New Job, an Urban Woodcock and a Pile of Cheetos

Big day today.

New contract gig – downtown (pronounced Don-Ton).

Started it off well by doing laundry until midnight last night. Ah, who needs sleep. It's overrated. Then I pulled one of those “wake up one minute before your alarm goes off” things. Lucky for me I set my clock ahead an hour to psyche myself out and proactively prevent waking up late. Ah-ha! I got one more hour. Take that proactive me from last night.

Oh, but wait. Remember all that Italian food you had for Mother's Day dinner the night previous (not to mention the remnants of the infamous fish tacos from the previous, previous night)? Yep. Heading south. Better get a move on.

Nevertheless, I went to bed late and woke up too early this morning. Late was not an option. Early Today show on NBC.

I never realized they had a Today show on at 4am. Didn't they just expand the normal Today show like 4 hours. Do we really need another 2 hours prior to that. Though I give the Early Today people props. They don't get all the buzz and Matt Lauer haircuts, but they do the news pretty well, no eight ongoing segments with the guest of the week because they have 16 hours of Today to fill and not nearly enough content. We really needed a Kathy Lee renaissance? HELL NO!

Okay. Back to the new job. So I work for a placement agency that got me a 6-month contract gig writing sales proposals for a big company. So I figure, big company, well known, they got they're poop in a group, right? NOT. No computer. No access. Nothing. Here. Read these recent sales proposals all day. For $50 an hour, I'll read the f!@#ing phonebook. Bring it on.

So eight hours of reading poorly written sales proposals. Here's a sample:

“We can even send the consumer a text notification in a matching text format for their cell phone so they can receive it.”

Okay. I'm kind of old. I know the guy I am filling in for is even older than I am, but even I know you have to try REALLY hard to make texting sound like brain surgery. Why can't we just say:

“Our proposed solution sends the consumer a customized text message.”

Now, I am no Keats, but come on.

My personal favorite was a response to the question, “How many active cards do you have in the market?”

(Insert 3 pages of content completely unrelated to the question) We have 3.9 million cards in the market.

Getting to the point isn't their strong suit – no wonder their proposals have as many pages as a Harry Potter novel. I shouldn't bazinga them too much, the building has a great view of both Target Field and the Metrodome. A lot of Republicans there though. That explains the odor.

Jeepers, I'm fiesty tonight. I guess two Rolling Rocks after a meatloaf dinner I didn't have to cook will do that to a guy.

So what did I do to make me feel like a kid again? I chickened out today on the bus. Once we got into downtown (Don-Ton), I was sorely tempted to press the stop button at every stop regardless of whether or not a rider wanted out. But I didn't. I think it felt more prickish than childish. I'll have to save that one for the prick blog. But I did have a backup.

I talked to a bird on the sidewalk of 6^th Street.

Yep, I talked to the animals.

Though, it was a very necessary conversation. See as I walked to the bus stop to go home, I saw a pile of Cheetos discarded on the sidewalk and there standing guard over the hordes of partially hydrogenated cheesy corn fluff was a small brown bird with a long, thin, pointy beak. I mean people were stepping over him, walking past him, riding bikes next to him and there he sat, guarding his stash like Smaug the dragon.

This bird was not giving up those Cheetos. I have to admit, Cheetos are very tasty and definitely a hordable treasure.

So I stopped and looked down at the bird, who looked right back up at me with a bird face that said, “You ain't thinkin' about swipin' my stash are you punk?”

I've never had a “moment” with a bird like that before. So I said, “Hey there,” and continued on to the bus stop.

But you know what? That little bird made my day. On the bus ride home, I thought about the little bird. I imagined him finding a little bird shopping cart and loading up his Cheetos, so he can cart them around the city and mumble things under his breath to strangers. You go, Urban Woodcock.