Fried Green Tomatoes

Tomorrow night is my last night working as a fry cook at Cap'n Rusty's Family Feedbag (a.k.a. Smorgasbord Jones & The Smorgasbordellos' Endlessly Rotating Buffet-Circus On Ice!). I gave Chad my notice about a week ago. "I got a job on a farm," I told him, "I get to work outisde. Plus, they pay more." Which is true. But anyway, Chad was disappointed, so he went on this passive aggressive tear that lasted about two and a half days, which wasn't really an issue for me, since half of what I do with half the people I encounter is pretend to listen to them when actually I'm thinking up thoughts and ideas that seem infinitely cooler than the actual moment at hand. Or sometimes I'll just stare and keep my mind void and empty of thoughts, uttering verbal minimal encouragements, so as to sustain the opportunity for complete dissociation. But of course this isn't anything I'm proud of. I'm pretty sure it's a major character defect. But I'm not really ashamed of it either. Can it be helped if I find that it's simply not worth it to pay certain types of people - like the vast majority of managers, pundits, enforcers and demagogues - a whole lot of my attention? I listen to maybe, on average, like 17% of mankind. People just ain't sayin' much, and if there's an upshot to our fragmented society, it's that most times you can think your own weird, private thoughts and get by feigning interest in the machinations of the social hive.

Ahhhh...but there's a whole paradox going on too 'cause actually even though I'd like to think of myself as Mr. Cool and Bored, at the same time I'm paying attention to most people about 160% of the time. I can't help it. Even when I'm dissociating right in front of them, there's an inner voice that says to me, "You're dissociating right now. You know that, don't you? You're just bored, bored, bored is all." So, really, I can't truly detach from the hive, even when I want to. Maybe if nobody's around, I can. Like if I'm under a waterfall or a circle of elm boughs, all alone with my mind. I don't know...even on those rare occasions when I can cut loose from the social hive's incessant yang-yang in my brain, that voice eventually steps back up to the mic and says, "Okay. Break's over. Get back in the mix, you zone freak." Because of my intensely ingrained Protestant work ethic, whenever I do zone out or take a break, I feel so guilty that, in my mind, it seems like I've committed some huge offense. In truth, I pay a lot of attention to the other hominids on my radar. Maybe too much. I ain't that cool.

But anyway, I was talking about my short career as a fry cook. It ends tomorrow night, when I fry my last kitschy green tomato, hang up my apron, and drive the glorious three miles home. I've worked at this family-owned and operated restaurant off and on for nineteen years. But it's been sold and the new management is iffy, at best. So it goes. End Of An Era.