My Current Project

Designer Despair

This is suppose to be a comedy about keeping up with the Joneses.  Here is an Excerpt:

I was a project coordinator for a big-ass hi-tech company that produced no real product.  So my job at best was twice-removed from anything tangible.  I mean what would my kid say, if I had a kid, in class when he or she was asked what their father did?

He or she would stand up in front of class just behind the podium adjusting the height to fit their stature.  Take a few long drinks from a clear glass half full of water that he or she had just poured pulling the decanter away from the glass for dramatic effect.  Clear his or her throat to indicate that he or she is about ready to talk, and moving his or her glasses to the end of their nose for intellectual emphasis.  Sorry, sorry that’s me projecting the corporate norm on a second grade class.

So what he or she would really do is wipe his or her nose on the sleeve of a trashed yet expensive department-store shirt and walk up to the front of the class with a less-than-interested-well-fed-middleclass look on their face.

The teacher would ask, “What does your father do?”

A blank look would dominate his or her face and after a couple of seconds, as if thought had actually happened, a quick but small shrug in an attempt not to have to verbalize the all-to-familiar words “I-don’t-know.”