Shake, Rattle and Roll

Hello World,

Strange days indeed, as the late and lamented John Lennon once said, and he wasn't far off the mark, I can tell you that. People in these parts could be forgiven for wondering if Armageddon isn't coming a little bit earlier than the doomsayers have predicted in 2012, the way things are going around here, and you don't know what to expect next - which is probably just as well, because it could easily be something extremely bad, and you wouldn't want to know. It seems that somewhere along the line, what was supposed to be the Dog Days of August have turned instead into the Werewolves of London, and suddenly stocking up on silver bullets and wooden stakes doesn't seem like such a bad idea after all.

Anyone would think that a 5.9 magnitude earthquake in the rural Virginia countryside would not make much of a splash outside of the immediate area, and treated as a passing curiosity by everyone else. Not so fast! This unfriendly quake was felt from Florida to Maine, and as far west as Ohio, besides knocking out communications in the nation's capital, and shaking up everything in its wake. They evacuated buildings in White Plains and New York City, while closer to home, the old flea-bag rattle-trap where I work shook on its foundations in a manner that was not at all reassuring, believe me. Luckily there was no damage at this distance from the epicenter, and everyone could go back to relaxing and enjoying the beautiful day. Not so fast! We found out later that there was another separate earthquake earlier in the day upstate around Albany, plus a completely different one that rocked the Rocky Mountains, and another one yet still that punched Peru - and all on that same fateful day. Hmmmm. Does it occur to everybody that the new "earthquake option" has just been installed on the Kremlin's infernal weather machine, courtesy of our old nemesis Comrade Mischka? I don't know about anyone else, but here I'm thinking "da," and for the record, may I just say, I love Mother Russia.

Probably all of the earthquakes would have gotten a lot more long-term press coverage, except for the imminent arrival on the scene of Hurricane Irene, which has turned into the kind of media circus usually reserved for declarations of war or high-profile crime sprees, so you would think that there had never been a hurricane before in the history of the world - in fact, I'm sure by now it has its own FaceBook page, Twitter account, and interactive web site. Everyone has battened down the hatches, moved to higher ground, or at least taped up their windows for the big blow. So far, my favorite was a picture in the newspaper from a coastal town where someone had boarded up their store windows and then painted a message of "Good Night Irene," one supposes, for the storm's amusement along the way.

Meanwhile at work, I had bigger (or rather, much smaller) fish to fry. I have an old metal desk in my office, and one day I noticed that a piece of paper must have fallen behind the bottom drawer, because I could hear it brush against the drawer whenever I opened and closed it. Since I couldn't reach over the back of the drawer for it, I figured I would have to take the whole drawer out to get to it - but first, I would have to take all of my various bags of candy out of the drawer, where I keep them handy for therapeutic mood enhancement, as necessary. Now, I have always kept boxes of cracker and cookies, and bags of candy, in my desk or on the shelf in the closet, and never had any trouble with it, except for the occasional melted chocolate from the extreme heat in that old fire-trap. So I was understandably chagrined (and here, the term "appalled" might not be too strong a word) to discover the tell-tale tooth-prints of furry varmints chewing on the candy in my desk drawer, and leaving little plastic and foil crumbs all over the bottom of the drawer, and thanks so very much not. So now I have to don my plastic gloves and face mask, tossing out half-eaten candy and trying to salvage what's left, and muttering imprecations under my breath that were not for sensitive ears. I finally cleared everything out of the drawer, and wiped it down with alcohol pads inside and out, even the gooey caramel trail the varmints left behind them down the back of the drawer, and it goes without saying, thanks so very much not.

The first thing I noticed when I took out the drawer, was that the piece of paper that started it all was stuck to the drawer itself, which is why it made noise every time I opened or closed the drawer. But after that, I discovered that there was another whole pile of papers that had fallen completely under the drawer, and I never would have realized they were there, because they made no sound at all as the drawer glided smoothly above them. In fact, a couple of them were recent important papers that I would have been looking for, and sooner rather than later, if I had realized they were missing in the first place. Others, well, as the saying goes, not so much. I found some mis-delivered junk mail from 2006 that I was supposed to bring back to the Mail Room, and copies of old memos and forms that should have been filed. Now, it's easy to say that I'm a hopeless loser, and a serious detriment to the organization, but it turns out that I wasn't the only person with this problem. Many of the papers under the bottom drawer were lost by the supervisor who had the office before me, and hasn't worked there since the beginning of 2001, so that can't be laid at my doorstep. My personal favorite was the collection of perfectly preserved business cards from a previous Director of Material Management (who obviously had the same desk) that I never knew, but when I showed them to a co-worker, said he hadn't worked there for the last 35 years. So I guess in the end, we have to thank the furry varmints for inadvertently uncovering this treasure trove of lost documents - and not to mention, the boost to the local economy as I hurried out and bought bunches of plastic containers to keep the varmints away from my snacks, because anyone can tell you that my Indian name is Shares Not Chocolate, and that's not just the caramel talking, believe me.

Speaking of the local economy, I had a little too much of it in the past week, in more ways than one. It all began with some mail trouble at church, where we would find our mail out in the bushes, or in the garbage, instead of being in the mailbox as it should have been. So when I didn't receive the bank statement when it was expected, I figured that it had been the victim of some mischief, and if it hadn't turned up in the bushes by now, it was probably lost for good. So I hurried out of work last Thursday when the bank has extended hours, and stood on line waiting to get a reprint of the July statement, which is not an option that is available on their web site, probably because they want to charge a fee for this. The teller was very understanding, and leaped into action, printing out a replacement copy on her printer in short order. I had some other errands to run, so I dashed off, glad to get one thing out of the way. It wasn't until later that night when I was working on the financial reports that I noticed for the first time that the replacement statement I had picked up was from July 2010 instead of last month, and once again even yet still, thanks so very much not. So Friday morning, I flew out of the house early, since the bank isn't open late on Friday, and went right back to the same bank, and stood on the same line, and tried it all over again. I explained to a different teller that I had requested a reprint of last month's statement, but instead got a statement from 13 months ago, and was taking another crack at getting the right statement this time around. He hopped right on it, and handed it to me hot off the printer, only this time, I checked the dates before I left, and once again, glad to get it out of the way at long last. I admit that even I wasn't expecting the punch line to this story, which is that I went to church on Sunday as usual, and bumped into the worship assistant, who handed me the envelope with the original July bank statement, and I don't mind saying, in a very off-hand manner, which she said she had taken out of the mailbox previously and forgotten to give to me sooner. Well, it's obvious when the gods are toying with us, it does no good to complain about the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, and there's no point in crying, heaven knows. At this rate, the Werewolves will have the last laugh after all.

Elle