Hey, nice to see you! What’s up?
Wow, that’s great!
Yeah, I know what you mean.
So, where to?
No sweat. Have you there in a flash.Did you hear about Alma? No? Well, man, let me tell you, she’s like a cat. Got nine lives, know what I mean? The stories I could tell you about her. Well, get this: this time her house near burned down, but even though she’s closing in on a hundred, and it was four o’clock in the morning, she still managed to get out in one piece. I tell you, it’s uncanny. I don’t know all the details yet, but I’ll definitely fill you in when I get the goods.
I have to admit that I kinda’ wonder about that sometimes myself, the way these things happen, it’s a mystery to me, why things turn out the way they do. I mean, who could ever guess these things? Whenever I think back and try to remember what I used to think the future would bring, I realize that I was almost always hopelessly deluded. I always think I got it figured out. I think that, hey! this is just two plus two equals four. It's gonna' be a breeze. Sign me up, man! But as soon as I start to get close to where I think I'm headed, it's always the same. I think, did I take a wrong turn somewhere? cuz this sure don't look like the place I thought I was going to. Back to the ol' drawing board...
Listen, you got a minute, right? Well, let me tell you this story that happened to me a little while back. I was hanging out with Jerry -- you know Jerry, right? Well, we were hanging out at his shop. Yeah, right-- where else? It was first thing in the morning. Jerry had just opened up. I think that on that particular day we were both still going from the day before. But that’s not always the case when I’m up at that time. I don’t keep regular hours, this job doesn’t really permit it, as you might guess. Right, HA HA, I just sort of go with the flow. Anyway, that particular morning we were both on a roll. Jerry was buzzing from his ninety-ninth super-size coffee, and I had been climbing all night and wasn’t ready to come down.
I can’t remember exactly how it all started, but Jerry was like:
“Man, I was just getting on a roll, I was really starting to get somewhere on my project, when I happened to glance over at the clock to see how long I had to go before I had to open up the shop, and it was already past opening time. I couldn’t believe it! I felt like totally flipping out! Right now, I feel like I am never going to have the time. Just before you walked in I was thinking about it all, about how the point of any invention is, ultimately, when you get right down to it, to save time, to do for people something they previously had to do for themselves, leaving them with more time to do whatever it is they really want to do. And I went, WOAH! Something’s wrong here. I mean, I never have time to do anything but work. I never get the time to do anything I want. And then it got even worse. It hit me that I didn’t even know what I wanted to do. It’s like I’ve been working so long and so hard trying to get somewhere that I forgot where I was going.”
Well, let me tell you, if ever there was a case of being in right place at the right time, this was it. I knew exactly where Jerry was coming from, I was on it! I didn’t waste any time in pushing my points, and came right back with:
“Hey, I’m there, Jer’. It’s like everyone around the world is spending every second of their time trying to save everyone else time so that everyone will have more time, but instead what ends up is that nobody has any time left to spend on themselves. So, like, where does all that saved time go? OK, look, you know that saying, “time is money,” right? Well, believe it man! All that time is converted into money and stuck in the bank. We’re spending our lives working on a machine that takes our time and turns it into their money. The whole thing is just one gigantic scam. The fat cats have scared us into a rat race. We gotta jump off, man. Split the scene. We gotta get the hell out of Dodge, Jer’.”
After that we went back and forth for a few minutes. First, with Jerry going:
“Receiving you loud and clear. The problem is how on earth do we jump off when there is no place to jump off to? The whole world’s Dodge at this point.”
Then, I was like:
“There may be no place on a map that we can jump off to, but there’s a space in our minds. If we dig deep enough we can find it. A space that exists outside of time, where the machine can’t get at us.”
And so Jerry goes:
“Huh. But, y’know...I mean, I am who I am and I’ve been who I am and have been doing what I’ve been doing for so long know that I’m so totally plugged in that I don't think I have that space. For you it might be different, I don’t know.”
And that’s when I had the brainstorm:
“Wow! Man, that’s it! You’ve hit the nail on the head! There might be no space inside of you where you can go, but there’s a space inside of me where you can. And like, vice versa, man.”
And then there was this total, proverbial pin-dropping silence, and I started to get kinda’ paranoid that maybe Jerry thought I was off my rocker or something, but then he came back with:
“You mean, even though each one of us is hardwired to the grid-matrix, if both of us can manage somehow to simultaneously jump off into the other, each one of us will find a space there that the machine can’t touch-- sort of like zero-G-- and that once we’re there we’ll be able to shake off some of the habits that tie us to the machine and then rewire, create a new circuit that’s sealed off from the matrix, that’s just for us.”
And so, of course, I was like:
“That’s it! You’ve got it, now run with it. Go, man, go!”
And then Jerry put the last pieces into place:
“Well, as far as I can see, there’s only one thing to do. We’ll have to make a trade. My ball and chain for yours. But I’m not sure that I know what it is. I know that for me, it would seem that the shop would be it, but really it’s my compulsion to invent that got me stuck in my shop in the first place, and I don’t know if I can trade that.”
Well, we had got this far, so I couldn’t help but go along. And so I said:
“Yeah, it’s the same for me. My taxi’s the thing, but really it’s my uncontrollable urge to always keep moving that, like, drives me to drive. And just like you, I don’t know if I can trade that either, but it’s worth a try. Let’s do it!”
And with that, we traded keys. The keys to this cab for the keys to Marvel Hardware--that’s Jerry’s shop. If only it were so simple. I know, I know, believe me I know. It sounds crazy, because it was. I may not have known it right then, but I soon found out, and let me tell it was a classic example of learning the hard way. Yeah, it was one for the books, let me tell you. Hey, I’ll fill you in one of these days, you can count on it.
Look, here we are, at The Old Hotel. In record time, just like I promised. Hey, thanks! All right, take it easy. See ya!