Grown Up Grown Ups

Nothing has so thoroughly impressed upon me how severely pathetic humankind is as the experience of working in a cube farm.

I worked in IT. This meant that I was in a unique position. On the one hand I was removed from the food chain of status symbols, and on the other I was frequently the personal bitch of whoever called the help line.

I worked in basically a three cube by four cube space that had become the IT office. This was my first "real" job where I was paid by somebody else, wasn't a camp counselor, and wasn't selling things door to door. Calling me naive was an understatement.

There was a woman who was lurking near my peripheral vision as I worked my first day. After five minutes or so I felt nervous, and after about ten I started thinking I must be doing something wrong.

"Um, can I help you?"

"I'm looking for Rob."

"Well he's not here right now, but I'm the new intern, can I help?"

"Well, I was wondering if you could move me up the list."

"The list?"

"Of who gets a new monitor. I really need one, it would help increase my productivity."

If there even was such a list I was pretty skeptical that begging moved you anywhere you wanted to go on it, but mostly I was skeptical why a woman so invested in her workplace productivity was lurking for prolonged periods outside my office.

As spring break progressed I became increasingly aware of the hierarchy of the approximately 400 person office. The best thing was to have a big office, followed by a small office, followed by a window cube, followed by a large cube, followed by a phone with caller ID, followed by an LCD monitor, followed by a big CRT. There were subrankings of various sizes of monitors. All higher rankings automatically got the stuff the lower rankings had. Accounting seemed to be the people everybody else looked down on to feel better. It was probably the only place I knew where people in 2007 would fight over the size of their CRTs.

***

"So, what can I do?"

"We need to replace some phones." My boss pointed gave me a box of nice new phones with all the gadgets you would never really need to use and a list of persons to deliver them to. All of them were delivered to large offices where important old men sat. Oddly enough these old phones seemed rather nice, and an odd thing to be replacing when I had seen far rattier phones while walking around accounting. It was not long before I had filled the box with the replaced phones, which I brought back to my boss.

"What should I do with these?"

My boss presented me with another list. "Give these people those phones." This list consisted of people in smaller offices with the odd window cube thrown in. Their rejected phones went to the double cubes, which went to the single cubes, all the way down the poor man in accounting who grinned at his new ratty 1980's attrosity like a five year old at christmas.

This was my life: monitors, cube moves, new phones, all had to be brought down the food chain item by item to preserve the hiarchy of power. My primary purpose was to push the little cart around delivering the goodies nobody in their right mind should actually care about from place to place.

***

I dimly remember the pre-hippy days. I remember that my daycare was called "Mother's Day Out," and that I use to beg to spend as much time there as possible. I remember that there was a small slide in the corner, and under the slide was a box-like structure with round holes in each side. This was my fort, and from this place I would sometimes quietly curl up and watch the goings on in the play area with my toy squirrel.

"What are you doing?" some girl called. I remember that she wore a white flowered shirt, and that she was a lot bigger than me.

"This is my space, and I like it."

"Oh yeah?" The girl stomped up the slide adjacent to the box and sat atop my hideaway, swinging her feet across my vision, "Well this is my spot, and its better."

***

"And," the old man asked as I ran cords and adjusted the computer system, "is this a good phone?"

"Same one I have in my office, I think its pretty nice."

"Hrm..."

The man leaned back in his chair, "Well, I suppose IT knows how to get the good things don't they?" I chuckled politely. He watched me for a moment before leaning forward to ask, "Is this better than my old phone?"

I had no idea what the factual answer was but I knew what I was suppose to say, "Oh yes, its one of the nicest phones in the building."

***

"Uggggggggggh," Playlist rolled his eyes.

"What?"

"So my brother bought some new shades using my ebay account. They were Oakley brand, but when we got them we found out they were in fact 'Oakey' brand and he didn't really like them...so he went to resell them. The new buyer also got upset that they're 'Oakey' brand but it turns out they really are Oakleys its just they write the official logo funny..."

***

We're obsessed with stupid status symbols we have invented to make ourselves feel superior to others. I guess I'm not shocked by that, but I am impressed that we don't even know what the symbols are suppose to be anymore.

***

"Shit!"

Michael grins at Mandela and leans over and says the word as loud as he dares, which isn't very loud in fourth grade.

"You can't SAY that."

"Yes I can."

"Teacher's going to hear you!"

"Not unless you rat, are you a rat?"

Mandela crossed her arms and hugged them to herself, "Bet you don't even know what it means!"

Michael scowls at her. Its evident she's right and that he's lost face for it.

***

"Alright so if we leverage rapid prototyping with our available resources for sensor fusion..."

"Which sensors?"

"What?"

"I...can we try that again in plain English? I'm not understanding what you intend to do."

"So...if we..." the voice trails off and I'm faced with an eerily familiar scowl.

***

"Mmmm mmmm," the lady next to me at the lunch table in the cafeteria says, "that woman is a BITCH."

"Oh you can't talk like that," says the other stranger, "Do you know who she is?"

"Girl, I don't CARE who she is, and I don't care who her friends are. I got higher friends than her. I ain't afraid of her."

***

Everybody always seemed big to me, but Laura was big to everybody. She towered over Mime and me. I was too foolish to be afraid of her, but Mime was quite busy with alternately being terrified and adoring this girl.

"She has an older brother," I remember Mime telling me, "He's very old, like 12. He shows her the movie Batman and has lots of teenager friends."

I remember not being adiquately impressed by these attributes in Mime's mind, much to her dismay. "Look, she's the coolest kid, you'd better be nice."

Now the three of us were standing talking, Laura leering over us as usual, "You don't have an older brother," she said to me, "who makes you cool?"

***

I'm texting back and forth with my sister. She just got in another fight with mom.

"Yeah sometimes that happens. Try to stay cool."
"I cant i ask her one thing and then she starts telling me CRAP about wat i said along time ago and it pisses me off :("
"Don't blame you. Still just stay cool or you'll give her some ammo to throw back at you later."
"Ok i will try its just that she talks about herself ALOT."
"Yeah. You will kinda notice very few grown ups ever actually grew up."
"Hahahaha you got that right :)"

We're All Adults Here

[So...big pause...I'm working on a large-thought post...hope to finish it later this week. Not that it will be especially profound, those posts are just a lot more time consuming.]

My brother, Isaac, has come to visit today.

He's going to community college next year. He keeps asking me what I think of that, and I keep saying "whatever makes you happy man." It kills me a little that he's talking about considering going to community college for English. If you're going to piss away four years of your life on a useless degree at least do it in a pretty location with some good drinking pals...get the full experience. God knows Mom would spring for it.

"He's not ready to go so far afield." Mom says.

Far afield? The school in question is right next to my high school...and not more than an exit from the middle school he attended at the time. He went that far every morning then...why not now?

"Well, I'm going to take Mom's advice," he says.

Ugh.

Its several hours later now, he's standing in my kitchen. Gilby is wandering around making dinner. We have come to a truce in some sense, I think everybody has calmed down since his move-in and found a little common ground. I'm cooking a vat of plain pasta for my brother, who is strolling around the kitchen venting his excitement by fluttering his arms and hands as he walks, grinning to himself.

"You want some sauce for your pasta?" Gilby asks him.

I find myself answering on my brother's behalf before he does, "No, he doesn't like that, he likes it plain."

"Maybe...some pasta sauce from a jar then if he doesn't like mine?"

"No, he eats things plain, he's like Hannalore."

Gilby grins a little, "There are more people like Hannalore?"

"Yup."

We share a few minutes of comfortable silence as the grease bubbles on the stove and my brother paces. I can't help but compare my brother and Gilby. Gilby may be immature and stupid but I still think of him as my peer in some sense, which is probably why I give him such a rough time on all his flaws.

"When's your birthday Gilby?"

Gilby looks up from a pan of hot greese and steak bits to tell me.

"Huh," I said, "Hey Isaac, you're twins with Gilby, what do you think of that?"

Gilby smiled, "Yeah, but not the same year."

"Guess again."

Isaac is pretty excited by this. "What time of day?" he asks. Gilby doesn't know, and this frustrates Isaac. I drain his pasta and begin serving him a portion.

"I can do it myself," Isaac informs me and takes the tongs and plate for himself.

Oh...yes...of course. I stutter mentally. I can't treat him like this, after all, would I ever serve Gilby his pasta? I'd tell him to get his lazy ass up to the stove and do it himself.

I watch Isaac, quietly marveling how much his coordination has improved. He use to be unable to throw and catch a ball. A physical therapist would throw and catch with him for hours. First she would roll a ball to him on the ground which he would capture and return. It was ages before he could catch it in the air himself. He found it infuriating. My parents would bribe him with candy and anything his heart desired to get him to keep trying. I remember running in front of him and catching the ball instead, hoping to get the same amount of praise. It didn't quite work like that.

I've never regarded my brother as disabled. I have, since a very young age, always known he was different, but it had been ages since I had compared him to anybody. I avoid it normally, try to take him as he comes.

I find that he is older than the high school kids I coach, and yet requires more care and supervision. I find that my middle school sister is beginning to overtake him in many ways, and that it is growing far easier to bond to her than to him.

You can't treat him like a normal person. If a normal person talked to me with the same ignorant narrow-minded black-and-white view of the world I wouldn't hang out with them. Depending on my mood I'd probably also tell that person off too. Personal beliefs aside, its pretty difficult to hold conversations with somebody who has, medically speaking, pretty much no sense of subtlety.

Yet, to not take my brother's words and thoughts seriously, to shrug it off as simply as an artifact of a medical condition, is to not take him seriously as a peer who requires my respect as a fellow human being. He can sense when I do this, and it infuriates him. After all, what right do I have to treat somebody only three years younger than myself as a child?

I'm almost positive both of us have expressed at some point in our lives, although never directly to each other, that we wish he simply needed a wheelchair instead. It would be so much easier on so many levels.

I'm telling Gilby and Isaac the story of the bar fight in the pancake house by this point.

"So we're in this pancake place...nice middle aged lady is our waitress...kinda heavset...wears a red checkered apron, big smile, calls you dear, asks you if you want gravy on your gravy..."

"Gravy on your gravy?" Isaac asks. "What about your food?"

"Its..." I pause, "you know the sort of place I mean. The place where everything comes with gravy."

"Ice cream?"

"Well...uh...not everything."

"She's evoking an archetype," Gilby said. He paused for a second. "How do you prounounce that?"

"Ar-keh-type," I responded.

My brother grinned. We were now discussing true and false statements, which is a favourite topic of his, "Yup! That's right!"

I nodded and continued my story, "So, there we are...and one of my friends...this kid is probably the whitest guy I know..."

Gilby grins and nods his head to my brother, not putting down his food, "Whiter than him?"

"I'm actually really pleased with my tan this summer," Isaac chirps excidedly.

Gilby starts cracking up.

"That's not quite what I meant," I said, looking at my food.

Isaac is puzzled, "What then?"

I put a chunk of meat in my mouth to chew to buy myself some time. We can make jokes at our own expense...I mean...we're all adults here...right?

Gilby, for once in his life, seems to be catching on. "Its another archetype."

We finished our meal and cleared the plates. My brother is thrilled. I can tell this meant a lot to him, and that he had a really good time. I walk him downstairs and let him out, then come back upstairs to help Gilby clear.

"Hey, thanks for..."

Gilby cuts me off with a laugh, "No, thank you for not being like your brother."

I feel like a total asshole but I laugh anyway. It definately is a relief when people acknowledge that we're not alike.

"Your brother has white-person syndrome...doesn't he?"

"What?"

"He's Asperger's."

I start cracking up again. It isn't even that funny, I'm just massively relieved.

"He's gone right?" Magpie pokes his head out the door of his room.

"Yeah," I said.

Magpie shakes his head, "You two are so mean."

"Aww come on," Gilby smiles, "We're all adults here..."