bad metaphor

About a month ago, while shuffling through tons of copies of advising materials, my co-worker informed me that the copier was out of toner.

“Already? Geez, that was fast,” I’d said, noting that I’d just replaced the toner a few weeks previous. Without much thought to it, I ordered the toner from this company we have a contract with, which I’ll call “Company Direct,” which guarantees next-day delivery. I ordered two just to have a backup handy.

Anatomy of a copy machine.

A day passed, then two, three, and five. I called the Company Direct people.

Me: “Hello, I ordered some toner. Here is my order number: bla-de-bla-6-6-6″

CD Rep: “Hmm, that’s odd. I don’t show this order on the system. I guess you’ll have to enter it again.”

Me: “Oh. Uh, thanks, I guess.”

So I submit the order again, and lo and behold, turns out the item is now on backorder. Which means it could take even longer to get shipped. Hoo boy. I order it again, this time getting confirmation, and patiently await the arrival of the toner.

As there were tons of copies to be made periodically, I ended up having to use the math copy machine. I suspect karma for this post. Fortunately, though, the copy machine over there is a dream. It is amazing to behold. So fast, so free of misfeedery nonsense, even though it is used and abused by tons of math professors every hour of the day.

So a week passed, and then another week. Though the math people were very gracious about letting me use their copier (and I take back every word I said about them being robotic, they are now patron saints of the office as far as I am concerned!), still, I felt pretty bad about having to use it, oh, every day. Everything from advising sheets to exams for huge courses; I am just happy that my boss didn’t decide he needed an entire 700 page book to be xeroxed, as is his wont on occasion. I brought over our own office’s paper and everything, but my self-conscious self couldn’t help but think that maybe the math people were getting a little tired of us barging in and hogging their beautiful, heavenly machine of duplication. I would, too!

I called Company Direct again. The sales rep wasn’t sure what had become of my order, and said that someone would get back to me by the end of the day. I waited, left for the day, came back the next morning – no voice messages. I called again, complained to this new rep about how I’d been expecting a call back, and the rep apologized. She then looked at my order, and went, “hmm.”

Me: “Is something wrong?”

CD Rep: “Well, your item is on backorder.”

Me: “Yes, but it’s been two weeks. Shouldn’t it have arrived by now?”

CD Rep: “I don’t know exactly, since it’s on backorder. Items on backorder sometimes enter this ‘mystery loop.’”

Me: “Mystery loop?!”

CD Rep: “Yes, I’ll have to contact the backorder dept, and they’ll call you back.”

Mystery loop?? Seriously?

This was last Friday. The weekend passed, I came back Monday morning to find that yet again, no one from the Mystery Loop Crimesolving Team Force had called regarding my case. I called again.

CD Rep #573,280: “So sorry ma’am, I’ll get this figured out for you.”

* on hold for half an hour, the Company Direct music interjected with the CD Rep coming back to say “sorry about the wait, I’ll be back to check on you” (which was nice of her) *

CD Rep: “Ma’am? I’ve discovered what the problem is. You ordered two toners?”

Me: “Yeah, I wanted an extra one. Is that the hold up?”

CD Rep: “Actually, since this is kind of a rare toner, they won’t fill the order until the customer orders at least six.”

Me: “So how was I supposed to know this? The system let me order just two without saying anything!”

This CD Rep was very nice, apologetic, and willing to help me get my toner fix. “But since it is a rare toner, even if you order the six today, it’s going to be until the second week of November before it gets in.”

Me: “Ahh! I can’t wait that long! I work in an office! We need toner!”

CD Rep: “Ma’am, I’m really sorry…” (blah blah)

So I went ahead and ordered the six, got off the phone, and immediately began looking around for other places where I could get the toner. I found a site, and though it was a bit expensive, by golly, we needed our damned toner. A bit of explanation is needed here: since the university has contracts with certain vendors, if we buy anything off-contract, we need to request prior approval. Knowing that this needed to happen, I asked my budget go-to person, who forwarded the question on to the proper authority.

PA: “You can’t find the toner at (other contract place)? What type do you need?”

Me: “Type of toner”

PA: “Oh, those are free. You need to call this company though, the company that actually maintenances your copy machine.”

Me:

Now keep in mind that none of my training manuals ever made reference to this being the case, nor did Belle ever mention anything about having to call this company (in her defense, I don’t think she ever needed to get more copier toner; I think Jodie had probably stockpiled it during her reign of terror). Sheepishly, as I had made a big fuss to the Company Direct person (though I wasn’t terribly out of line, and anyway their customer service routine could stand improvement, like a built-in feature that actually tells your customer if they ordered wrong, dagnabbit), I cancelled the order from Company Direct, and called the proper channels to get that sweet, sweet, rarer-than-pure-heroin toner.

Me: “When do you think we’ll get the toner?”

Other Company Rep: “Well, I’m not really sure what time it’ll get there, ma’am. It’s UPS; I can give you a tracking number for it.”

Me: (ahh christ, not UPS) “I’d just like a time frame – days, a week? Three months? Will my future grandchildren ever get to see this toner?”

OCR: “Oh, goodness, it’ll definitely be tomorrow. It’s overnight delivery to Lawrence.”

Me: “Fantastic!”

Next day comes. It’s 3:00, and still no toner.

Me: “Hi, just checking up on my order of toner?”

OCR: “Yes, let me see if we sent that out. If it wasn’t sent out today, it’ll be sent out tonight.”

Next day comes. Hey, guess what?

Me: “WHERE TONER OMIGOD”

OCR: “I’ll have to call you back on that one, ma’am.”

**** later ****

OCR: “Looks like it shipped already, it should be getting there by today. Here’s the tracking number; hold on, I’ll look it up for you. – Why, it says it was delivered, before noon.”

Me: “Zuh?”

OCR: “Yeah. The note on the UPS site says no one was around to pick it up, so he left it on the porch.”

Me: “Porch? But…we don’t have a porch!”

OCR: “Hmm, that is very odd indeed.”

Me: “Wait a minute…what address do you have on file for us?”

OCR: ( lists address our office was at four years ago)

Me: “Ahh, crap.”

Four years ago, our office was stationed in this ramshackle house next to a frat/sorority bar and pizza place in the student ghetto. We’ve changed our address, but will still get mail forwarded to us by people who didn’t get the memo. Oddly enough, the copy machine place ought to have our current address on file, as they’ve sent out repair people before, and as far as I know, they’ve come straight to our office and not the old house, but…fuck it. I was sick and tired of not having toner. The clouds above loomed ominous with rain, and my toner had been sitting out on the damn porch next to a bunch of drunk frat jokers. I was on a mission, an absurd, rejected-video-game-premise mission, but an important one no less. I was to rescue the toner.

Luckily, I didn’t have to fight off any end-level bosses. The construction workers across the street might have looked at me funny, maybe because I was picking up a suspicious package from a shady, abandoned house. Probably more likely because I was sweaty, deranged and half-feral by that point, clutching my box of godforsaken, office-saving toner in triumph. Flush with victory, I immediately marched over to the coffee shop in the Union, cradling the toner in my sweaty hug-of-death, and ordered me a mocha freeza-whatchamacallit drink. On the misty walk back to the office, I downed approximately 80% of the drink and made myself immensely stomach-sick in the short space of ten minutes.

But I didn’t care, because the toner was mine.

The end. Until we run out of toner again, that is.

Today, I noticed something a bit odd at work: punctuating the oppressive drone of the busses was a fair amount of cheering. Was there a football game, and if so, why did it sound like it was coming from across the street? Curiousity overcame my inertia, and I went down to investigate:

Could this be? A bona fide protest!

Sure, my college campus, like any college campus worth its salt, has its share of protests every now and then. I can’t help but long for the days, before my time of course, when the student body would set the campus on fire; you know, a REAL protest. This wasn’t quite approaching fire levels yet, but I haven’t seen this many students clustered together at an event not involving free food and booze. There were even more people before I decided to run back to my office and grab the camera.

Ben Allen (?), bearer of fire and brimstone.

What was the locus of this particular horde? After asking around a bit, I ascertained that it was this dude in the black leather cap. His shirt reads “No Homos in Heaven!” in proud yellow Burger King font. Apparently he had shown up and thought to spread the word to us heathenish college students: gays AND Jews are going to hell! (how charming and original). As you can see, the quick thinking students surrounding him immediately established a counter-protest of mockery. My favorite is the sheet of paper held by the gentleman in the sweatshirt, proudly bearing an image of the movie poster for Brokeback Mountain, with the caption: “All You Need Is Love.”

His photographer, in matching garb.

This upstanding chap in the red and black hat yelled a lot.

A cop just hanging out, enjoying the scenery.

Some military-type folks, also hanging around for no apparent reason other than to gawk.

Some more signs.

Hope is emo.

I love this one, because it’s true! (Why have there been no ‘Brownback Mountain’ jokes yet? Somebody please fix this)

I love things like this, especially seeing the diversity imminent in the crowd gathering around to mock this guy. No matter what race, creed, sexuality, gender, or social status (frat boy or WOW nerd), everyone is welcome to roast an asshole. And that’s what this country is all about!

Nothing much has happened of note lately; I feel like I have knitted quite a bit, without actually having finished much. The sweater is an endless source of frustration and ripping back, for no good reason – it’s just ribbing, for chrissakes! I have a pattern and a template sweater to work from, but I can’t seem to focus and am desperately drawn to lots of little side projects in a gambit to feel like I’ve accomplished something. Meanwhile, it is getting cold in Germany and my boyfriend is running around sans two sweaters, while I have finished a scarf and a mitten for myself:

Simple ribbed scarf made out of some Noro Transitions I bought on a splurge (hey, closeout at yarn.com! There’s still a bunch left, that I am soo not going to buy. Really.

Close-up of scarf. See how soft and fuzzy and…ooh?

Heading to Chicago for a couple of days, which is putting even more of a delay on the sweater, as it’s a bit impractical to lug around the yarn and the half finished sweater, and to have to try and lay out the template sweater in the car every now and then to see if everything is matching up. So, I’m just going to work on the other mitten and call it good.

Yes, I know, worst knitter girlfriend ever! On the bright side, I definitely will have this done well before December (knock on bamboo needles), so I can call it a really early Christmas gift, as opposed to a ridiculously late going-away present. Hopefully he won’t be completely frozen by the time he receives it.

Gratuitous cat photo-op.

My first encounter with the Renaissance Man was at a party. The boy and I didn’t know many people there, and so we sat there with our drinks in hand, participating / eavesdropping on other people’s conversations. The Renaissance Man had brought a date, a wafer-thin girl with long model hair. Undeterred by the scornfully bored look on her face, Renaissance Man spoke animatedly about a subject in which he claimed special expertise, music. “You know what I’ve noticed?” he boasted, proud as a goose in a sea of ducks. “If you listen to any CD – and I mean any – it’s the sixth track that’s the seminal track, the one around which the artist conceives his – uh, his art. Like, nobody else has noticed this, but it’s true. Go on, name a CD.” The girl did not name a CD, so he started rattling off a few examples for her, passionately elucidating his unique and precious theory.

This was our first exposure to the Renaissance Man, and it would prove to be satisfyingly representative.

A year or so later, the Renaissance Man met a girl capable of understanding his particular brand of genius, and began to date her. He showed up in the sexuality course the boy and I were taking. Renaissance Man would leave his dirty coffee cups in inconspicuous places, generously giving the clean-up volunteers many opportunities to touch a bona-fide, caffeine encrusted, Renaissance Man relic. Also, Renaissance Man was very proud of the fact that he had bagged himself a Renaissance Girl, and took every other Q&A session as an opportunity to announce to the world that he, Renaissance Man, and his girl engage in tantric sex. After class once, Renaissance Man deigned to walk by us peons, and as he did so, he puckered his lips, bulge his eyes and waggled his fingers in a jazz-hands fashion. I think it might have been a gesture of camaraderie, but the boy wanted to return the favor with a punch in his Renaissance Face.

A couple of weeks after that, the boy and I were studying at a coffee shop downtown. Who should come in and sit down right next to us, but Renaissance Man himself! He sat mixing his music on his laptop, while complaining about taxes, very loudly, to the fortunate person on the receiving end. “I don’t have time to deal with this,” he pleaded. “All these forms…ugh. I’ve got my music and so many projects…” at this point the headphones went over my ears, and the boy tried as best as he could to use his book for studying instead of violence.

When Renaissance Man got off the phone, he quieted down for awhile, absorbed in the details of digital mixing and splicing. Without saying a word to us, nay, nary a googly eye or goofy grin, he went over to the attractive young woman who sat at the table on the other side of us, currently absorbed in her schoolwork (?! was there trouble abrew in Tantric Renaissance Relationship Land?!).

“Hey,” he said, feigning shyness, or perhaps it was a rare public revelation of his deep humility. “Can I ask you something? Um, I’m a musician, and I’ve been creating some samples, and I kind of want to get ideas and responses from people. Would you mind taking a listen, and let me know what you think?” He grinned, the earnest smile of a budding prophet.

“No.” The girl looked down at her book. A little fazed, Renaissance Man sat back down and continued his mixing, while the boy and I attempted to weather the contagion of schadenfreude.

The Renaissance Man has expanded beyond an inside joke between the boy and I, and is rapidly becoming a cultural phenomenon. Louise, after hearing my encounters with the Renaissance Man, shared her own. She has the privilege of working with such a legend, and she had heretofore no inkling of his greatness, viewing him as a merely irksome, run-of-the-mill, Lawrence artíste. When I told Louise about the boy’s undying enmity towards Renaissance Man, she was much heartened by the fact that someone, somewhere far away from our little town, hates the Renaissance Man just as much as she does.

According to Louise, ordinary work is beneath Renaissance Man. The job is a mere backdrop, a setting for the denouement of a truly transcendent being. Sometimes (every day) he’ll commandeer the CD player and put in some tabla drum music, and start “Indian” dancing in the middle of the store, amidst the merchandise, soulfully waving his arms in a celebration of the Renaissance Soul.

Remember, folks, you heard it here first. This guy is going to, in his words, “defibrillate” the music industry with LOVE, and with it, the entire world.

* – You do not abbreviate the Renaissance Man; his essence cannot be contained in a mere two capital letters (if you are a plebe incapable of typing his illustrious title each time, however, you are permitted liberal usage of the copy-paste function).