They’re saying that we’re officially in the land of recession, which can only mean that the end is near and we should go hang ourselves in the basements of our foreclosed homes.<\/p>\n
I’ll let you go do that before I continue.<\/p>\n
\nOkay, good.\u00a0 Those people are gone.\u00a0 May they rest in peace.\u00a0 Now…it’s you and me, GS reader.\u00a0 Let me tell you about people who don’t seem worried about the recession.\u00a0 The Other Half are still out there, and my weekend job brings me right into their strange world.<\/p>\n
My weekend job is seasonal.\u00a0 I’m a glorified janitor at a place that rents itself out to parties for almost 10k a pop.\u00a0 Throw in caterers, photographers, cakes, gowns, booze, florists, and lighting people and I find myself making a meager 20 bucks an hour at an event that costs, on average, $30,000.\u00a0 My job is to sit in a dark office, watch TV, read books, drink a little, and make sure these rich, inhuman motherfuckers don’t kill a schoolgirl or light the bathroom on fire.<\/p>\n
I look forward to winter.\u00a0 The job peters out in November and doesn’t pick up again till March, which gives me the chance to recuperate and scream in the shower.\u00a0 But, this year, everyone is changing their wedding plans.\u00a0 My boss has been inundated with calls from brides desperate to change everything at the last minute and get married in the winter.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Is it a financial fear?\u00a0 Is the world really going to end on 2012 and the rich people have been tipped off by God?\u00a0 No… It’s because all the shows and magazines geared towards brides have announced that fur is in.\u00a0 The magazines are talking about the winter wedding as the coolest thing you can possibly do.\u00a0 Consequently, I’ve found myself with multiple winter gigs.\u00a0 The first is this month — with a fur outfit being featured that was described by my boss as \u201csomething the White Witch would wear.\u201d\u00a0 The cost of the gown, in addition to that 30k for the wedding itself, is 10k.\u00a0 A full fur bridal gown and headdress.\u00a0 And that\u2019s real fur, mind you.<\/p>\n
I’m horrified but, of course, I’ll do the gig, collect the check, cash it, and feel nothing.\u00a0 Fuck everyone, man.\u00a0 Just send checks.\u00a0 Hell, if Hitler booked an event I’d sign up for the job.\u00a0 Yes, sir, Mr. Hitler!\u00a0 So perhaps it speaks volumes about my employer when I say that I am, nonetheless, horrified.\u00a0 The house where the events take place is owned by a bleeding heart environmentalist group.\u00a0 And, yet, they turn a blind eye to the Real Fur Freakout Wedding?\u00a0 Of course, they\u2019re also against wind power because it hurts the birds.\u00a0 And hydropower because it hurts the streams.\u00a0 And nuclear power.\u00a0 When you start to boil these environmentalists down, you find yourself with armchair liberals advocating \u201cclean coal\u201d and wearing $10,000 worth of seal fur.<\/p>\n
Maybe I\u2019d be a more conscientious employee if my employers weren\u2019t such fuckups.\u00a0 The only thing that keeps me from lighting my various places of employment on fire is my debt, which I\u2019m beginning to regret.\u00a0 Once, not long ago, I had no debt.\u00a0 I had a huge surplus.\u00a0 Why didn\u2019t I mow down my bosses when I had the chance?\u00a0 Now I have to kowtow to their collective middle-management irrational madness all in the hopes of acquiring a few pennies that I then fling uselessly at the people and corporations who demand money from me.<\/p>\n
Everything would seem hopeless and sad on these coming dark, wintry days\u2026if it wasn\u2019t for fur.\u00a0 At each wedding, I turn stealing booze into a cloak and dagger game.\u00a0 They store the booze in my office, so it\u2019s not hard, but I like to pretend that people are after me so I slither through bookshelves, whip bottles out of crates, stash them in various places, or run down the hall pretending to shoot wildly over my shoulder at imaginary pursuers.\u00a0 The goal is to take at least $150 worth of booze per event and, as a consequence, I never have to buy alcohol.\u00a0 Which is the only excuse I need to deflect claims that I\u2019m an alcoholic.\u00a0 If it\u2019s free, I can\u2019t be abusing it.\u00a0 Right?\u00a0 It\u2019s been metaphorically plucked from the trees, given to me by God Almighty, who granted me with grace, cunning, and a woeful lack of scruples.<\/p>\n
Come the deep winter months, though, things get rough.\u00a0 With the weddings ending around the first of November, I tend to run dry of the good booze by February.\u00a0 And that\u2019s when you need it the most, because the sun only shines for half an hour a day, I\u2019m trapped inside with the stink of death on me, and all of my fellow commuters have armed themselves and started to push each other onto the train tracks.\u00a0 Not an exaggeration — I\u2019ve seen that happen seven times in a decade of commuting downtown.<\/p>\n
February is usually when I\u2019m reduced to the dessert wine, the weird collectible rum that tastes like turpentine, and my bottomless stash of \u201ccannabis vodka\u201d that my demented cousins from West Virginia bring me.\u00a0 Basically just unmarked bottles of homemade vodka with a bunch of marijuana seeds rotting away at the bottom.\u00a0 I do what I can to avoid that, and the \u201cbathtub absinthe\u201d available from the same suppliers, because I always end up in a woman\u2019s dress down at the docks after a few shots.<\/p>\n
But now there\u2019s fur!\u00a0 Young brides can dress up like Tilda Swinton and walk around with a scepter made from the bones of Asian children and I\u2019ll be able to keep myself in winter liquor.\u00a0 What would February look like with high class vodka and gin on hand?\u00a0 Enough beer to make me not feel bad about leaving half a glass when I lose consciousness in the shower stall for two days?\u00a0 Fine wine that doesn\u2019t require chipping away crystallized sugar?\u00a0 What will February be like without bathtub absinthe and cannabis vodka?\u00a0 I\u2019ll probably stand a chance of actually remembering the month this time around.\u00a0 I\u2019ll be able to say, yes, February 2009!\u00a0 That was the month I sat around in the dark, making my own candles, kiting checks, avoiding family, wrapped in threadbare blankets, wishing for a fast and painless death.\u00a0 Ah!\u00a0 I remember it well!<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, somewhere, as you read this, there\u2019s an ugly bride dressed is seal fur admiring herself in a mirror that, miraculously, is not cracking when she smiles with her tiny animal teeth and giant, shiny gums.\u00a0 The universal mark of the uber-wealthy, inbred women of Washington.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
They’re saying that we’re officially in the land of recession, which can only mean that the end is near and we should go hang ourselves in the basements of our foreclosed homes. I’ll let you go do that before I …<\/p>\n