Wasting time with Jet

What you're reading before you, are the thoughts of a broken man. A man pushed to his limit and the result is nothing but a blob of skin cells, blood vessels and muscle. What could have POSSIBLY driven this mild mannered, timid creature to the edge? I'll TELL you! A CERTAIN eight year old girl who is so DAMN clumsy she make Jacques Clouseau as graceful as a ballerina!

I tell you right now, I'm going to Jail...OH, LORDY they are gonna lock me up after I KILL this child.

Okay, today I had to go in for Pre-Employment Screening...

I needed to bring somethings with me for the ID, Finger Printing and Drug Test, and went over everything the night before and THOUGHT I was ready...

Let's See...

Driver's License or State ID (CHECK)
Birth Certificate (Brings up Dramatic Issues, but CHECK)
Social Security Card (CHECK)
Last TWO pay stubs from previous job (Took a while to scramble, but CHECK!)

And last but least...

High School Diploma (???? Blooooooooooooooo (Flatline tone))

So there I am, 7:45 in the morning of a 9 o'clock appointment, tearing the house apart like WOLVERINE trying to find this small piece of cardboard with the shiny gold sticker on the corner.

I have ONLY one place for all my important papers...a obliviously labeled blue folder on top of the books of the smallest bookshelf in the living room. Why hide my important papers out of my room?, because they get lost! If I just keep this simple "Hidden in Plain Sight" hiding place in order, every time I have to go to court or something, I'd be set!

But didn't last weekend (her first weekend back with us after spending summer down south...) little miss train wreck bump into the bookcase and knocked every book on the top shelf over...

I remember her saying "I put the books back in a nice order, uncle Leslie, it's like you can't even tell what happened.."

Flash forward to today, I open that blue folder and everything is out of order and MY DIPLOMA IS MISSING!!!!

I look all around, inside the bookcase, in between the books, all over the living room, every where...

Naturally, MOM is NO help...

"Maybe it wasn't in the folder, maybe it's somewhere else..."

There IS no somewhere else, it's only supposed to be in that one place, one area that's it!!!

I'm going TOTALLY insane like Bruce Willis in "Pulp Fiction" looking for his father's watch.

I know it should be there, but then I start think about when I was living in the Bronx...I had it always sticking out of my very tall bookcase next to the biography of Moby, it was ALWAYS in that upper right hand corner...

I'll be the first to admit, sometimes I put the most important things in weird, stupid places...it's only to remember them by.

I have all my other work history and paperwork filed away in boxes, The Library Years, the Temping Years, CHASE, HEALTHFIRST, Community Choice, all the way up to IPS...old College stuff, TV Script stuff, all perfectly separated and stored away, but something as FREAKIN important as my Diploma which I have to dig up at least once every 7 years...

It's 8:15 now, MOM's still around bugging me even though she should have left for work...

"Why don't you just take your Transcript instead?" she says.

I give her this look...

They want the damn Diploma, how do I look showing up with a transcript?!?!?

I keep looking and looking, the whole living is cluttering up now, then I go in my room and take everything apart.

I just wanted to die...

I'm a panting sweaty mess when I finally decide to leave at 8:30, biting the bullet taking the damn transcript with me.

I get down there at 9:30, they're a few others waiting already, but more came after me so I didn't feel too bad about coming late.

I did the fingerprinting and got my ID, then went next door to the lab to do the whole urine thing...once that was cool, I went back up to Human Resources on the 12th floor nervous as hell. I remember what I had to endure back in April with Deutsche Bank my Non-Driver's ID...If they sent me back home and I can't find that diploma...

I get called in by another person from HR and she gives me more paper work to sign (W4, Case of Emergency, blah, blah, blah...), then asks for the paperwork. I gave her the ID, Social, and Birth Certificate (The MOCKERY that it was...) and then showed her the transcript. After a few tense moments of her looking it over, she said it was acceptable (WHEW!!!), BUT there was an issue with my pay stubs...

It seems I misheard, It wasn't your last TWO stubs from your employer, it was 1 stub from your LAST TWO employers! (SHIT!) So, I needed one from Community Choice. She said I could bring it when I start monday, so no big problem. I was then given a binder that was the employee's guidebook, this thing was big enough to rival college!

I got the rest of the details, I'll be working 26 hours a week at 16 per hour which comes to around 416.00 a week, BUT I get paid bi-weekly (DAMN!) which comes to 832 every 2 weeks...which ain't THAT bad...I plan to keep the unemployment rolling (It ends in November anyway...) and hope I don't get called in for a evaluation. On the down side, The company is planning on informing IPS of my hire, which means they probably won't call me for anything anymore, we'll see how that goes.

SO, crisis averted, I was set to start on Monday, September 18th (A Day, which will live...in infamy.). I left around 11:30, and I figured "WHY go straight home and rack my brain tearing the house apart?" So I decided to stay downtown and walk around.

I first went to the Regal theater and waited around for the 12:35 showing of "The Convent". Despite no famous teen actors and a "Familiar" supernatural plot, I was curious to see it. Damn near fell asleep through most of it, and I couldn't believe that corny, open for a sequel ending.

Next, I walked across to the Seaport, it had been awhile since I was there...

Once again, I came upon the "BODIES" exhibit and thought about goin', but pushed it off for another day. The seaport had changed a bit, there were a few new stores and some old stores I missed. I contemplated taking a boat taxi uptown but settled for the bus instead, I got off at Union Square and hit the Virgin Megastore for some legally obtained music. I finally brought Busta's "The Big Bang" and some old cd's on sale for 10$ each (Like they normally should!). Made my way though the Farmer's Market to Barnes and Noble. I browsed the Humor section for new Garfield or Foxtrot books, then the new paperbacks then left, I'm so not into reading anymore!

I then walked crosstown to 6th avenue and hopped on the M5 all the way home.

After telling MOM everything lucked out, I tore up the house some more lookin' but came up with squat.

Come tomorrow, I'm taking a sledgehammer to everything in sight till I find that damn Diploma!