Love That Dirty Water

(listening to: Two Words, Kanye West)

This morning I got a call from one of the staffing agencies I registered with when I got to town, about a job starting on Monday (keep your fingers crossed, I think I find out tomorrow), and she needed me to fill out a conflicts inquiry and fax it back to her. Sounds easy enough, right? Unfortunately, there were some Dorfman-esque factors that were complicating this otherwise simple procedure. Unfortunately, our printer is down, so I could view it online, but I couldn't print it out. I then got online and found a Kinko's nearby where I could print the form and fax it in, as long as I could put it onto a disc and take it with me. Unfortunately, Amanda's laptop doesn't have a floppy drive, only a cd-rom, and we're out of blank discs. My next step was to get online and find another Kinko's not-so-nearby (about 2 miles away) that has internet capabilities, so I could get online there, print out the form, and fax it in. Unfortunately, my car is sort of dead right now, and I couldn't drive to the Kinko's, so I set out on foot for what would amount to roughly 3.5 miles roundtrip.

Here's where the story brightens up. About a block and a half from the house, I see this Box Store whose window advertises fax services. I figure, what the hell, let's see if maybe they have a computer where I can get online and print this sumbitch. A quick look around once inside tells me they don't. I'm discouraged, about to turn around and continue my trek, when the proprieter pokes his head out from behind a rack of rolls of bubble wrap and says, "Hey, nice hat!"

You see, I'm a Red Sox Fan. I have a Red Sox hat. I like to wear my Red Sox hat, and I was wearing my Red Sox hat today. This dude, the Box Store dude, he's from Boston. Turns out that was the turning point of this adventure. I asked him, "I see that you have fax services, but I need to print something out from an email and fax it in, do you also have a terminal where I could get online and print it??" He thinks for a minute and says,

"No, I don't ... but fahk it, you're a sawks fan, come on back."

He sets me up in his office, lets me get online on his computer, print out my 10-pager, sit there and fill it out, then faxes it in for me, and charges me way less than full price for the faxes. Unbelievable. Along the way, I picked up a few pieces of information:

1. His name is, quite predictably, Sean. I couldn't make this up. I don't know what his last name is, but I'm guessing it's either Sullivan or Murphy.

2. His father died in the mid-80's. His dying declaration was "Those fahkin' sawks."

3. Sean "shawt his wahd on the sawks" last season. He "watched Bucky Dent and Bucknah" and he just needs a rest. Maybe next season, he said, he'll be able to really follow them again.

4. If I wanted to go to Thailand, a roundtrip ticket might cost me around $700, but while I'm there, I can stay at a nice hotel with a pool for around $20 a night, and I could also get two hookers for the whole night for 30 bucks. Anybody got $750 I can borrow?? Just kidding, of course. Ha ha. Umm....

Anyway, Sean has restored some of my faith in humanity, not to mention the common bond of the Red Sox Fan.

In other news, I'd like to add that the title of this post has somewhat of a double entendre today. As I type this, there's a guy here to fix the disposal in the kitchen sink. A second ago, he says to me, "this stuff is gross because it's got food in it, it ain't just dirty water."

You got that straight, buddy. It ain't just dirty water.