the last time

I remember my final day of high school. I remember leaving the school building and thinking to myself, "Well, this is the last time I will ever come to this place." I remember, two weeks after giving my two-weeks notice to an employer, thinking to myself, "Well, this is the last time I'll ever set foot in this godforsaken place." I'm sure you have some of the same memories of school, or terrible jobs or any number of unpleasant (or sometimes pleasant) experiences, knowing it will be the very last time you will have that experience.

There is an author named Jason Pargin. He's a pretty interesting guy. He was, at one time, an executive editor of Cracked.com, the online humor website which has branched out to become more of a catch-all for pop culture and interesting trivia... sort of a Ripley's Believe It or Not meets Jeopardy! by way of Alex Falcone. Jason is also the best-selling author of John Dies at the End. I follow Jason on social media where he regularly posts little clips dealing with things you never noticed in movies or bits of trivia about past world events or, sometimes, just plain old thought-provoking ideas. 

Recently, Jason did a short commentary about traditions. Family traditions, to be specific. In this little piece of internet content, he talked about things that people do all the time, either as part of their everyday rituals or as annual traditions connected to a holiday. He mentioned things like putting a certain special ornament on top of your Christmas tree or your dad walking around the house on Christmas afternoon with a large trash bag to gather up discarded gift wrap or a specific side dish your mother always prepares for Christmas dinner (okay... okay, maybe he recorded this piece around Christmas time.) The point he made was: one day it will be the last time you ever do that particular activity. One day, that special ornament will be misplaced or it will have broken in storage or someone bought a different ornament to top the tree. He pointed out that, due to illness or, possibly death, or some other reason, your dad will not walk around the house with that trash bag this year. He noted that when a particular, regular event or activity is happening, you will have absolutely no idea that it will be the very last time it will happen. Unlike leaving a job or graduation from school  — two events in which you know when the finality occurs  — there are other times that offer no clues that this time will be the last time. He went on to say that things you do all the time  — all the time  — someday, it will be the last time you do them.... and you won't know it.

Many years ago, after my mom decided that she would no longer prepare and host our family Thanksgiving meal, my sister-in-law took over the holiday duties. My sister-in-law invited all the same family members and even prepared a kosher turkey to accommodate my wife and me, despite that fact that my sister-in-law is not Jewish (something my mother never did). For several consecutive years, we gathered at my brother's house for Thanksgiving. In 1993, however, my sister-in-law announced that she would be skipping a year as host for Thanksgiving. She had given birth earlier in the year and was not up to having a houseful of people and tending to a newborn. So, everyone made other plans and we would all plan to reconvene the following year. My father died unexpectedly at the end of that year. We never gathered at my brother's house for Thanksgiving again. However, no one knew that the previous year would be the last time.

One morning in 1967, the cast of Gilligan's Island assembled at Paramount Studios to film the final episode of the show's third season. Production wrapped and the cast members expected to see each other in the fall. However, during the summer, CBS executives decided not to proceed with a proposed fourth season. When John Lennon ate breakfast on December 8, 1980, he didn't know that it would be the last time he would eat breakfast. When two-thousand seven-hundred and fifty-three people went to work on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, they had no idea it would be the last time that would happen. One day, when you were little, your mother picked you up and put you down.... for the very last time.

It's a very daunting concept to grasp. It's a bit sad and a bit eerie. Just a little reminder about the reality of life. Remember the words of Warren Zevon.

Enjoy every sandwich.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

welcome to my world

Remember that guy I told you about last week? My co-worker who stinks? Well, I have another co-worker who also stinks... but in a different way.

I have been in and around the commercial printing business for approximately 40 years. I have worked for printing companies. I have designed for printing companies. I have dealt with printing companies as a customer. In my nearly four decades of experience, I can safely say, with certain small exceptions, that people in the commercial printing business are some of the dumbest people I have ever met. The frightening majority of folks in the commercial printing business are ignorant, narrow-minded lunkheads who, aside from operating a printing press roughly the size of a battleship, can't do much else. And the sales force in the commercial printing business don't posses the skills to operate the presses, so they are even dumber. Salespeople who sell commercial printing services are a special kind of dumb.

Here's my most recent encounter with one of their representatives.

In my current job, I design ads and other promotional materials for the supermarket industry. I work closely with a guy who sells the owners of these supermarkets on the idea that their store needs these items in order to drum up business. After lengthy in-person or phone conversations with the customer, the salesman hands me scribbled pages of notes and rudimentary drawings and it's my job to translate these hieroglyphics into something "pretty." After submitting a design idea, the salesman runs it by the customer and it goes though several more rounds of changes, edits and additions until an approval is given and it goes to print. The changes are usually transmitted via email . But along the way. some of those changes are delivered verbally, in the form of the salesman sitting behind me as I guide my mouse cursor around my computer monitor, telling me "Move that there." and "Change this to that." 

The salesman in question is a slick little motherfucker with a Mephistophelian beard, French-cuffed shirts and a vocabulary like a longshoreman. An uneducated longshoreman. He complains about the stupidity of every single one of his customers. He second-guesses his customer's changes and often directs me to make changes contrary to their changes... only to have those changes changed back to what they originally requested.

Just this week, I was working on a door hanger for a supermarket grand opening in the South Jersey area. (You know what a door hanger is. It's a long cardboard advertisement with a slotted hole cut in it that... you know... hangs on your doorknob.) This particular piece had gone though an inordinate number of changes over a period of a couple of days. (I generated nearly eight unique proofs, only differentiated by a few insignificant changes — none of which would ever be noticed by a potential recipient as he tosses it from his front door into the pile of the week's recycling.)

Late on Friday afternoon, the salesman stomped into my office, grumbling something about "more changes." He plopped himself into a nearby office chair and asked me to pull up the pending door hanger-in-progress on my computer. As I searched my folders for the proper version of the InDesign file, the salesman said: "The first thing the customer wants, is to add 'Black Lives Matter" to the front, under the logo."

I froze.

I slowly turned around, something I rarely do, as I prefer to accept dictated changes while I face my computer screen. "Really?," I asked. Customer changes of any kind never surprise me. Store owners have been known to make any number of unusual requests ("unusual" in my opinion) for what they want added to their advertising in the name of the dangerous combination of "promotion" and "community awareness."

He laughed heartily. "No," he clarified, "I'm just kidding."

This made me angry. Very angry. First of all, as the "new guy," I was in no position to say anything about anything. I couldn't reprimand him. I couldn't explain how I found his callous comment offensive. I couldn't tell him how his belittling of the BLM movement was dismissive of an entire race that has been dismissed for years and years. I certainly understood his derisive remark. The supermarket is located in a predominantly black neighborhood. In his narrow little mind, he saw me — a white guy with gray hair — as a comrade. A compatriot. A confederate. An ally. A reflection of his own way of thinking. He even repeated his little racist comment to the real stinky guy behind me — who chuckled with his acknowledgement.

The salesman continued dictating the actual changes he wanted and I made them to the document. I generated a PDF proof and emailed it to the salesman, hitting the big "SEND" button as he exited my office. I stewed for sometime until I gathered up my jacket and left the office myself, as it was the end of another work week.

Over the weekend, I thought (on and off) about my few options. I decided — reluctantly — to do nothing. Not to say anything to my supervisor at work. Not to say anything to the nice lady in Human Resources who I have not seen since my first day of work seven months ago. I decided to let it pass. Racists will always be racists. I can't change that. Stupid people will always be stupid. I can't change that either.

The best I can do is blog about it.

So I did.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

walking with a ghost

I am on vacation this weekend, so here is a story that appeared on my illustration blog in 2010. It's a pretty funny story. It's is also a true story. Aside from the humorous subject and outcome of the story, it is interesting how much has changed in a mere eleven years. The boy who is the main character just completed his first year of college. I'm not sure if he has overcome his fears, though. My eldest niece, who is referenced three times, is now 41 and the mother of a pretty rambunctious seven-year old. My brother-in-law and his wife have been separated for over a year.  My eight-year old niece is now a high school graduate and is transgender.— JPiC

“A baby is an alimentary canal with a loud voice at one end and no responsibility at the other.”

Several evenings ago, there was a family dinner at my in-law’s house. My wife and I attended, along with my wife’s younger brother, his wife and two daughters, ages… um… somewhere between four and eight… or something close to that. Also on the guest list were my wife’s cousin, her husband and two young sons, both in the approximate age range of my nieces. My thirty-year-old niece was there too, but since she is relatively well-behaved and doesn’t fit into the “child” category anymore, she will merit merely this mention in the story. 

Dinner proceeded like most dinners, with cross-table conversation punctuated by clinking glasses, rattling flatware and my father-in-law rolling his eyes in exasperation and saying, “I can’t hear you.” As usual, the children picked, uninterested, at their meals and bolted from the table early while the adults lingered over their plates. My eldest niece (Hmmm! Two mentions!) stealthily began the preliminary clearing of the table to ready it for dessert. The living room, adjacent to the dining room, came alive with the unruly loudness of four rambunctious young cousins. The noise settled slightly after a visit by one of the parents — impatiently prompted by my father-in-law. Still, the muffled sounds of children’s voices could be heard, though no actual words could be discerned. 

The hushed tones from the living room, it would soon be revealed, was my niece (not the thirty-year old. Jeez! Three mentions!) recounting the legend of Bloody Mary for the benefit of her cousin. The tale of Bloody Mary, for those who never attended camp, never attended a public school or was never a kid surrounded by other kids, is a word-of-mouth ghost story. Although it has various origins and numerous colloquial nuances, the basic story remains. The evil spirit of a woman of undetermined background can be invoked by facing a mirror in a darkened room (usually the claustrophobic confines of a bathroom) and reciting her name — “Bloody Mary” — a specific number of times (anywhere from three to a hundred, depending on whose giving the instructions). My niece, at eight years of age, is a voracious reader, an avid TV and movie junkie and, just like her father at that age, a budding horror fan. Unfortunately, most children are scared shitless by things of that nature, and much to her delight, her slightly older yet very impressionable boy cousin was no exception. And judging by the sly smile spread across her lips, she knew that would be the result. 

As the evening wound down, my wife’s cousin rounded up her family and, as all good mothers are prone to do, insisted that her children visit the bathroom before the long drive home. Her older boy, the recently spooked one, reacted as though he was just asked to ingest a healthy serving of cockroach and broccoli casserole. His eyes widened in terror and his feet remained firmly planted as his mother directed him towards the small powder room just off the dining room. “No!,” he shrieked, his face growing flush, then pale. His parents exchanged bewildered glances. The poor boy shook with real fear as he protested any persuasion to get him to enter that bathroom. My mother-in-law, my father-in-law, his mother and his father (okay, maybe not his father so much) tried to reason with the terrified child, as his younger brother danced with indifferent joy, reveling in the fact that the journey home was being temporarily delayed. “There’s nothing to be afraid of!,” his mother said, “It’s just a bathroom.” My father-in-law suggested they take advantage of the bathroom on the second floor. That was just as bad, because obviously to the frightened boy, Bloody Mary’s portal to the world of the living was any bathroom and he wanted no parts of any one of them. He continued his ear-splitting screams until my niece sheepishly admitted that she may have inadvertently mentioned part of a story that may have implied that an evil, child-grabbing ghost lived inside all mirrors. Bringing it out in the open didn’t help. That kid was not going into the bathroom. He screamed louder, pleading to be taken home “right this instance,” as he put it. Finally, my mother-in-law took the frantic boy aside and leaned over to present her proposal face to face. With his full attention, my mother-in-law produced a large and shiny silver dollar from her pocket. She explained that if he entered the bathroom and completed the task that customarily takes place in a bathroom, this silver minted beauty would be his. He briefly considered, turned on his heels and while unbuttoning his pants, slammed the bathroom door behind him. One tinkle later, he emerged to collect his reward. 

Money, it appears, trumps everything. Even ghosts.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com