Yelling About Laundry

Have you ever watched Pluto TV? I don't know how it works (I assume it is evil and based around some conglomerate of all IPs) but it streams tons of old and random shows for free. It reminds me of OG Hulu when it was all free and random and I still recall watching NBC's Surface (discussed in this blog) and some ABC show about attorneys. That show stood out because one attorney was from Case Western Reserve University which is in Cleveland to which I applied to, and failed, about 50 jobs when first moving here. That show (I really wish I could remember the name) also had a scene where one female attorney spills coffee on her shirt and goes to the other attorneys office to grab a spare shirt*  and she takes off her dirty shirt off right in the middle of the office. Then a male attorney walks in and...its network primetime titillation. I can't remember this show but its like if the first two seasons of New Girl were distilled into 2 minutes. 

I mentions all this because Pluto tends to just ram the same kinds (if not the same one outright) ad in breaks. All fast food or all laundry products or, when the time is right, all election ads. One day I got stuck on the laundry train and yelled that the Tide Clear Pods don't look as appealing as the normal ones. Just make them all clear and not candy themed.

"She shouldn't be wearing pants!" I scream incredulously and pointing at the TV. Not at the world most boring adult film** but instead as the ad for the Bounce static cling reducing sheets. Our commercial heroine should take her slinky ankle length dress and walk around pants less (or at least in sweats) while the sheets do their magic in the dryer. That makes more sense, yes? What do I know, most of what I know is from movies.***

*This is an all pro move and something you should do especially if coffee has a laser lock on fucking up your day. Never wear white, anytime!

**Anyone who patches pornography on the TV is either a boomer, somehow incarcerated, or an absolute maniac. Why the tube sites have that "Broadcast to TV" button is something that should be regulated. You need to drop three multifactor authentications (texts and a finger print scan and something not yet invented) before that beams to the flat screen. 

***This post features a lot of people in varying states of undress. I guess sorry, not sorry. 

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At middle age, I found myself using the term " value add" unironically. There was a contest at work to name the new conference rooms. Drop them all here in the link but remember it is not anonymous so keep that in mind, folks. I submitted generic local pride names (Lake Effect) and my most acerbic was "Quick Wins" which, mileage varies if people will get the tongue in cheek note. In the last year that is the zenith of my writing having pivoted to a new job in the entrepreneurial world. 

I used to write to textualize fantasies and day dreams. The pandemic with its zoom calls and intimate distance was fertile ground for jotting things down. I would drop them on my blog and feel accomplished. A little less hollow after another meeting. I thought I was funny. Or somehow sage. Often they were indeed just fantasies as I had co-workers whisked into adventures henshin super hero style.

In the tenth grade I read a snoozy short story, Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and can't remember a thing save the guy day dreamed of planes and adventures. I would re-read it save the very teacher who assigned it to us, re-connecting years later on Facebook, apologized to me for making us read it. "Im sorry I made you read that silly story, but looks like you made it!"

Everything jotted down was a Walter Mitty type aside and, in a new environment, not sure if I would have the same feelings or time. I wrote during hollow moments in a job already plateaued. I had reached a point where the flow, however hectic, had enough cadence so I could swim through the ebb and flow and find 10-15 minutes where it was OK to do anything but work. 

In college, a creative writing class introduced me to the short stories of George Saunders, specifically CivilWarLand in Bad Decline. It's good but note that at last check I think Saunders had been, as popularly and freely applied today, "cancelled" for sexual harassment. But, damn, were those good stories and I appreciated that, before writing, he had miscellany jobs. Here was someone who just bounced from being a cook to oil derrick technician to writer. I think of that when I think of something I should jot down on the blog if even for minor eyes. The lonely Russian porn bot reading this.