Clams

It's been said that nostalgia is a toxic impulse. Something that takes you out of the present and makes your pine for a time in which you were "happier," regardless of the circumstances surrounding that particular memory. I don't necessarily agree with this philosophy, I think that if used correctly and in small doses nostalgia can be a tie that binds. Certain familial activities are going to breed the nostalgic impulse simply because your personal cohort will talk about things from the past, whether it is an individual (grandma) or something more specific (Christmas Dinner, 1993).

Keeping the memories alive through organically created family tales is natural to human existence. It's how we got our fables, folklore, and mythology. It's how we got religion. Nostalgia, and telling the stories of the past, are ways that we stay connected to those around us without using the internet (he writes exclusively on the internet), because they tend to revolve around events where you see other people and actually talk to them. 

Lets not be mistaken here, nostalgia and memories are very different animals. Nostalgia is sitting around eating clams on the half shell with family members because that was one of grandma's favorite things. Of course any meal was one of grandma's favorite things. The nostalgia comes in because we had gotten together for this specific reason, as tribute to the past generation, where we could incorporate the fun stories about clams. 

When I was a teenager, I noticed a bottle of Clamato in my grandparent's refrigerator. For those who don't know Clamato is an unholy alliance of tomato juice and clam juice. Because, really, if you are making a Bloody Mary, nothing will freshen up the silky and delicate tomato juice taste like a fresh blast of sea water. And that is really the only use for Clamato. I have never seen a person, in real life, in front of me, drink a Bloody Mary, so I'm not certain they aren't just some meme, however my grandmother would insist that she kept that bottle of Clamato in the house just for that reason. 

My theory is that she would buy some, pour out half of it to make it look like it had been used, then just stash it in the fridge until it mercifully expired and then dumped the rest of it. Nobody has proven me wrong yet.

Not really knowing what it was, this Clamato, and being a presumptuous asshat teenager, I decided to try some. Now, I had already experimented with Manhattan Clam Chowder, which is the worst food the East Coast has ever produced. Passing off whale menstruation as soup is a mean thing to do to a population, yet somehow, it has survived. Having a very unnostalgiac memory of the torture that is Manhattan Clam Chowder, I don't know why I didn't assume that Clamato would be any different. In fact, I probably blocked out the soup before I drank the small amount of drink.

Here's the thing about terrible beverages. They linger. They hang around for hours after consumption, and they let you know with a furious rage that they aren't gone yet. Clamato is no different. For hours after I had maybe a shot of it, the red devil liquid coated my mouth. Just...stayed there. I brushed, flushed, swished, drank, did everything else I could think of to mask the new torture that I would be tasting for the rest of my life. Eventually I either got the Clamato version of Stockholm Syndrome and just got used to my new reality, or the taste dissipated enough where it could no longer be detected.

Then I burped. Sweet Jesus. 

Here's the thing about terrible beverages. The burps are worse. The Clamato mixed with whatever bile and acid and food gunk was in my stomach at the time. I can't really describe the flavor, but I remember it distinctly. Wet garbage on a hot day. The inside of an active shark. The toilet on the Deadliest Catch boat. All of the above. Burped into my mouth by me, the dipshit who thought drinking Clamato was a good idea.

Eating clams doesn't always conjure memories of shitty ideas for a drink. Most of the times the memories are more nostalgic in nature. I worked at a raw bar for a while and shucked the hell out of some clams. It wasn't a great job, but I got to work on my shucking skills, skills that have come into use since leaving that position. Helping with shucking is always fun, when done for fun. It's communal, conversational. It's something you do with other people that you immediately connect to. 

That's where nostalgia comes from. It's sitting in the sun, laughing and drinking a beer, casually murdering bivalves. It was a good time, one I'll remember for a while. Nostalgically. 

-SD

DTWhatnow?

I own a small business. Very small. So small it is rightly considered a niche industry, but our customers are loyal and the number of them is expanding. As we gain new customers we run into supply issues, so we have to spend what money we bring in on restocking our shelves.

For a while I was able to take a salary from my own store, but, unfortunately, that luxury had to be discontinued in order to pay the electric bill (which, by the way, is a crazy amount higher than residential electricity even though it's the same damn electricity, and someone needs to explain this phenomenon to me).

I had to get a new source of income, and, as it happened, I found one relatively quickly. The tricky part was to do this and be able to keep the store open. Looking at the statistics, I found that it would be easy just to change the hours and open up for daily business in the mid-afternoon. Most of our customer base are professional types and they get their stuff on their way home, so I was looking for a job that I could do in the morning.

It was suggested that I apply to the school district. I liked school once, to I gave it a shot.

I was hired to work as a Middle School paraprofessional, essentially a tutor and support system for students who need extra or special attention. It was perfect. I could keep the store open at reasonable hours, pay my personal bills and eat, AND the money the store made could go back into bills and inventory. Excellent.

The first kid I was assigned to work with was an athlete, which is good for me, as I enjoy sports a great deal. He was also super handsy. I called him The Claw behind his back. I'm a delight to work with.

The school I was a STEM school, so there was a robotics class that was super cool. I didn't have this option when I was a kid because school wasn't creative enough to have such programs. These are eighth graders, so the robots they were working on weren't too complex, but still....robots, bro.

About two weeks into the job, right when it seems like all of the rhythms and routines of the school day had been figured out, it all started to go to shit. The Claw, in the middle of robots class, says to me "Mr. Derby," (that never EVER gets old, by the way) "do you know what DTF means?"

The record in my head screeched to a halt. I mean, I DO know what DTF means, I watched the hell out of some Jersey Shore when I was recovering from a knee surgery, so I know from the lingo of the douche. I was truly taken aback by the question. "Mr. Derby, do you know what DTF means?"

At this point there are several students looking directly at me, awaiting an answer. "Say what?" I delayed.

"I got an email from a girl saying she's DTF. What is DTF?"

"What? Get off your email and do some work," I stalled. Then the 13 year old terrors that were surrounding me sharpened their teeth. They were getting ready to attack.

"I'm going to look it up," said a normally nice child, who was about to start typing questions into Google once he was done throwing eye daggers through my soul.

"NO DON'T DO THAT!" I spat out hurriedly. They knew. They knew it was something bad, that they can't say or read in a public school. They fucking knew. They also now knew that I did, in fact, know what DTF means.

They started to gang up on me. A helpless feeling, because I couldn't tell them the truth, and any lie that I come up with is going to be fact checked within a nanosecond of saying it. I tried to deflect their curiosity back to the assignment.

The teacher, by the way, was no help, as she was busy doing other stuff. It was me and the wolves. I put on my mental war paint, went into the fray of excuses battling it out in my brain and started to pull out answers.

Do Those Fractions.
Dr. Tobias Funke (they didn't get the reference)
Dog Treats Forever
Dragons Trust Falcons
Donuts Taste Fun

Then it happened. One of the little monsters looked it up. He was a nice boy. He gasped loudly and slammed his laptop closed. Then the prevailing sound was little monster fingers on keyboards. I had failed. I had failed in so many ways. I failed to keep them on task, I failed to distract them enough where they wouldn't care about what DTF means, I failed to lie well enough to convince them that donuts actually do taste fun or there is a bond between flying predators.

Two weeks into this job and I was beginning to wonder if I could do continue, as I had been so completely owned by a pack of youths.

They figured it out, and once the giggling stopped, and The Claw got sufficiently embarrassed for receiving an email and not telling anyone who it was from, the period was over and they moved on to the next class. My terror was pretty much over, at least for the time being.

"Mr. Derby, do you know what DTF means?"
Yeah, you little bastard. It means Down To Fuck. Now do your goddamn work.

If only I could have just said that..........sigh

-SD

4:57

It's 4:57 in the morning. I'm wide awake.

I tried to sleep, I gave it a real effort, but it doesn't seem like sleep is something I should expect tonight. I usually don't sleep through the night anyway, but this one feels different. Laying there, too warm in the thick summer air, eyes battened down. Mind racing.

In the quiet darkness a distant rumble can be discerned. Someone is getting a thunderstorm. Someone also awake, but far away. I've always liked thunderstorms. The power of the violent sky, crashing bolts of terror keeping every creature alert.

It's 4:59 in the morning. I'm wide awake.

I hear the patter of rain drops outside my open window. Calmly falling down, but not breaking the humidity, it rains just enough to start to relax my mind. A car goes by, splashing a shallow wake behind it, and opening up my thoughts once again. Where is that person going at this time of night? Probably a newspaper delivery guy, but who knows. These days it could be just some person driving around aimlessly because they need to get out of the house. Quarantine, job loss, anxiety, depression, financial stress. All of these things have kept me awake, and I'm pretty normal.

Maybe that person just needed to get out and see something different for once. Staring at the same four walls day in and day out can do a number on a person, especially if those walls don't produce joy. It's why many move, people change jobs, or even career tracks. They just can't deal with those same walls anymore, and want to see something else. Or maybe they just go for a drive in the middle of the night.

It's 5:10 in the morning, I'm wide awake.

At what point to I try to sleep again? More cars are moving past, I think a larger truck. Box truck maybe? I don't know, I didn't bother to look out the window. I want to lay down, but I am afraid it's an exercise in futility now. I've had an hour of sleep earlier in the night, around midnight, but I've been up ever since. Maybe I should try and see what happens.

It's 11:42 in the morning. I'm wide awake.

I had a dream about dogs. The rain created a calm, slowed down my thoughts, and I got some sleep. I know that those nights are few and far between, but when they appear, they're aggressive. Even temporary bouts of insomnia. a couple of days long perhaps, are frustrating and dabble in the territory of terrifying. Not being able to sleep no matter how hard you try, leaves you helpless. Laying there in the path of the window fan that was installed to fight the heavy heat, you are at the mercy of your own mind. And your mind isn't in the mood for your requests.

It's 11:49 in the morning. I've wasted half my day already.

SD

Coffee

I drink coffee. Lots of people do. Lots of people drink coffee because coffee is a pretty fantastic beverage. Hot and cold. Espresso. Nitro. Light and sweet or black. The options within that wonderful drink are plentiful, and you can get it anywhere these days. From the locally roasted beans to gas station swill, coffee is something that has become ubiquitous to the American morning routine.

Enough coffee is sold in this country that the industry is worth billions over several major chains. With the advent of COVID-19, going to a coffee shop and getting a drink has been one of those things that I, personally, have missed greatly. I like going in, seeing someone I've seen a hundred times, who knows what I want, and getting out of there without any fuss.

I miss going to the coffee shop.

I had to go to a warehouse about an hour away to pick up an order for my store. The customer pick up option is pretty fantastic, as a small business doesn't have to spend extra money on shipping. So I go up a few times a month to get stuff, and occasionally I am a little tired. The humming of tires on the road, gentle bumping, and banal scenery of Rhode Island can make "a little tired" into "a little dangerously doze offy" and nobody wants to be that.

So I stopped at a major coffee chain to get some caffeine into my system and drive safely. It wasn't the New England based one with the coffee that tastes like burning and lack of options, but the other one, the one from Seattle. This is important.

Adhering to social distancing guidelines, I wait my turn. Social distancing isn't a problem for me, mainly because I don't want to be near another person anyway, so this is a golden era for strangers staying the hell away from me. Eventually I get up to the Plexiglas barricaded register, and behind my mask, I order.

"Biggest iced coffee you have. Black," I said. I drink my coffee black, regardless of temperature.
"What?" said the masked barista.
"Iced coffee, black."
"Black?" She looked at me as if I had asked for something weird.
"Yup."
"Okay? Name?"

Then came the 3 minute conversation behind masks and Plexiglas about my name and how to properly spell it. I didn't have the heart to explain the correct spelling a 5th time, so I just let it go.

Adhering to social distancing guidelines, I awaited my probably messed up order. Eventually another young barista calls out "ICED COFFEE BLACK...black? What?" She turned to the first child who took the order "Really, black?"

I walk up take my drink and leave without saying a word.

Listen, I know that we have gotten to a place where people like to flavor their coffee. I like the flavor of coffee, so I drink it like a normal person does. Coffee flavored coffee. What a revelation to those people. I noticed as I was leaving that they were eyeing the flavor syrups behind them.

Those pumps of diabetes gravy can kick rocks. I will never, NEVER take a quarter cup of gooey fake almond glop or a half cup of foam on top of my drink.

I'm the normal one, yet they looked at me as if I asked them to Irish it up with some Bailey's and whiskey. I didn't ask to have my coffee in a bowl so I can lap it up like a dog. I didn't ask for a specific amount of ice cubes, or if they could give it to me upside down. I didn't ask for anything weird. Just a black coffee over ice. How is this strange? How am I the weird customer of the day.

I'm not making any kind of statement, I'm just saying that the state of drinking drinks in this society has gone to shit. Black coffee shouldn't be this complicated.

Unless it's terrible diner coffee, then a little sugar is okay to mask the overpowering charred flavor profile and generally lava-esque mouthfeel.

And after all of it, the second one didn't even call out my name.

Probably because it was spelled wrong.

-SD

Allow Myself to Re-Introduce Myself

I decided to start this up again. Not as the old format of general silliness and working my way through various injuries, rather as a way to tell my story as a worker. I have been part of the workforce for a long time now and I think I have accrued enough material to make this worthwhile again.

Not for nothing, this, as an exercise, has been a wonderfully therapeutic activity for me. So I'll be updating hopefully once or twice a week, when the inspiration strikes. Of course this post is just an intro, nothing special, I'll keep it brief.

Cheers, and thanks for reading.
-SD