5.08.2006

Flu time... and Far Far Away

Been down for the last several days with the flu, courtesy of my Windows Server teacher giving me the bug when he had a weird "conversation" with me that involved a cliched, yet oh-so-sexist comment. Sexist comments apparently really do make me sick ;-) That, and not getting any real lecturing from this class. Thank the gods for the labs... Suffice to say that I'm writing this next little vignette in his "honor."

Think of a person who really bugs or annoys you. Think of a place you'd like to send this person. Then-- mentally-- send them there!

The post card arrived on my doorstep a week ago, and I was a little surprised, since every little bit of mail is usually crammed impersonally, and often incorrectly, by our loafer of a mail carrier, who can't sort for crap, into our huge bank of apartment mailboxes. But this one was different, and it was a Sunday delivery, which I have never ever seen in all my 34 years. Something was different about it, all right.

I picked it up with trepidation, my heart slamming in my chest. There was no address, no return post office box, nothing. The front of the post card glowed a bright neon pink, like those stupid plastic bracelets I used to wear in middle school. Yeeech! I thought, and nearly dropped it in disgust. But part of me was intrigued.

Touch this to your enemy, and you will live happily ever after! What on earth? At the bottom was a line of fine print: Look into the pink, and you will smile for the rest of your existence! I cleared my throat of the sick phlegm that had dripped down from my stuffed-up nasal passages.

A quick flash of anger sliced through me like a lightening bolt. Damn him! I thought. I remembered, and cursed him. "Behind every great man is a woman!" he said, and coughed over my lab computer screen.

I dragged myself into the classroom two days later, still reeling from the fever. I was an hour early, so I was surprised he'd still beaten me there. No one else had, however.

"Good evening, Elizabeth!" he said.

"Hello, I have something for you!" I said, handing him the card.

"For me?" he said, and reached for it. The second the card touched his calloused hand, he was gone. There were no sparkly transporter effects a la Star Trek. There was no fading into nothingness. Just boom! Gone. The card drifted to the ground like a piece of down fluff.

I bent over to pick it up, and drew my hand back from its shiny neon pink surface. It rippled for a moment and then something formed gradually, almost like a Polariod. Purple waves splashed over the side of a boat that was heaving in an ocean that reminded me of the crab boating promo I'd seen of a show on the Discovery Channel.

It can't be possible, can it? I asked the universe. The waves seemed to jump toward my quivering hand.

Almost against my will, I picked it up. Eventually, as always, curiosity overwhelmed my good sense. I stared at the waves-- the picture reminded me of a pink-tinted video iPod. And I stared at the boat. As I looked harder, the card seemed to zoom in on the boat's occupants.

"Get to work!" I heard someone yell. Jumping, I looked around. The room, though, was eerily empty.

"You! Get to work!" The picture zoomed in on an irate captain or first mate or something (hell, I don't know), and then zoomed out to focus on the teacher, who stared, stunned, as the boat slammed him from port to starboard and back again.

"How am I? How did?..."

"Get back to work!"

"But I! What?"

"Pick up the goddamn net, and work!" the captain or first mate or whatever yelled.

A wave slammed over the port side and drenched my teacher.

"Pick up the fuckin' net, lazy ass!"

He grabbed a hank of net that was lying near his drenched shoes and screamed as the picture zoomed in on a crab's claw that clamped on to the webbing between his left thumb and the rest of his fingers.

The card was sure right! I chuckled as I drove back home, occasionally glancing at the teacher shivering as Alaska's waves periodically washed over him as he struggled to keep up with the crew.

I wonder what's going to happen when crab fishing season's over...

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