“Let me tell you about myself: I was thrown out of high school because I was short, or, rather, I was short enough that they could stuff me in a cardboard box, though that, too, isn’t the capital offense I’m speakin’ of.
I was thrown out of high school because I was short enough to be stuffed into a box, and since my friends and I were well aware of the fact, this box would be brought from room to room, and I would be introduced into the environment and whatever scene that was unfolding itself as ‘supplies.’ And since we were supplies — one always needs supplies! — I was let right in without a moment’s hesitation, my friends left, and the scene continued. So I’d wait it out another minute or two, and then I’d pop up, say, Surprise! (Not supplies. Not. That.) Or I’d just yell!
Or I’d correct something the teacher had been saying, and everyone would yell themselves, leap in place, the sleeping kids would wake up (if only for that shining, briefest, welcome-back-to-the-world of a moment), and I would bow or dash — or bow and dash — my way out the door, I would rejoin my friends, and that was how we spent an afternoon.
Isn’t this place great, by the way? I love the atmosphere. The lamps. The shades. The way you can spin the seats.
But that isn’t how I got thrown out of school. I got tossed from the books — though I’d never let go, and never have, so to speak — because we repeated the procedure I’d just enumerated and elucidated, but when I popped out to surprise everyone, my environment, my mis-en-emerging-scene was a special needs classroom.
The result? Pandemonium. Fire marshalls. Bomb-sniffing dogs. But they didn’t work ‘cause they had a cold, so they brought in the cold-sniffing dogs to figure out which one of ‘em got the cold first. Turns out it was the Alpha, a mutt by the name of Wynston, though why they go on and spell his name with a ‘Y,’ I’ll never know. A helicopter was dispatched to monitor the highway, though no one was entirely sure why, and I was called into the office of the kind of man who read novels about British boys in private schools and always felt disappointed whenever the headmaster showed any semblance of emotion or didn’t punish the children further the kind of man who if he had been a surgeon would have worn his ties backwards and upsidedown a small detail that would leave anyone extra-cautious regarding the upcoming possible and future procedure with the willies and that is how I was kicked out of school.
By the way, do you think there’s any way I can get a drink here? I’d love a drink. Are you thirsty? Maybe a White Russian clogged with olives. Enough to keep the White Russian from even seeping through, at least. Because I don’t like to drink. I never drink, and I’m not nervous. I’m sorry if I’m nervous. I’m not really nervous, I’m just … well, so what if I’m nervous?
I suppose I can’t recall when I first became a pyromaniac. You knew that, right? I guess I just believe in living with a bit of intensity, or, at least, that’s how I like to imagine it in retrospect. When you’re out there in Stow, it’s just apple field after apple field, and that was my hometown. But I believe in being honest. If we’re going to start something here, I feel like I should be honest right up front.
I mean, I’ve gone through five husbands already, you know? I murdered two, had some sort of medical condition where I couldn’t keep myself from staring at the third — like, it was a literal ‘Attack of the Bug-Eyed,’ a black and white sci-fi filled with operatic zither machines “Oh-ohhing!” I was losing sleep, I was finding it hard to eat — and I asked the fourth to be conjoined with a possible fifth husband, and to his credit, he was patient with it up until he realized I was serious when I came home from Vegas with my fifth.
I sometimes miss my fourth. I hear from my then next-door neighbor that he’s reached points on and off somewhere in one of those closets in the past where he’d get so lonely he’d go hunting in the half-acre, treeless expanse behind his house with a BB gun and his fat house-cat. I can’t quite explain that. It just falls so far from the realm of what you’d …
But, my goodness, I’m talking on and on. I haven’t let you — and you seem so nice. So very nice. It’s so hard to meet good people. Tell me about you. Tell me about yourself.
What do you do?”
“Again, I’m the head of HR.”
Let Me Tell You About Myself.
