Being an optimist means you find just enough to like about your crappy job that you don't quit, which means there are a lot of optimists in crappy jobs all over the world. Ladies and Gentlemen, please teach your children when to quit in disgust. It is a skill that will serve them well.
For several months in 1996 I drove all around the Bay Area for work, copying legal documents from San Jose to Santa Rosa, earning a living and fighting to stay awake to enjoy it. Tried to save money by bringing lunch with me, saving preparation time by eating cheap microwave food. Remembered while killing an hour in a Santa Clara parking lot, famished, that my car had no microwave oven, and so I elected to take advantage of the crushing lack of self-respect that kept me in that job in the first place by warming my frozen burritos in the sun and eating them as if I'd found them in the kitchen of an abandoned ski resort after an avalanche. I rolled back the rusty sunroof about three inches and rested the two still-wrapped lunch treats in the shallow rain gutter over my head. Always eager to make efficient use of my time, I drove to a more pleasant location while I let my lunch warm up; the burritos seemed likely to stay put.
Folks, if you're ever feeling desperately cynical about the human race, drive around with something on top of your car. Normally hateful, bloodthirsty commuters will screech across several lanes of traffic, that they might generously honk and point and shout to alert you to the danger your belongings are in. They do this because you have touched them in a special way; in your clumsy mistake, they see a reflection of their own weaknesses, and in that moment they recognize that we are all one human race, united under God and whatever pile of stuff we have left on top of our own cars. A bag of groceries or an open purse is like a yarmulke for your car, a declaration of spiritual devotion: I am fallible, because I am human.
I have decided, therefore, that this will be my new art form: stuff-left-on-top-of-the-car art. Any simple object demands thoughtful attention when perched atop a moving vehicle! An open briefcase with papers and supplies flapping onto the freeway makes a bold statement about the skewed priorities of our civilization; a pile of worthwhile books can inspire commuters to reconsider their reading habits; a stack of fine china plates would add a certain suspenseful '50s variety show charm to every trip. Your morning commute can be a shower of showbiz excitement! My personal favorite, however, would be a baby carrier/safety seat. Obviously, leaving a baby in the seat would be a big attention-getter, but I'd elect to leave the seat on the roof empty; the overall image would be more dramatic. Like a concise one-panel cartoon, it tells a little story. I like that.
Copyright 2001 Betsy Shebang