Pouring My Art Out

The continuing sagas of my 5-year-stint as a delivery driver… which, I believe, is the longest I ever held one job…

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The thing about my job as a delivery driver was that secretaries and receptionists all over San Diego were used to seeing me show up now and then, either to get a signature to OK work we were doing, or pick up or drop off test prints. Frequently I would be carrying a box of business cards or pamphlets or brochures.

So I was at Toys R Us one day…. (I want to say this is because my wife was pregnant and I was looking for good baby toys, but I think I was just there)… and I spotted… the little blue monster… He was so adorable I bought him on the spot. He was a little smaller than my head was… (and still is, if you were worried about that)… He was made of soft rubber, and he was a puppet. You put your hand inside and made his mouth open and close, and there was a little button to make his glow-in-the-dark eyes flick back and forth. He had no body, he was just a fat little head with two wiggly little arms sticking out the front and a short, spiked tail in back.

Well, I like puppets. They make kids laugh. Right now, in my big white Suburban parked out in front of my house, I have an ostrich head…(and neck)… puppet that I use to entertain people at stop lights. I put it on, and then, by twisting my arm back, I make it look like there is an ostrich in the back seat, pecking at my head. This works because my back windows are tinted, so you can’t be 100% sure that there isn’t an ostrich back there.

On long rides, when I am the passenger… (my wife doesn’t like to be a passenger on long rides, or she doesn’t like my driving)… I like to lay my seat all the way back so no one can see me, and then stick the ostrich head out the window with its mouth open, just like a dog. I particularly like to do this when we drive through Los Angeles. They must think it’s funny, because our car has never been shot at. Not even once. In LA!

Well of course I saw the potential for the little blue monster head immediately.

I took him to work. I got a smallish box, one that he could fit in and that I could carry easily in one arm. Then I cut off one of the top lid flaps and used box tape to stick it to the other flap so that when it was pushed up, it opened as one piece. Then I cut a round hole in the bottom rear of the box that my hand and forearm would fit through.

For the next three or four weeks, I had a blast. I sidled up to 20 or 30 receptions desks per day, trying not to grin. The receptionists were, mostly, people who knew me… (Well, there were a few that I had never met in my life, but what the heck, it was still funny…maybe even funnier)… They were used to seeing me carrying a box. There was no reason to suspect the box. I just kept the envelopes I was really delivering tucked under my arm.

“Hey, Jenny… (or Joann, Tanya, Sue, as was appropriate)… I have a box for Mr.” I would start to say, then BAM, I would pop the little blue monster out of his box and go, “Bluddabluddaluddaludda,” with my tongue.

This joke killed. Everybody loved it. Sitting behind a desk… (I would assume, never having done it)… must get boring. Then this big, goofy, long-haired guy shows up and gives you the old ‘blue monster’ treatment. I’m not saying I didn’t get any strange looks, but for the most part, thumbs up. I had so much fun I just started doing it to random people in elevators and hallways and on the street as I walked back to the van.

Then my four-week monster-fest came to a screeching yet poignant halt.

I had to stop by the offices of a custom sail makers shop, that made sails for big racing yachts. This was right down on San Diego bay near where I went to boot camp. I had only met this receptionist briefly once or twice, and I can’t remember her name. But I remember that she was young.

“Hey, how are ya, I have a delivery,”… I started to say, only to be interrupted by that rude little blue monster.

“Bluddabluddabludda,” said the rude little fellow.

The receptionist glanced once at the monster, back at me, back at the monster, then back at me. Her eyes were wide, and her mouth formed a small oval. I had seen this look before. She was just taking it all in. I waited for the laughter and smiles.

Suddenly her head slumped forward onto her arms which rested on the desk. Her shoulders began to shake. I prepared for the biggest laugh of the day. What I wasn’t prepared for was the sound of sobbing.

I felt my heart drop like… the stock market…

“My boyfriend dumped me, and my dog died last week,” I heard her wail between racking moans of anguish.

I just stood there feeling like the worst person ever to be born. I wanted to flee, to console her, to beg her to forgive me.

Then her head popped back up, and with the most gleefully wicked gleam in her eye and a huge smile, she said, “Got you, didn’t I?”

I had been gotten.

The little blue monster would never again go to work with me.

I did keep it in my car for a while. I had fun with him until the rubber got sort of sticky from the heat and began attracting weird hairballs.

Thank you, and please join us for our next installment of Driving Miss Crazy.