My temp agency sent me to the Santa Monica MTV offices today for a job I am completely unqualified to do. That’s okay; they were too busy to train me today, so I sat in front of a computer screen and read the Amazing and Brilliant Dictionary of Mu.
(Trust me when I say this. Your game shelf is barren without this game. Lacking. Empty. But take care: this book will beat the holy hell out of your other books if you leave it alone too long.)
When my shift was done, I went down to the lobby to get my parking validated. A long day. Boring, yet exciting. Energizing, yet draining. Inspired and restless. The security guard was on the phone, so I had to wait. The very cute girl behind the counter…
… wait a second. Let me say this about working at MTV. Every single person in that office is hot. I mean it. I felt like a raisin in a county fair grape contest. Damn, damn, damn. Anyway…
… chatting with the girl behind the counter. She apologizes and blushes because the security guard is on the phone with his girlfriend or something and “too busy” to validate my parking. The elevator doors behind me open and She steps out.
Her hair and eyes. Her lips. Her smile. I’ve heard say that Hollywood thinks she’s not skinny enough. Hollywood can go fuck a mop. Better yet, a vacuum cleaner. She steps out of the elevator, and I’m stunned. Floored. I don’t know what to say. Her eyes look up at me…
… and she recognizes me. Wait a second. What the…
“Hi!” she says with that excited voice of hers. And she walks quickly across the lobby, straight toward me. “How have you been?”
And now, right now, Discordia is in my head. And she’s laughing. Laughing so hard, I can’t hear the security guard talking on the phone or the gasp of the cute girl behind the desk, or even the sound of my own heart. Discordia is laughing. And She’s telling me exactly what I need to do. Right now. Do it, John. Do it. Right now. Right now. Right. The. Fuck. NOW.
But Discretion wins out. And just before she reaches me, I give a friendly, apologetic smile and as charming as I can, I say, “I’m sorry, but, you don’t know me.”
She stops, just a few steps away from the hug I was about to get. And she looks at me again. Closer. Hearing my voice. Then, her eyes go wide and her face goes red. Pure red.
“Oh!” she says. “I’m so sorry.”
I laugh. “It’s okay,” I tell her. “I get it all the time.”
Then, she finds a nervous laugh in her belly as her people usher her away as fast as they bloody well can.
And all I can hear is Discordia saying, “You should have listened…”