Friday, September 29, 2006
I had made some statement a ways back about filling in bits and pieces of Phil's life before he became the baddest little 1/4th to 1/16th Cherokee you ever will meet. Here is a small tale of the way it was back in the "hard 'ole days".
As told by Phil....
"So I'm standing in line at the bank behind this chick, and I've got my tongue in her ass"...... (sorry folks, had to include something from the Dice Man for those who truly appreciate him for the hilarious mofo he is). The name's Phil, Phil Anje, and if you haven't guessed already, I'm a friggin' finger. To say the least, this limits my career options because I effectively have no hands (ironic, isn't it?), no feet, and no genitals (like my "host"). Pretty much whatever he does, I have to do, unless I play that "dead" game where I fake like I'm sleeping...he loves that game. Sometimes I talk a leg or a foot into doing it, and sit back in amusement as he hobbles around.
There was one time in my life that I decided I would go against the grain and try to pursue my own career. Mr. Big was all for it, as he could tell I was getting bored with the whole university thing and he was working me to death writing out proofs and truss diagrams. Sometimes I think my brothers on the other side of the road got the good gig, as they only have to run a fork and throw a baseball. I got stuck with being the lead dog on a team of 5 who had to scribble out engineering notes and produce something readable...and Fleety liked to take alot of notes well before the morning cup of coffee got all the way to me! So, I looked in the want ads, trying to find something that would better compliment my skill set, which for the most part included pointing, scratching, and plugging small holes in objects that were leaking. You might ask why I didn't look at some sort of clerical work. Well, I'm a shit typist. Even with my 9 brother working along side me, we are hopeless (ha ha, Mr. Big).
So I went to many interviews, and nobody was really sold on the idea of a finger working all by himself. They would have hired my less-significant bigger counterpart, but would likely refuse to pay the exorbitant compensation that he would demand. I didn't need much money, so I would have taken any job. After about 10 rejections, I decided to be crafty. I was convinced they would not hire me because of my native American genealogy...or maybe it was the Irish half...or because I'm short. Any way you sliced it, it was an issue of discrimination! I, Phil, was being discriminated against! Oh, this was the first step along the road to becoming the baddest little 1/4th to 1/16th Cherokee you ever will meet.
The next step was to decide where I would use my new anti-discrimination slant to get a job. Maybe I needed to look for a place with more workers like me. Minority group. Smaller stature. Highly intelligent. Agile....ah hah!
I would be a sushi chef/knife handler extraordinaire! Alongside my mentor, Kito, I would single handedly wow the pants right off of hordes of teenagers trying desperately to impress their dates with an expensive meal, or middle-aged white bred factory workers taking their fat wives out for some "ethnic food". I would build the mother of all onion volcanoes and the newspaper would write about the lightening-quick agility and fantastical shrimp throws as I Seschwan BBQ the crap out of everything in site. I would be the master of the salt and pepper shakers and perform mind-boggling feats of dexterity with my cleaver and spatula!
Now, it all sounds good in theory. I used the equal opportunity slant to get into the door, although there are 10 like me for every one of you people...but not many fingers looking for legitimate work...mostly unsavoury professions. They asked me to show them my skills. I proceeded to pull out a chopstick and whirl it around in a show that would rival Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday with his whiskey mug. A flurry of chopstick twirling action as it whisked within millimeters of my body, back and forth, up and down, round and round like a Wu-Shu master of the bladed long staff. They were thoroughly impressed and gave me a job as one of the head chefs right on the spot (thus the red hat in the picture above). As I left the interview, stoked as a beaver in a room full of toothpicks, I started to notice splinters all over my body. "This could be bad", I say....chopsticks don't have sharp edges....knives do! gulp!
Needless to say, in my first evening of work I was less than entertaining. Teenagers and fat wives were not impressed, as I banged the salt and pepper shakers around and stayed away from the knives to reduce the risk of filleting myself. I looked more like the less coordinated unsuccessful actors who auditioned for Tom Cruise's role in Cocktail, and less like the steak ninja I had envisaged. Had the grill been a set of steel drums, I would have been massively entertaining to a street full of rastas, but I was a crap Sho-Gun. My fantasy of building the largest onion volcano in history was shattered, as a whole onion rolling unimpressively around a grill does not belch a flurry of yellow flames. I had effectively started a new sport, onion grill curling. On a positive note, I did toss several dozen shrimp! They ended up landing in the light fixtures, the fake bonsai trees in the fourier, on said fat wife's head, and I almost caught one on my hat like I had watched Kito do many times, but it was bigger than me and almost knocked me out cold! Woosey and highly denigrated, I slumped away to the kitchen to pick up my nights wage and receive my walking papers. Cruel working world -1, Imaginary steak Ninja -0. Screw them, I don't need a job anyway. I could have been ten times the chef of any guy in there if I had hands! Angry little Cherokee....angry.
So that's the story of the first, and only job I've had on my own. No wonder I'm an angry little Cherokee. The man has kept me down, and so I have to be the right hand man (even though I'm a left hand finger) for this slob for the rest of our lives!
Life sucks....have a nice day, though.
The Baddest little 1/4th to 1/16th Cherokee you ever will meet
