individuality thing. Revel in your averageness the way John Doe does."
On the other side of my wallboard, John Doe gave a muffled, "Amen."
"No. I want to improve my profile now. I demand to be more than just a cartoon character."
"Okay, then, please tell us, what is the single event that most changed you as a person?"
"That's easy. Six years ago I was doing the please-my-parents thing, landing a degree in biological sciences. I had a part-time job in the beetling pit."
"What's that?"
"It's where they take a dead animal and put it into this big stainless steel cone-shaped pit full of starving beetles, and after a few days, there's nothing left except bone-dry bones."
I thought of Tim the Biker's graceless burial. Where are these beetling pits when you need them?
Bree's head was above the wall partition. "You never told me about any beetling pit."
"Bree, by the time we got to your place, we'd only said eleven words."
I said, "Bree, please, I'm doing an interview here. Mark, how was the beetling pit the event that changed you most as a person?"
Mark turned to me. "It was the part of my life that made me realize something had to change in my universe. I was studying biology, as I was saying, to please my parents, and I don't think there's ever been a happy person on earth who chose an education and a job to please their parents. Then, one day, I got notice that the building I lived in was being torn down for condos, so I tried to find a place to live, but I screwed up and didn't find a place in time. When I asked my folks if I could live in the basement, they said no way."
"You were a problem child?"
"No. They turned the house into a B & B, and my room was gone."
"What happened then?"
"I was going to crash on a friend's couch, but first I had to put all of my stuff in a U-Store-It place over by the Second Narrows Bridge. It was late on a Friday afternoon, and I was the first client in this new patch of mini-units they'd built. I was glad, because it meant the place was clean, and I didn't have to worry if Jeffrey Dahmer had ever stored his boyfriends in my unit. But then the lights went out, and when I went to check the switch I accidentally clicked shut the big roll-down door; it locked, and because the place was new, they hadn't properly installed the fail-safe unlocking switch. I was stuck in there with no lights. When I tried pounding on the door, there was no one to hear me. It was pretty bad."
I stole a line from my mother: "Boo hoo. What then?"
"I tried to be all Boy Scout-y and positive, but after about nine p.m., I realized I was screwed."
"Can we speed this up?"
"Okay. I was in there for four days without light. The only thing I had to drink was a bottle of Gatorade autographed by John Madden. I had to eat the gum from my sacred collection of twelve factory-sealed boxes of 2003 Upper Deck SP authentic NFL cards, with one autographed and sequentially numbered rookie card per box, including autographed cards from Bart Starr, Donovan McNabb, Jerry Rice and Joe Montana. I was going to use them to fund my retirement."
"How long did the Gatorade last?"
"Almost fifty hours."
"And the gum?"
"Almost seventy-two hours. It was a long weekend."
At this point, all the heads in jPod gophered upwards, making
ooooohhhhhh sounds.
"Mark," I asked, "so how has that changed you as a human?"
"It's kind of weird."
"We wouldn't possibly want to hear something weird, Mark."
"Since then, I need as many edible objects around me as possible."
"Huh?"
"Like my futon. It's from this place in Finland. Cost me $2,500, but the entire futon is edible. They market them to Japanese people who are worried about earthquakes and being trapped alive under rubble."
"Go on."
"My apartment is like Willy Wonka's factory. You can eat my chairs."
"But, Mark, your cubicle is entirely devoid of stuff, let alone edible stuff."
"So it would appear, but you see this stapler?" Mark held up a generic stapler. "It's made of marzipan. I
On the other side of my wallboard, John Doe gave a muffled, "Amen."
"No. I want to improve my profile now. I demand to be more than just a cartoon character."
"Okay, then, please tell us, what is the single event that most changed you as a person?"
"That's easy. Six years ago I was doing the please-my-parents thing, landing a degree in biological sciences. I had a part-time job in the beetling pit."
"What's that?"
"It's where they take a dead animal and put it into this big stainless steel cone-shaped pit full of starving beetles, and after a few days, there's nothing left except bone-dry bones."
I thought of Tim the Biker's graceless burial. Where are these beetling pits when you need them?
Bree's head was above the wall partition. "You never told me about any beetling pit."
"Bree, by the time we got to your place, we'd only said eleven words."
I said, "Bree, please, I'm doing an interview here. Mark, how was the beetling pit the event that changed you most as a person?"
Mark turned to me. "It was the part of my life that made me realize something had to change in my universe. I was studying biology, as I was saying, to please my parents, and I don't think there's ever been a happy person on earth who chose an education and a job to please their parents. Then, one day, I got notice that the building I lived in was being torn down for condos, so I tried to find a place to live, but I screwed up and didn't find a place in time. When I asked my folks if I could live in the basement, they said no way."
"You were a problem child?"
"No. They turned the house into a B & B, and my room was gone."
"What happened then?"
"I was going to crash on a friend's couch, but first I had to put all of my stuff in a U-Store-It place over by the Second Narrows Bridge. It was late on a Friday afternoon, and I was the first client in this new patch of mini-units they'd built. I was glad, because it meant the place was clean, and I didn't have to worry if Jeffrey Dahmer had ever stored his boyfriends in my unit. But then the lights went out, and when I went to check the switch I accidentally clicked shut the big roll-down door; it locked, and because the place was new, they hadn't properly installed the fail-safe unlocking switch. I was stuck in there with no lights. When I tried pounding on the door, there was no one to hear me. It was pretty bad."
I stole a line from my mother: "Boo hoo. What then?"
"I tried to be all Boy Scout-y and positive, but after about nine p.m., I realized I was screwed."
"Can we speed this up?"
"Okay. I was in there for four days without light. The only thing I had to drink was a bottle of Gatorade autographed by John Madden. I had to eat the gum from my sacred collection of twelve factory-sealed boxes of 2003 Upper Deck SP authentic NFL cards, with one autographed and sequentially numbered rookie card per box, including autographed cards from Bart Starr, Donovan McNabb, Jerry Rice and Joe Montana. I was going to use them to fund my retirement."
"How long did the Gatorade last?"
"Almost fifty hours."
"And the gum?"
"Almost seventy-two hours. It was a long weekend."
At this point, all the heads in jPod gophered upwards, making
ooooohhhhhh sounds.
"Mark," I asked, "so how has that changed you as a human?"
"It's kind of weird."
"We wouldn't possibly want to hear something weird, Mark."
"Since then, I need as many edible objects around me as possible."
"Huh?"
"Like my futon. It's from this place in Finland. Cost me $2,500, but the entire futon is edible. They market them to Japanese people who are worried about earthquakes and being trapped alive under rubble."
"Go on."
"My apartment is like Willy Wonka's factory. You can eat my chairs."
"But, Mark, your cubicle is entirely devoid of stuff, let alone edible stuff."
"So it would appear, but you see this stapler?" Mark held up a generic stapler. "It's made of marzipan. I
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