(Dr.) Spendlove

Sometimes we need our lives to be free of complexity. No nonsense. Good fun. Intelligent conversation. Or random, far from intelligent conversation. Sometimes one needs to be oneself and sometimes one needs to be able to be anybody but oneself.

Shantell and I have studied infrequently and spent many a night sharing our disparaging love woes. Mixed up hearts and mixed up minds make for fantastic conversation and aided with the power of wine, conversation is inevitably good. I once saw a horror film, Paranormal Activity, alone. There was one other person in the theatre, an old man with a bucket of popcorn big enough for a family, a soda large enough to fuel a bus, and a box of candy hidden beneath his battered old fedora. I was tense and nervous, the armrests my only relief of tension beneath my clasped fingers. After the movie Shantell and I met up to study, she confessed that she’d never seen a movie alone. This shocked me, but made complete sense. Most people see movies on dates, or with groups of friends, somehow movies are a social activity. Or perhaps they’re easier to accept than two hours of awkward social inactivity at a restaurant or in someone’s living room with flat Coca-Colas. She told me I need never see a film alone, if I had no date or otherwise found myself in complete solitude, she was only a phone’s extended reach away. Today, after a tough day of study, attendance, exertion—too much reality for an artist—I needed escape. I needed the $10.50 ticket to another world, legally. And Shantell, the accompanying movie-goer she is, was down.

Perhaps the reason we get along is due to a lack of sexual tension. When I met Shantell her limbs were tangled in a dense affair (whose aren’t really?) and so mine were on their way. The mating game was suspended and friendship sprouted in its place. Stress-free, one might deem our relationship. Free from the boundaries of scattered emotions and complicated misunderstandings. What things we do disagree on blow over our heads like snowflakes in the wind. We are friends of the easy sort. We can discuss without consequence the intricate details of the world of love, as if what we’re saying we’re not really saying, but only implying. As if at any moment one of us could say, “Ha, just kidding! I never touched him!” and we would laugh off the entire conversation and continue our lives as if the molestation of the heart we’d just discussed was a story and nothing more.

Shantell was a gift from another friend, you might say. Kimberly, a deserter some would say; a lover of adventure and seeker of better things, others might say, introduced me to Shantell. You see they’re related and before Kimberly packed her bags and dove into the Californian metropolis, she introduced me to Shantell so that I wouldn’t be left alone in the cold Pacific Northwest. This isn’t to say Kimberly was my only friend, but it is to say she is a very valuable friend. Like Shantell. The kind of friend one needs, devoid of complication. Of course, I’m exaggerating, if the person in question is in fact human, they’re not devoid of complication. But something about the friendship I’ve shared with these two is both safe and comfortable.

The thing about being a writer is that there are things you must write. Meditations one sits on that must be manifested in the written word. The thing about social writers is that much of this is often related to people the writer knows directly. And so these meditations, lest the writer choose to change names and the like, become a sort of test. A test of friendship, or possibly a validity of said friendship. Fortunately the meditation set before you isn’t much of a revealing or embarrassing one, but there’s still the potential for disagreement. I might find that within a couple hours of submitting this my inbox has two horribly disgruntled emails from Kimberly and Shantell with elaborate details of my misinterpretations and daft assumptions, but this really would discount a good deal of my previous assertions. Precisely why these two girls are my friends are because, if I did receive said emails from them, I would be quite deserving. I would have been an obvious asshole who overstepped his boundaries. Either that or Shantell was listening to Lady Gaga or Britney too loudly as she read this and took their anti-man pop messages a little too seriously. Or maybe Kimberly was placing an order in a catalog and, disinterested in her reading, mistook me for claiming that I now liked Shantell more than her. But here’s the thing about these two: at the briefest of glances they may seem to belong to one of many all-too-commonly applied stereotypes (I confess I was guilty of making completely misguided first impressions of the both of them), but they’re so far from belonging to any of them. Each of them has this view of the world. This view so terribly unique from everyone else’s. One might mistake their interest for inattention, their attention for interest, one might see many things in these girls at first but certainly, one does not see who they truly are. And to claim I truly know either of them would be to claim too much.

I know this much: first impressions are bullshit and good friends are damn invaluable. Moral explicitly stated; time well spent.

“Ladies and gentlemen…may I have your attention, please…in just two minutes, we will be handing out free promotional advertising gifts not regularly available in this store.”

A price appears on the television screen along with a 1-800 number, but more importantly, an item; not of futility, but utility. This item, suddenly, is the one item I’ve been waiting for all my life. It makes that one seemingly simple task not so simple, and necessitates its own purchase by a mere 30 second display of its endless features. I’m mind-blown. In fact, daily, I am forced to pluck cat hairs from my coat before prancing out the door. Such a terribly complex and time consuming task. But now, Mr. Sticky, an unconditionally lifetime guaranteed cleaning device which serves as a combination lint roller, broom, vacuum, mop, and duster, makes all the aforementioned “tools” absolutely useless. And for only $24.99, plus S&H, but wait! A free Junior Mr. Sticky, and Giant Mr. Sticky, too. I pick up the phone at 1:03 am and place an order. If I purchase five the sixth is free and 6 free juniors and giants too. Can I really afford not to? A toothy white smile on the screen convinces me they make great gifts. I hate goddamned cell phone manufacturers for making me available at nearly any given time or place in the known universe; I may be on the toilet and God can call to check on me (a particularly disturbing thought) but, because I own this cell phone, this plastic piece of technology produced by the Apple Corporation, I can call and order Mr. Sticky at 1:03 am and wait wait wait till the package arrives, for life to get easier.

I push the red metal cart full of Christmas toys; remote controlled helicopters, handheld videogames, stuffed animals. I don a red polo and a name tag that says “Daniel” and above that “Target.” But, the director of HR tells me, this name tag is not mine. It may say my name, but this name tag belongs to the Target Corporation. At the end of the day, and especially if I quit, or worse, am terminated, I must return this name tag back to a box of Davids, Dougs, and Daniels. I loathe the way the cart clunks and will purposefully stock one of these items on the wrong shelf with a hearty, “Fuck you, Target Corporation.” “Daniel?” My manager call from behind. “Could you come here for a moment?” God, apparently, does not approve of my internal sentiments towards the Target Corporation and has sent one of his prophets dutifully to reprimand my self-righteousness, but fortunately has not called me, because I’m not supposed to have my cell phone on at work. He echoes in my head with that ridiculous booming voice, “Daniel, you’ve bitten the hand that feeds.” And I have, but the flesh of the hand is so much more pleasing, now at least, than the stale paycheck the hand feeds at the end of the week. I hate the tile floors and the goddamned red branding of the Target Corporation, but they make me able to afford food and gas, and to satisfy that impulsive spirit in me to purchase my way out of those small issues I’m not presently aware exist in my life. Fortunately I can depend on the television to inform me of them.

“…in less than one minute now, you will receive your free promotional advertising gifts not regularly available in this store. A representative will be rushing there shortly.” With my tower of department store items in hand, I look around to see if anyone suspects my curiosity of the loudspeaker’s offer. I feel naughty. But really, how often does such a prospect occur? I walk with an air of indirection towards where the loudspeaker directs, looking every once in a while over my shoulder. I hop on the escalator. I hate people who are susceptible to these types of obviously misguiding promotions, but I am riding the escalator and can see the red and black counter the loudspeaker spoke of, and look, there! The representative rushing towards it! I look down at my shoes to avoid the gaze of a young man walking past.

“Daniel, we’ve been meaning to talk to you. You’ve been here for 90 days and it’s time for your assessment. I’ve met with Susan at HR and we discussed your performance.” This, I know, either means I’m fucked, or that, ironically, I’m fucked. “We want you to stay with us, you’ve been doing a fantastic job. And we’re giving you a dollar raise.” I’m fucked. I despise Target, I don’t particularly like Susan either, she told me I had nice teeth, that I must’ve had braces when I was younger. In retrospect, this was not a compliment. She was telling me that my face would be good branding for the Target Corporation. She thought my teeth would sell Target Visa credit cards, just like the teeth on the television had convinced me to buy not one, not two, but five Mr. Sticky’s; but hell, the sixth was free. The Target Corporation headquarters in Minneapolis just approved a pay raise for me. For my disrespect, hostility, and general loathing of each and every tile in the store, they gave me more money. God, apparently, is cleverer than I thought. He does not reprimand me, he guilts me. But I’m getting more money, which makes the price of guilt easier to swallow.

A man appears from behind the red and black counter. “Hello, I am your representative.” It’s the same man who spoke into the loudspeaker. First, he hands us all, all five of us, a free promotional advertising gift. It’s a towel that expands in water. Usually, they sell for $3.95 in a pack of three. I’m intrigued, what else might we receive for free? He pulls then, from behind his counter, slowly, Mr. Sticky. This man is a representative from the Echo Corporation and is here to sell me Mr. Sticky in person, and he won’t charge me S&H. I curse the cell phone manufacturers for allowing me to place that order. 4-6 weeks in waiting, and here’s Mr. Sticky in the flesh. I curse Target once more for giving me the money to place the order. And I curse the Ford Motor Company for producing my gas-guzzling, ozone-destroying, 1989 Ford Escort hatchback that drove me here, today, to Sears, and drives me five days out of the week to a giant red store where I try to convince customers to sign up for Target Visa credit cards. The man is different from the one on television, but the smile is the same. It’s a smile I posses myself. I walk away, distraught, towards my 1989 Ford Escort. But first I purchase my tower of department store items.

Mr. Sticky doesn’t just pick up kitty litter, dust, lint, and dirt; no, Mr. Sticky will pick up the scattered pieces of my life, and pocket-sized Junior Mr. Sticky will pick up pieces of it when I’m on the run; I can de-lint my red Target polo before walking into work with a white, toothy smile plastered to my face. And Giant Mr. Sticky, maybe, just maybe, he’ll be able to solve this God problem. More than anything, I fucking hate waiting 4-6 goddamned weeks for everything to get a little fucking better.