It's 7 a.m. and the phone rings. I pick up to the familiar tone of "Hello, my freend. Mr. Andy (as Herminio so likes to use the "Hop-Sing" version of my name) they want to talk to you in the foyer. The people this morning." One big sigh, I throw the covers off me after a rousing 3 hours of sleep.
It's already too hot and my black pants ripped on the inside, so I throw on a different pair of pants (why is it a pair by the way, there's one of 'em - man that's annoying) and wearily drive down to see what could be wrong. You see last night around 9:30 p.m. or so I went down and set up the stuff for Plant Growth Regulation Society Of America (yes, that's their name and its real - painfully real/apropos). The setup - an easy one; a big ol' cradle screen and a podium mic. They were hanging out talking of rhododendrons and their realtion to prime time t.v. in the 70s or some shit like that, but they were nice people. Nothing like talking to half drunk biologists while setting up stuff in a room that hasn't had the A/C on for 2 or 3 days. So everything was set so I didn't have to do the whole wake up when badness wakes up thing.
I get there and get inside as it's only 8 a.m. and already hot as Hades. After walking through the kitchen, saying my half-hearted hello to the chef (I think his name is Gil, but everyone calls him chef so I'm not too sure. I find that weird too. I mean I don't go around addressing people by their occupation. "Hi Cashier!", "Hey there Gardener!", "How ya doin' Retiree" - just seems odd to me, anyhoo...) and then watch Francisco and Herminio talk their foreign language thingy while I wait to go in to see what the Plant People need.
The foreign guy finishes his little lecture about ferns and their sexual proclivities/fetishes. I swoop in and talk to the slow motion old guy in charge. He sounded like a 78 on 33 1/3 (if anyobdy still knows what I mean) and smelled of a fine yet subtle mixture of Sanka and Ben-Gay. Basically, it turns out they need nothing. They just wanted someone there all day to wait for something to go wrong. To which I promptly tell them they can't afford me to be there all day (separate charge and the whining I would've dealt out would have been murder on them).
They're a bit of a paranoid bunch, albeit timidly paranoid - ya know scientists and all. I calm them down with some b.s. thing about mics or something, I can't really remember already. Then I take my leave of the biggest collection, this side of Comic-Con, of the most sexless room I've ever been in.
That's it - mellow day today. "So I have that goin' for me , which is nice."
4 comments:
Sexless? But what about the fern fetishes?
Wouldn't that be a 78?
The 78 thing, that was me, I was on Mr. DNA's computer. My bad.
It is 78 - dammit.
I go change.
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