Constructive Daydreaming
August 23, 2013
Game Descriptions for the Unitiated
September 20, 2013
In honor of me doing the volunteer taxi driving gig over in Telluride over Labor Day weekend here’s a short story for all you movie buffs out there. Here’s hoping you have as much fun reading this as I did writing it.
Word Count: 996
The Movie
Obsession Pipeline
How many people can say they have a career that’s so much fun the management has to tell them to go home at the end of work? Very few, and the percentage is miniscule. Basically the same numbers as members of congress who don’t have an opinion when asked about social issues.
That’s exactly what the case is for Delbert Wrigley. Deeply obsessed with watching celluloid and giving his opinion of the fables when he wasn’t working as a garbage collector. Watching any and every movie he could get his hands on. Coupled with a teenage comic book collecting kick, Delbert spent every available cent he had. Building up a massive DVD collection that rivaled the oil reserves in Saudi Arabia.
So just how enchanted was he with watching movies? One of his first jobs was working at the local newspaper stamping address labels and bagging newspapers up for mailing at the post office. The job was your typical mindless endeavor for a teenager looking to supplement the number of Dead Presidents in their pocket. Other than the occasional alteration to the subscriber list, things changed as often as the display case at the London Museum of Ancient Antiquities.
Delbert and his buddy still came to work every Friday with a spring in their step and big smiles. This was entirely due to the fact that Friday was the day new movies came out. Their afternoon job paid them just enough to get into the theatre, buy a small box of popcorn, one child-sized soda, and a candy bar. Needless to say, 100% of the time they’d walk out of work with money in our pockets. Only to wake up on Saturday morning as broke as they found themselves the other 98% of the week.
At one point the boss even contemplated the merits of doing a direct deposit of the boy’s wages to management at the theatre. This idea fell by the wayside though. The theatre raised their prices and he had no desire to do the same for his employees.
Then Delbert decided to spend the next four and a half years of his life attending a liberal arts college where his movie obsession took another great leap forward. Here there were three lecture halls on campus where you could lose yourself at least four times a week staring at a screen. Twice a month another spot showed Independent films the commercial chains refused to subject their clientele too. Occasionally he’d even go downtown to take in a first-run film. Delbert was in Heaven, and his grades occasionally suffered because of this obsessive movie going practices. Thank God he majored in Film Studies.
The tentacles of Hollywood had managed to reach far and wide globally and this was very evident during Delbert’s two years working as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal. Even in this far-flung part of the globe there were four main movie theatres in the capital, Dakar. During Delbert’s time in West Africa he became quite familiar with all of them.
Movie going in West Africa was quite the experience. Right off the bat as the lights would come down, the Senegalese flag would appear on the screen and the national anthem would start to play. Everyone in attendance was required to stand up and place their hand on their heart while the music blared. Failure to do this would result in being escorted out into the lobby. This never happened to Delbert, although a defiant streak caused him to think about it once.
Playing of the anthem was then followed by the showing of a newsreel, a cartoon, previews of coming attractions, and then finally the main feature. This practice all took place in the national language of Senegal, French. Delbert used his regular movie attendance as a justification for wanting to master the language. Saying he needed to watch others speak the words.
Delbert’s part-time job (30 hr/wk.-management paid them just enough to avoid classification of their workers as full-time employees) inadvertently led to his discovery of the ultimate career. In fact, while collecting society’s refuse one day:
“Hey you think this guy intended to discard these?” asked Delbert to Bill Smithers, his fellow worker drone.
The discards were a huge collection of first-run DVD’s with accompanying notes attached to each of them.
“I don’t know,” said William. “Go ask the guy. He’s standing on the front stoop of his house looking indifferent.”
Which is exactly what Delbert did. Never being afraid to appease his curiosity streak.
“Excuse me, can I bother you for a few minutes?”
“What’s up?”
“These DVD’s, did you want to get rid of them?”
“Unfortunately yes,” said Henry Dalrymple. “I’m in charge of Human Resources for an online movie critique service. We haven’t been able to find anyone to do the work of watching all these straight-to-DVD videos. That needs to be done first before we can provide movie reviews to our clients.”
“Really.”
“I was trying to do the job myself, but ran out of time so I just discarded the entire batch rather than deal with all the headaches.”
Delbert was shocked. “And you don’t mind chucking all of them?”
“We can’t find anybody who wants to get paid to work for us as a movie critic. You’d think here in southern California those types of people would be a dime a dozen.”
“Since I watch so many movies I’m sort of halfway knowledgeable about the subject while voicing my opinion.”
Bill wanted to hedge his bets. “Cool. Most of the time you do realize that they’re fictional in nature.
“Oh definitely.”
“And you don’t try to live out the storylines after you walk out the theatre?”
“Nope.”
“What’s your background? You know how to write?”
“I’ve jotted down a few things.”
“I’m not taking you away from your hourly Meds am I?”
“Watching movies is my medicine.”
“Want a job?”
“Sure, why not.”
