Wednesday 20 July 2005

Editor's Note

The Garlic will not be posted today due to … well … disappointment and re-evaluation

I was riding a pretty good high yesterday, head-up, confident stride and feeling a little smug. So sure was I that President Bush was going to choose myself to be the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

It all was so completely under-the-radar.

Pundits were bashing about names like it was a warm-up at Wimbledon. Issues were thrown in the air like confetti. Speculation was endless, breathlessly hushed as we go to our next commercial break.

Boy, was Edith Clement and Mike Ludig in for a crash they never saw coming.

But then, at 7:22PM, the music stopped. The world was spinning, becoming foggy. That's when I saw the words.

"Don't give up your day job!"

An anonymous commenter posted to The Garlic those soul-changing words.

The clarity and profound vision of this hidden critic. Was a New York Times book reviewer surfing the net and happened upon The Garlic? Did a palm reader descry something in my fonts?

Oh my God! What if it was James Agee being channeled and, out of the billions and billions of postings on the World Wide Web, he tuned into The Garlic?

It was like having vertigo but while lying prone.

What have I done? The day job was long gone and it was too late to call to see if I could get it back

I could get similar work with another company but what if they didn't pay as well? Or offer benefits? And, what would I do if I had to relocate? I made a quick mental note of what cities I would live in and which one's I wouldn't.

Then it hit me, if I got a similar job back, what happens if the company I find myself working for gets sold? Or there's a mega-merger? Time to recalculate the mental note, and add China and India into the mix.

Did I still have a resume? Did I have to update it? Oh man, I'd rather get drilled by six dentists than to sit for hours and, painstakingly, update the resume.

Then, the other shoe dropped.

Breaking news, with such alacrity that my television was rumbling, came that John G. Roberts would be the President's choice to be nominated to the Supreme Court.

Oh well, I thought. Easy come, easy go. I was still under-the-radar and could hold out - there's the rampant speculation hovering over Chief Justice Rehnquist, after all.

To hell with the resume, I said. I didn't care where the comas and semi-colons went. Nor did it concern me if every "I" was dotted or every "T" was crossed. Day jobs, night jobs, full-time, part-time … Who cares!

Bigger and better fish were out there to fry.

And, all the better with a few cloves of The Garlic.