66 lines
3.2 KiB
Plaintext
66 lines
3.2 KiB
Plaintext
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MY DESK: A HOWL?
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By M.L. Verb
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Trained dogs soon may be sniffing around our office for illegal drugs. When I
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first heard this news, I was not worried at all, except about whatever the dogs
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may inadvertently leave on the floor by my desk.
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First, I figure a private employer has the right--however distasteful and
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demoralizing it may be to employees--to entertain dogs in the office, or even
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owls or sheep, if he wants. I myself once tried to help arrange for a cow to
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parade through our office several years ago, but the plot failed when one of
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our conspirators chickened out and when we realized the cow was too big to
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bring up the back elevator.
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Second, I have never used illegal drugs and, unless someone plants them in or
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on my desk, I have no fear of being caught with any.
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But then I thought about having to reveal the contents of my desk--even to a
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dog--and it scared me to death. The innards of my desk are chaotic, haphazard,
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almost inexplicable. I cannot imagine trying to explain them to anyone. It
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would take weeks, and leave the investigator and his dog in tears.
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There are six drawers in my desk. I will pull a few things from them at random
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and give you a few examples.
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Here are nine 1979 basketball trading cards--including the mortal Sonny Parker
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and the especially mortal Marvin Webster--and 13 baseball cards from the 1970s,
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including one picturing the entire Atlanta Braves team, with none other than
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Biff Pocoroba front and center. How can I explain their presence? How do you
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hold a moonbeam in your hand?
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Here, too, is a small collection of political buttons, including two with
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pictures of Sen. Dale Bumpers and one that says, Thorsness full time.'' Who
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would want to listen to my story about Leo Thorsness?
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Here, too, is a business card from a man now dead several years, a man once
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known as Kansas City's real estate junk dealer.
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The presence of my 1972 appointment book will take some explaining. And I
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wonder what someone would make of this 1984 Shelter Insurance Almanac. Or this
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collection of casette tapes. Here's one that says it has on it a 1975 speech
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by Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago. The flip side seems to have some Jimmy
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Carter words on it. And one of these tapes has Richard Nixon's 1974
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resignation speech on it.
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What about all these Manila folders? Especially this one marked Great Quotes
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of 1977''? How am I to account for that?
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Or for this drawer full of mail, some of it dating back 10 or 12 years?
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I've got a Phillips head bolt in here from who knows where. And a couple of
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one-cent stamps. And a Mickey Mouse button or two. And a file of never-
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written story ideas from 10 or 15 years ago.
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This is embarrassing, revealing, incriminating stuff. Almost my whole bizarre
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professional life is stuffed into these drawers, willy-nilly. Or anyway it
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would look willy-nilly to a security guard and a dog.
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The guard, with the dog growling menacingly at my knees, would want to know
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what I was doing with this stuff and why I didn't clear most of it out. Answers
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would be demanded. Lives would be filleted. I'm beginning to think this would
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all go easier if I could find a few ounces of marijuana to plant in my desk
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instead.
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