Monday, June 27, 2011

The Nail (originally written in May 1997)

I took a quick glance at my watch. 8:25 a.m. Great, I should be at Seattle U in 15 minutes, 20 tops. And that’s if there’s a “traffic slowdown”, which can be counted on like rain.

I am heading north on I-5 in my Honda Civic, just south of Boeing Field when it happened. I never even saw it, I don’t even know what it was but I sure heard it. There was a loud thump under the car. I mean loud. I quickly assessed the damage. The oil pressure looked good. The engine temperature was fine. Turning down the radio, I could hear that the engine sounded normal. Then the noise. It really didn’t sound fatal, but it was enough to make me pull over.

I signaled and made a quick maneuver across the 2 lanes with the skill and confidence of a seasoned Indy driver heading for the pits. I found the emergency lane and coasted to a stop. With only one foot on the ground I could already see the problem….. a flat tire. No problem, I can handle this, no one really looks for me until about 9:00 anyway. I’ll just grab the spare and get started.

Moving mountains of stuff that always seems to be above the spare tire compartment, I reach and find……oh no!! It’s one of those wimpy temporary tires about the size of a bagel. No Problem. I’ll change it and head into Seattle and have the original repaired for the drive home. I grab the jack, the lug wrench and all the other junk they give you for this experience and head up to tackle the job.

With cars whipping by at 70 miles an hour (ok, it Seattle, 35 mph) I kneel to loosen the lugs nuts. Oh no! The wrench is too small for the nuts. No problem. I am prepared. I’ll just grab my cell phone that I have just for this purpose and call AAA Road Service. By golly, I’m getting my $40 worth this year. I grab the cell phone and my wallet with a single movement only to find that I don’t have my AAA card. It’s in the van which is in front of the house. I’ll just give Melodie a call and ask her to get me the number. Oh no! I forgot that she was up all night with Alessandra who is sick with the flu. The poor girl has vomited nearly 15 times. The last I saw Melodie was finally getting some sleep.

Well I don’t have much choice. I’ll call and hope she understands. With some apprehension, I dial anyway. The line is busy. Well that’s OK at least I know I won’t be the one waking her. A few tries later, I finally reach her only to find out she was up because Ali had vomited once again. After a quick explanation she agrees to get the number and call me back.

5 minutes, 10 minutes, man its 8:45. She hasn’t called me back yet. Well I don’t want to act impatient, but I gotta get moving. I’ve been sitting on the side of the road for nearly 20 minutes reading the sports page. Traffic has slowed to about 10 miles per hour, and I notice that people won’t even look my direction. They probably would feel compelled to help me. It’s better to just pretend I’m not there. Even the cops ignore me.

I muster the nerve to call her and decide my strategy is humor. She answers and I say, “Melodie, I wanted to let you know that I actually have a flat tire right now instead of planning on having one, and I really need that number”. She tells me, “I did call, I left you a voice mail at the office, I didn’t know where you were.” I can’t believe it.  “Melodie, I thought if I told you that I had a flat tire, it might dawn on you that I was in the car and to call the cell number.” We had a good chuckle and I finally contact AAA. No problem they tell me, “Rudy’s Towing will be there in 15-20 minutes”. Great I’ll finish reading about the upcoming Sonics/Rockets game tonight.

I lift my eyes from the paper only to see a “WaSP” pulling in behind me. A Washington State Patrol. Down in California they have “Chips”, up here we have WaSPs. No problem, I tell him. I’ve got AAA on the way. I’m standing next to the epitome of machismo here in Washington and decide I’ll save face by telling him I would have been done and on my way if my lug wrench had of fit the lug nuts. Oh Great…. He wasn’t to take a look. Does he think I’m some ignorant stranded motorist? Sure glad I’ve got Washington plates on the Honda.

He takes one long look and tells me to remove the hubcap in order to get to the lug nuts. I get down and look again. He’s right; the nuts I was trying to fit the wrench onto are only plastic mock ones on a $5 wheel cover. The WaSP is really starting to bother me now. He actually wants to change the tire for me. I’m an American, keep your hands off my lug wrench.

I manage to regain my manhood and change the tire in such a fashion as to show him that it wasn’t my first. I lower the newly installed bagel to the pavement and thank him for his help. My pride is bruised, but I did appreciate his help. He lets me know that he’d already cancelled the tow truck.

I climb back in my car and pull into traffic, taking caution to follow all the steps one follows after having just received a ticket. Once I get back into the flow of things it occurs to me that I am still the object of ridicule and scorn.  People are actually staring and pointing at the bagel I was calling a front tire.

Ignoring jeers and insults, I fight my way to the office and found in the Yellow Pages a tire shop nearby. I limp in and they quickly repair the flat. I wait and wait for the bill. Finally I go up to the counter. “No charge”, he says. Maybe the day is going to turn for the better after all.

I have a genuine smile on my face as I pull away, windows down and enjoying the nice weather of the day. The sun was shining ever so brightly and the birds were singing. I turn onto South 4th Ave and as I do a large 5 ton flatbed truck comes barreling by. It passes, and then I hear it. “Ching…….ting………ting.”

I glance out of my window and see a large rusty nail that has just fallen of the truck. In slow motion I watch as it cartwheels across the warm asphalt right towards the path of my newly repaired tire.

I’m able to slow and swerve in time to miss the nail and its torpedo attitude. It comes to a completed stop just inches from where my tire is. I smile to myself. It’s going to be a great day after all. 

Thursday, January 27, 2011

The Mouse That Roared!! – Part 3 “The Next Issues and Period”

Editorial note: This is the third installment and will make little sense if read out of order. Please see earlier posts directly below.

Well once the members of SODE’ learned that Gary McCoy, company President had asked for more, we felt obligated to deliver. After all he was the boss.

We spend another week putting together the next issue. We continued and may have even upped the level of intensity. We attacked about 3 or 4 departments in this issue and even more in the subsequent issues. Since Gary had asked for “more of it” we felt we had been given a free pass.

We attacked and attacked, making less effort to cloud who and what we were attacking. Names of departments and certain managers was alluded to and in some cases spelled out entirely. This proved to be a poor decision. I believe if we had been less specific and left names out of the publication all would have gone as expected.

Another bad decision was that we as editors felt we could own up to our efforts. It wasn’t that we put our names on the paper but we didn’t keep our efforts anonymous either. If asked, we all agreed, we would admit we had been behind this. In hindsight it was a good thing that we had disassociated SODE’ with the paper because that would have put all of us, and maybe me individually, responsible for making Kandi cry a year or so earlier.

About 4 issues and 6 weeks later the word came down. Kevin, Bill, Ryan and I were “invited” to the ivory tower at the request of Gary McCoy. As we arrived at the admin office and looked at one another it was clear that no one really knew what was going on. But at the same time we were pretty sure that it had to do with our brainchild “The Mouse That Roared”.

When we stepped into Gary’s office that morning and saw all the past issues of TMTR our suspicion was confirmed. Gary invited us to sit down and then got right to the point. He held up the issues that were on his desk and said. “Enough, the only reason I don’t fire you here and now is that I stood in front of 45 managers and asked for more of this. However, it has gone too far. If you want to keep working for this company not another written word out of the four of you. Is that clear?”

Well I can’t speak for the other 3 members of SODE’ and coauthors of TMTR but I understood exactly what he meant and needed no further explanation. I reflected back on how foolish I had been in and felt really lucky that I hadn’t lost my job. I never mentioned this to Melodie. The SODE’ cartoons, the issues of TMTR or my brush with unemployment were not known to her until years after I left Mammoth

As we got into the elevator in the tower and headed down to “where we belonged”, there was no snickering or scoffing at how close we had come. We knew we had dodged a large bullet.

However, by the time we got ready to carpool home that night our spirits were lifted up and we came up with one last plan. We decided we needed to cease publication in a classy manner. We took our TMTR masthead and on the front page, just below it, put a large 4” black dot. The next day we sent out 10 copies as usual and let the Xerox crowd do the rest.

There was much speculation as to what it meant. Some thought it was a hidden message. Others thought it represented a hole that the mouse had crawled into. For us it was simply a punctuation mark, a period if you will, indicating that our work was finished.