Merry Christmas
Originally Written: December 18, 2008
In the spirit of the season, here’s a short vignette of what happened on a night shift earlier this week:
You may have noticed that a lot of basic cable networks like to use December as a dumping ground for all their syndicated films and crappy made-for-TV movies, typically assigning these marathons a random number. (See: 25 Days of Christmas, 15 Days of Christmas, 7 Days of Christmas, 1 Day of Christmas, etc.) I just wish these network execs would learn that the only way you’re going to earn my viewership is by playing A Christmas Story twelve times in a row, but I digress.
So one night I go into the back area on my break to scarf down some street halal. On the tiny TV is another sappy made-for-TV Christmas movie starring C-listers and former B-listers. The manager is sitting at the desk, doing paperwork, using the Hallmark Channel more for ambiance than anything. I’m sitting at the table, completely ignoring the movie, working on a crossword c.o. Willie Shortz. Also seated at the table is a JBC who will go unnamed.
NOTE: This post and what follows specifically is in no way meant to deride or insult the position of janitor or anybody holding said position. Rather, this is to point out one man’s complete stupidity, a man who happens to be a janitor.
Or JBC, rather. Junior Building Custodian. But, yeah, janitor. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Seriously.
So about an hour into the Hallmark crap-of-the-week, this JBC, who resembles a shaved three-toed sloth, give or take a toe, remarks: “Can someone explain to me what the fuck is going on?” I’m paraphrasing, but he does curse a lot.
I’m not really invested in the whole scenario but my manager’s reaction was priceless. She puts the pen down and looks at him, bewildered. “Peter Falk’s an angel. He’s trying to get this couple back together before Christmas. What’s not to get?”
“Oh.” And we all go back to what we were doing, the manager picking up her pen, me taking another forkful of halal, the JBC’s eyes moving back to the television screen, his synapses firing at an incredible rate, desperately trying to comprehend the plot that some overpaid screenwriter punched out sitting on the john. A script fine-tuned in such a way so that it would be easily digested by even an Alzheimer’s-inflicted grandmother. A movie, that to this particular JBC, was 2001 a fucking Space Odyssey.
Maybe you had to be there, but the look on the manger’s face really did capture the absurdity of the moment. It showed me, at the very least, that stupidity is not some general concept that can be tossed about, but a habitual state of being with many subtlies and nuances. I mean, come on, it was the Hallmark Channel.
Oh, also, this has nothing to do with Christmas but a few weeks ago this very same JBC was watching a rerun of Numbers (with Judd Hirsch and the guy from Northern Exposure) on the very same TV. Some dude got shot like 39 times with a machine gun, then the JBC went to the bathroom or something. He came back and asked us “So did that guy die?”
