At The Pearly Gates

   The huge bouncer glanced up from his clipboard and nodded at me. I shuffled forward, next in line.
   "Yeah.. uh.. my name's Don..."
   "I know who you are," the bouncer said, glowering at me. He still flipped through pages on his clipboard, sheet after sheet after sheet, it seemed like a ream of paper even though it looked like there was only one page.
   "So you're Saint Peter?" I asked.
   The bouncer nodded.
   "But... I thought... I mean... you're black."
   St. Peter stopped flipping pages, and stared over his reading glasses at me. "Is that a problem?"
   "Oh, no, no. God, no!" I said. "It's just.. I thought you were Middle Eastern."
   "You mean Jewish?" Saint Peter asked. "Is that a problem?"
   I ran my finger along the velvet rope and looked past him to the white, luminous gates. Still closed.
   "You gotta understand," I said. "This is not at all what I thought it would be. Waiting in line forever, the limos, the kleig lights, the velvet rope. Who knew the gates to Heaven looked like one of those douchebaggy Hollywood clubs down on Sunset?"
   Saint Peter pushed his glasses up on his nose. "So your eternal reward looks... what did you say? douchebaggy?"
   "I'm just digging myself deeper and deeper here, aren't I?" I said with a nervous laugh. "I was expecting..."
   "Clouds? Harps? A wise old white man with a white beard, a big tome, a quill pen with a really long plume?" Saint Peter grew more agitated with each word. "Let me ask you something, smart guy, do you eat the same thing every day?"
   He stared at me, his eyes reflecting infinity, and I knew he expected an answer.
   "N... no," I said. "I like to mix it up. Mexican, Chinese, good old home cooking."
   "So what makes you think I want to see cherubs and dazzling golden light all the time?" Saint Peter said. "I've been here near on two thousand years, maybe I'm tired of harp music, maybe I think I'll puke if I see another puffy cloud. Maybe I want to be a black guy every once in a while."
   I held my hands up, surrendering. "Okay, okay, sorry. I'll keep a more open mind."
   Saint Peter cleared his throat and regained his composure. "I happen to like Hollywood. Reminds me of Rome under Nero. Before the fire, of course."
   "So..." I said, pointing at the clipboard, "I don't want to be a pest, but..."
   He flipped a few more pages on his eternal clipboard, scanning them intently. "Well, I don't see anything too egregious. You were mostly good, and the bad stuff you did wasn't all that bad, compared to some people I see. Looks like you're... oh..."
   Ready to step across the velvet rope I paused. His 'oh' didn't sound like a pleased 'oh,' but more like a troubled 'oh.'
   "Is there some sort of problem?" I asked.
   "Kind of," Saint Peter said. "It says here you kept a blog?"

Wafflicious

Have you ever heard the expression 'I got a hammer, and now everything looks like a nail?'
   Well, for Christmas I got a waffle iron and now everything looks like it should be round and dotted with square holes.
   I know that I'm difficult to buy gifts for. But I was still taken by surprise when I unwrapped a waffle iron on Christmas Day. I didn't quite know what to think, which means it was a good gift indeed. I got it home, plugged it in, and whipped up a batch of batter as outlined in the owner's manual. I wasn't sure how it was all going to work out, if the batter was going to be too thick or too thin, if the waffle iron's non-stick coating really was, or if the waffles would actually be tasty. The first one came out a little lopsided, but it was crisp and brown and oh-so-delicious.
   I gotta say, I likes me some waffles.
   After the success of the first batch, I went out and sprung for some authentic maple syrup (it's pricey) and got ready to try out all of the waffle recipes. Cornbread waffles tonight.
   Now I'm thinking of ways to combine waffles with other things. Maybe waffles instead of hog dog buns, waffles on a stick, waffles instead of tortillas, waffles as the shell for beef wellington, waffles layered inside a lasagna. Okay, maybe not that last one, but I am thinking about waffles a lot.
   I really, really need a job.

Maybe It's Me?

I think I'm giving off an odd vibe. Odder than normal, I mean. Usually I'm a magnet for strange people, crazy people, people with an agenda. I'm used to that, it's been that way for me for as long as I can remember. But I was just walking back from the gym now, and I had something odder than usual happen.
   A guy tried to sell me groceries from the back of his car.
   Seriously. On Colorado Blvd, a major thoroughfare in Pasadena. I was minding my own business, just going home, and I saw this guy messing around in the back of his little beater car. He had a collection of grocery bags - plastic not paper - and he just seemed to be rearranging them. As I approached he turned around, eased forward like Lefty the Salesman from Sesame Street, and asked me if I needed any apples or milk. I declined and moved on. It was like a very bad film noir, especially since it was 9 AM and I was wearing shorts and a sweaty shirt.
   But I got to thinking, setting aside his rank amateurism - how did he know I wasn't a cop? - this guy has to be desperate, things for him have to have gotten very, very serious. Bad enough that it became a good idea to sell stolen groceries. (And I have no doubt that they were, in fact, stolen.) Economic recovery? Maybe it's not as close as the media wants us to believe.
   And what is it about me that I look like the kind of guy who would buy a gallon of milk out of the back of a Yugo?

How Hard Is It To Scan Groceries?

I'll be the first to admit it, I have a bit of free time being 'between assignments.' But that time is my own, and I guard every little bit of it jealously. I look for jobs (yes, I really do), I write, I work out, I do a bit of design work in Adobe Illustrator, I try to keep busy. If I wanted to learn a new skill, believe me, I'd be able to devote as many hours to it as it would take to master.
   This is the long way around to saying that I really don't want to spend my time figuring out how to run the 'Self Service' machines at the grocery store. My local Von's has a bunch of these things, and when I'm shopping somebody comes over the intercom every five minutes or so, really pushing people to do their own labor. They kind of lay on a guilt trip, saying 'no waiting at the self-service, you should try it,' or 'regular checkout is full, but self-service is available,' that kind of stuff. Like your lonely grandmother worked there or something.
   Seriously, if I wanted to be a grocery store clerk I'd join the freakin' union and wear an apron and a nametag. I want to pick out my groceries, wheel my cart to the front of the store, and make awkward conversation with someone while they silently judge my eating habits. Then I want some high-school student to put all my canned goods on top of my carton of eggs and roll his eyes when I tell him to re-do it.
   I don't ask the grocery store clerks to fill out my unemployment form for me, why are they asking me to scan and bag my own stuff?
   I definitely feel a cranky old-man tirade coming on...