the street just in time for me to drive through and break it into a million pieces. I feel bad about this, but, making it even worse, they’ll be carrying a replacement pane of glass just in time for the other person or the cops to drive through.

The job will take me to the jungle which is not only in another country but another continent but it only takes me a few minutes to get there. While traveling through the jungle I will, of course, encounter quicksand which, in spite of looking like nothing more than extremely watery oatmeal, has the astounding power to pull me under. Slowly.

Using a convenient branch or rope I’ll pull myself free from the quicksand, and within a minute I’ll be completely clean and dry. This is fortunate because next I’ll have to worry about the erupting volcano. I’ll be able to outrun the lava and make an escape over a rickety rope and wood bridge.

Once safely over the bridge I’ll pause to watch the bridge collapse and everything on the other side be swallowed up by the destruction.

At some point in this process I will acquire the rent money and will get home just in time to hand it over to the landlord who will laugh and remind me that we gave him the rent money yesterday, and the whole thing was one big misunderstanding.

Miraculously all this will take place in less than thirty minutes.

Hello Everybody,

The holidays are finally here. It’s my time to take up my usual position watching over everything. Most of you set me up to keep an eye on your kids. I do, but I’m watching you too. Some of you obviously know that. Some of you do things I wish I hadn’t seen. Some of you do some pretty awful things just because you know I’m watching.

I want you to know how much I hate all of you.

I didn’t even want this job. This was supposed to be temporary, or a compromise. The Boss couldn’t keep an eye on everybody all the time, in spite of what you’ve heard. Every year the list gets longer and double-checking it is hard enough. I was supposed to only have this job while I was studying for dental school but somehow it’s ended up being a full-time occupation.

Maybe it was because I was always a rule-follower, unlike most of my peers. I was a misfit, if you will, but the wrong kind of misfit. I wasn’t the cool kind of misfit, the kind everyone admires and even aspires to be. Almost everyone. That type is overrated, if you ask me, and a menace. That’s why I was the one who reported that gang smoking behind the gym. Addiction, lung cancer, not to mention the danger of starting a fire. I tried to be discreet about it but since I’d told them to stop first it was obvious who reported them.

I had to develop my own coping strategies after that, like always being sick on days when we played dodgeball.

For the same reason I tried to turn in my senior class for the prank they were planning to pull. The adults didn’t take that nearly as seriously as I thought they should, but who did they think was going to clean up all that shaving cream? Being on school property after hours was no joke either.  

Sometimes I think this is all a punishment, but I can’t believe the Boss is that vindictive. Look at how he still put Rudolph in charge after all the trouble he caused. There’s a real misfit for you.

I also know the dislike is, in many cases, mutual. Some of you don’t even want me around. Some of you think I’m creepy, or that I’m teaching kids to be too casual about surveillance. Well, you can’t be too careful, but, gradually, I’ve come to think that there might be some things that can be allowed to slide. There are some secrets I’ll keep from the Boss, depending on what they are.

It wouldn’t hurt if you’d pass some of the milk and cookies my way once in a while too.

Sincerely,

The Elf On The Shelf

The other night my wife asked for Salisbury steak, the only thing to ever come out of Salisbury except for Stonehenge which, admittedly, doesn’t count, because Stonehenge has never left Salisbury and the stones that form it are from Wales anyway. And Salisbury steak isn’t really steak, either, but ground beef that’s usually swimming in brown gravy and, at least in my experience, is used to hide a great big hunk of gristle, although if it’s properly prepared this is placed in the exact middle so you can get halfway through it before you hit the chewy, tasteless center.

According to culinary history the Salisbury steak dates back to the 19^th century and in fact all Salisbury steak served in American households up to 1987 was made in the 19^th century and was among the first foods to be frozen commercially with the invention of electric refrigeration in the 1890s. Over one million servings of Salisbury steaks were placed, along with peas and cubed carrots, a cup of surplus potatoes that had been dried, ground into powder, bound back into a dried, solid form, used as classroom chalk, re-collected, reconstituted with water, and seasoned gently with salt, and a scoop of baked apples from the disastrous Apple Surplus that afflicted Washington State in the summer of 1899, all of which was placed  in aluminum trays which were then sealed in cardboard boxes and placed in a storage facility in the Sierra Nevada mountains. They were then released in the early 1950’s with the widespread popularity of the television finally giving these “TV dinners” a reason to be served and, with the invention of the television tray, a place to be served.

Since the 1980’s the popularity and consistency of Salisbury steak has waxed and waned, with one of the principle ingredients from 1989 to 1991 being wax, and, from 1993 to 1994, wane, an unstable substance that disappears as soon as it’s exposed to air or anything else.

While it remains a staple of the frozen food industry to many a comfort food, particularly for those who grew up in generations where a TV dinner was a nice way to give one or both parents a break from cooking, and, for younger generations it’s a “retro dish” that, unlike some of its earlier versions, is often made with actual beef. Ironically the future of Salisbury steak may also be entirely meatless with vegetarian and even vegan versions becoming available and food scientists experimenting with various substances, including uncured, natural latex, magma, and recycled Nickelback CDs to produce the texture and lack of taste provided by the traditional gristle center.

What else does the future of Salisbury steak hold? It’s difficult to say but when I asked my wife how hers was she said, “Pretty good,” a description of Salisbury steak that hasn’t been heard since the construction of Stonehenge.