Imaginary Keith is tied in a chair being force fed numbers.  One hand is loose, barely, so that he can sketch a concept for an arbor and gate.  Every five minutes I walk over and flick him on the back of the ear, then remind him that he’s had more then two months to get this done.  It’s his own fault.  His own doing.

I took out the gag once, but immediately put it back in when he began to compare me to a visit to the dentist.

Do you see the abuse I have to put up with?

Finish the damn sketch, I tell him.  I’m waiting, a customer is waiting, and even worse, Thor is waiting.

Thor!  Did you hear me?  Thor!  Finish your work before you really piss him off.

Imaginary Keith’s hand wiggled around when I said that, but I’m not sure if he was reaching for the pen or just twitching as I tightened the ropes.  His eyes look a little jumpy, but then he’s such a coffee freak.

Give me a moment.  I’m playing modern day millwright, busily shredding 15 years of accumulated paperwork into a fine paper grist.

In the morning I’ll bake a loaf of bread.  It’ll taste like $3,500 Packard Bell memories and will warm up extremely slow.  The first bite will remind me of the days of no frills, nothing fancy.  The second bite will remind me of eating organic food - good for you at the moment, but nice when it’s over.  The third bite I will spit out.

Just like I did the $3,500 Packard Bell, at a garage sale, three years after buying it, for something like $100.  I haggled over the price with very little enthusiasm and the blinking DOS cursor just sat there, watching the whole thing.

Or maybe it was cussing me out.  It was always hard to tell with DOS.  Not like today’s computers, who really know how to show you when they’re pissed off.

Anyway, back to the shredder.  I’ve almost worked my way into an exciting pile of late 80’s toaster oven receipts, or lifetime warranty muffler receipts for cars I don’t own, or some such nonsense.

I wonder how some people can stay with the same job for so long without going crazy.

For fifteen years now, I’ve done the same job, and crazy now has a better office then me.  Fifteen years that seem like forever.

And the people I meet, most of them very nice and very pleasant, always want the same thing.  They call me to their home and expect me to convince them of what they want.  Sometimes they have ideas, but they are always cloudy.  I am there for clarity.  I am given the pleasure of trying to read their minds.  I am there to settle their disputes.  A contractor is nothing more then a diplomat and therapist and mind reader all rolled into one.

Who would ever believe that landscapes would cause so much tension between husbands and wives?  That battles of will could be fought over the placement of something so small as a tulip bulb?

There is a place that is not 40 degrees and nonstop rain.

There is a place where forty phone messages are not waiting to be returned, sitting in a neat pile next to an even neater pile of unpayable bills.

There is a place where people are not always waiting for you to show up.  A place where they don’t call every other day, asking, “when will it be finished?” A place where people are not forced to speak in a professional tone because they need their business to not shrivel and die.

There is a place where refinancing a house, and making rent, and arranging a divorce are not all daily concerns.

There is a place where people want more then just time to close their eyes and sleep.

I know where that place is, but am having trouble getting there.  It’s like looking for myself in the steamed over bathroom mirror.  I’m there, but I’m not.