Whenever Anatole gets too European and insufferable-complaining too much, basically-we say to him, "Hey, Anatole, your turtleneck's showing." He doesn't get this particular joke. "But I am not wearing a turtleneck..."
Anatole told us this really great thing, how at Apple they used to have a thing called RumorMonger that allowed employees to anonymously input up to one hundred ASCII characters worth of gossip into the system. So Todd hacked together a quick in-house version for our network, called Rumor-Meister. It got way out of control almost immediately:
1) SUSAN SHOPS AT TARGET BUT PUTS HER STUFF IN NORDSTROM BAGS
2) DANIEL SELLS HIS USED BOXERS VIA MAIL ORDER . . . $5.00 PER DAY OF WEAR
3) BUG SWEATS TO THE OLDIES
4) DAN . . . THOSE DOCKERS . . . HIP!
5) TODD HAS SAGGY NIPPLES FROM TOO MUCH BODY BUILDING THEY'RE CALLED 'BITCH TITS'
5) TODD WEARZ DEPENDS WHEN HE BENCH PRESSES BECUZ UTHERWIZE HE'LL EVACUATE HIS BOWELS ON THE BENCH
7) KARLA PAID TO SEE "THE BODY GUARD"
8) BUG LAUGHS AT GARFIELD CARTOONS
9) KARLA CAN'T ACCESSORIZE
10) SUSAN HAS COMBINATION SKIN
11) TODD SMOKES 'MORE' CIGARETTES
12) I CAN HEAR KARLA'S COLOSTOMY BAG SLOSHING
13) ETHAN'S FERRARI IS A KIT CAR
14) ETHAN BUYS TIRES AT SEARS
15) BUG LOVES BARNEY
16) KARLA THINKS SHE'S A SUMMER BUT SHE'S REALLY A FALL
17) BUG HAS 2 RAFFI CASSETTES
18) DAN HAS A YANNI CD IN HIS CAR
19) ETHAN'S VISA LIMIT IS $3,000
20) SUZAN'Z BOYCRAZY SUZAN'Z BOYCRAZY SUZAN'Z BOYCRAZY SUZAN'Z BOYCRAZY SUZAN'Z BOYCRAZY
21) DAN: LISTERINE KILLS GERMS THAT CAN CAUSE BAD BREATH
22) DAN STILL LIVES WITH HIS MOTHER
23) BUG SHOPS AT CHESS KING
24) MICHAEL'S SHIRT SMELL LIKE GERBIL PEE
Todd quickly removed the program from the system.
Ethan had a time crisis. "I look at my Daytimer and see: CES in January, COMDEX in May, Tim's wedding in July, etc., and I realize the whole year is over before it's even begun. What's the point of it all? It's all of it so predictable."
Mom won a swim meet this afternoon, so we dug out the nickels from under the seat cushions and went out for a low-fat dinner to celebrate. She's so fit these days.
I was driving down from the 280, down Peter Coutts Road, up by Systemix, Wall Data, IBM, Hewlett Packard, and the Wall Street Journal printing plant-up where Dad used to work before he was rendered obsolete-and who should I see taking a stroll together but Dad and Michael! They were lost in discussion, their arms donnishly held behind their backs.
I pulled the car into a side street and ran out to join them. Upon hearing me yell their names, they turned around, absentmindedly interrupted, utterly unfazed at seeing me. I asked what they were doing and Dad said, "Oh, you know-cjust taking a stroll past the old hunting grounds" (IBM).
Cars hummed by. A tech firm's lawn sprinkler spritzed. I didn't know what to say, surrounded by all these blank buildings with glassed-out windows, these buildings where they make the machines that make the machines that make the machines.
I began walking up the hill with them and shortly we were in front of IBM. I felt humiliated for my father, because surely there'd be employees behind the reflecto windows saying, "Oh look, it's Mr. Underhill stalking us. He must have really lost it."
But Dad seemed unfazed. I said, "Dad, how can you even look at those people?"
He replied, "You know, Daniel, I have noticed that people are generally quite thrilled to have change enter their lives-disasters are weathered by people with a sturdiness that is often unlike their day-to-day personality."
Michael piped in, "Just think of the Mississippi River floods. All those people having barbecues up on their roofs, waving to the CNN helicopters- having a grand old time."
"Precisely," said Dad. "I've realized that people most dread the thought of actually initiating change in their lives and we old people are obviously the worst. It's hard coping with chaos and diversity. We old folks mistake the current deluge of information, diversity, and chaos as the 'End of History.' But maybe it's actually the Beginning."
This sounded like Michael-style words coming out of my father's mouth. Brainwashed!
He continued. "Old people have more or less dropped out of the process of creating old-fashioned-style history. We've been pushed to the side, and nobody's pointed out to us what we, the newly obsolete humans, are supposed to do."
"The only thing that is immune to change is our desire for meaning," added Michael, to my overweening annoyance.
We scurried across the street during a lull in the Lexuses, and began walking down the hill. "Don't ask me to explain this eight-jobs-in-a-lifetime reality we now inhabit. I could barely deal with the one-job-in-a-lifetime world," Dad said.
The sun was golden-birds swung in the sky. Cars purred at a stoplight. Dad looked so relaxed and happy. "I always assumed that history was created by think tanks, the DOE and the RAND Corporation of Santa Monica, California. I assumed that history was something that happened to other people-out there. I never thought history was something my kid built in the basement. It's a shock."
I told him about the new word I'd learned, deletia, and Dad laughed.
"That's me!"
We were soon down at El Camino Real. I had to go back to my car. I asked, "Are you guys driving? You need a ride anywhere?"
"We'll walk," said Dad. "But thanks."
"See you back in the Habitrail," said Michael.
Yeah. Right.
Karla was outside the house watering the herb garden with a can when I drove up. I told Karla that it was really unChristmassy of me, but I wanted to kill Michael.
"Michael? What on earth for?"
"He's . . ."
"Yes?"
"He's stealing my father."
"Don't be silly, Dan. It's in your head."
"Dad never talks to me. He's always with Michael. Shit, I don't even know what he does with Michael. They could be selling bomb implosion devices to the Kazakhs for all I know."
"Maybe they've become life-partners," said Karla.
"What?"
"It's a joke, Dan. Calm down. Get a grip on yourself. Listen to yourself. First of all, Michael couldn't shoplift a Nestle's Crunch bar, let alone a parental unit. He's not the type. Has it ever occurred to you they might simply be friends?"
"He knows about Jed. He's trying to be Jed. And I can't compete."
"This is nonsense."
"Didn't I say that about you and your family?"
"But that's different."
"How?"
"Because .. . because it is."
"Good logic, Karla."
She came up to me. "Feel yourself-you're lucky you didn't get the killer flu. Your muscles are as rigid as a crowbar. You're making yourself sick thinking like this. Come on-I'll do your back. I'll talk you down from this."
As she plucked the knots from out of my body, removed the abandoned refrigerators and couches and sacks of garbage from underneath my skin, she talked in the way she does. She told me, "Bodies are like diskettes with tags. You click on to them and you can see the size and type of file immediately. On people, this labeling occurs on the face."
Prod, prod, rub, poke.
"If you know a lot about the world, that knowledge makes itself plain on your face. At first this can be a frightening thing to know, but you get used to it. Sometimes it can be off-putting. But I think it is only off-putting to people who are worried that they themselves are learning too much too quickly. Knowing too much about the world can make you unloving-and maybe unlovable. And your father's face is different now. He seems like a new man-different than when he first drove up to the old house in Redmond. However he may have changed, it's for the better. So don't lose sight of that."