i've been temping. since august. i have been working consistently, allowing me to just squeak by. my life has gotten considerably smaller since september, cutting back on this and that, and that and this to get by. for most of last fall, i was full of resentments and regret in a city that was uncomfortable and unfamiliar, working for an employment agency whose barely-concealed disinterest in my welfare added to a general malaise.

just before thanksgiving, i was offered a temp-to-perm position at a small company that publishes both a billiards and a bowling magazine. the hourly wage was barely subsistence; the work was trained monkey territory. but it was work. life at luby was a series of unintentional pratfalls and wacky misadventures. part-time receptionist, part-time data entry operator, full-time mail room clerk. once i turned my brain off for good, it was relatively smooth sailing. surfing the net, empty conversations, silent contemplation. i even started this diary. whether this was a positive development or not has yet to be determined. everyone was nice enough, except for the big boss, who had a tendency to hurl the restroom key at me indiscriminately on a fairly consistent basis. actually, i preferred being treated like furniture since it kept him from barking at me as he did the rest of the staff.

two substantial controversies over advertisements erupted during my tenure there. Relaying those events is the focus of today's installment.

BOMB PIN LADEN

Pandemonium broke out in the office upon receipt of a new ad from a bowling ball manufacturer, hawking a new ball with the imaginative moniker "The Bomb". text implored readers to "bomb pin laden". apparently, it involved some cheese-ass low-tech graphics of a plane dropping bowling balls. whether it featured a bowling pin wrapped in a turbin, i was never able to ascertain, though this visual would not have surprised me. I was astonished that so many in the office found its tactics unsettling. after several days of soul-searching and free speechifying, the publisher declined to run it, because it was in poor taste.

BENNY HILL REDUX

Six weeks later, another hubbub engulfed the office, this one over an ad that had actually run on the inside back cover of the bowling mag. in the foreground, an older, heavier, balding man is in a hospital bed, head cocked, checking out the caboose of a busty nurse who happens to be leaning forward suggestively toward us, the readers. in the background, an older, heavier woman dressed in laura ashley-esque tent with arms folded tightly across her chests, looks on in hearty disapproval. i have no idea what this ad was selling. i believe it may have been a light-hearted attempt at branding. it might have worked as a layout in index, but levity regarding the sexes doesn't play very well in a sport riven by controversies such as inequality of purses at professional tournaments. needless to say, this stoked considerable response from subscribers and bowling bigwigs alike, both male and female. to stir things up, i over-reported the negative response we were receiving. i wanted to see them squirm. And squirm they did, especially after the widow of one of bowling greats insisted she never again wanted to receive the magazine. soul-searching and free speechifying ensued in earnest once again. though no one (the magazine, the client, the ad agency) admitted that the spread had been a mistake, an alternate ad featuring befuddled dads and cute kids was substituted for the following month's issue.

These stories serve to illustrate the atmosphere, the ambiance. six months ago, i couldn't even have imagined an office environment where this discord would have been possible. nobody MAKES ads like that anymore, much less PUBLISHES them. Call it one more lesson learned on my journey through Flyoverland. It was time to move on. So, I registered with another agency. This agency found me a long-term gig with a significant increase in hourly wage on 2/14, securing my escape from this dysfunctional foster family. And I still ain't got nothing bad to say about that.