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having a policy
Monday, August 12 2002
I needed an assemblage of basic digital electronics utilities for the rooftop antenna installation, and I needed it to be in an easy to maintain arrangement. This meant bolting everything low on the antenna mast, but finding the random pieces I'd need to do this was proving difficult. Finally I'd built an equilateral-triangle-shaped object out of the uprights harvested from an old set of metal shelves. On this I'd attached a piece of wood supporting an old eight port 10 Mps ethernet hub and a much older dumpster-dived IBM AT clone power supply. I intended to make the power supply generate the direct current for all the radio frequency devices I'd be putting on the roof, and I intended to handle their digital signals through the hub. The structure was ugly, resembling a half of a bicycle, so I'd begun painting everything white so as to disguise the diversity of materials used in its construction and make it look like something Worldcom might bolt to a chimney. As a joke, this evening I painted "Wirldcom" in red acrylic paint on the Rubbermaid bucket that would provide weather protection for the electronics.
On the subject of my nascent computer repair business, I'm gradually learning the importance of policy, specifically, of having a policy. I'd ordered some memory for a guy's laptop because he expressed strong interest in it. The memory arrived today. I called the guy. He said he'd be over at 2pm to have me install it. The day went by and he never came. I wondered if perhaps he'd changed his mind, leaving me with this memory I can't use. Should I have taken a deposit? In terms of money, it's not a big deal, especially at this early stage of the "business," but I can see right now that I'm going to have to have a policy of people paying up front for parts that I order.
The other day I'd found an unfashionable women's analog watch lying on the sidewalk out by the dumpsters in front of the Park Slope Geriatric Day Center. The Center is only a few dozen feet from my stoop, in the basement of the tall building at the top of President Street. Sally and I often find ourselves wading through the dense herds of old folks who mingle by these dumpsters as they're either loaded or unloaded from a fleet of small buses. Nearly all of the old people are Russians, as are many of the staff who interact with them. It's rare I hear any of them speaking anything but Russian. I've even overheard the African American employees saying the odd nyet or da svidanya. Many of the old folks are extremely frail and I'm surprised I don't find more fallen jewelry than I do.
Today I went into the Center for the first time in my life to return the watch. There was a young woman with broad Russian features staffing the desk, and she accepted the watch with the sort of thinly-veiled contempt one would expect if I'd brought a shoebox of lint. I got the feeling that the woman didn't have a whole lot of empathy for the old folks in her care, but then again, maybe she was just having a bad day.
Human debris continues to accumulate in Prospect Park's beleaguered Vale of Cashmere. Most distressingly, this debris is unusually rich in the most foul variety of besmirched toilet paper. Typical besmirchings take the form of huge brownish-grey radial smears, some so appalling that simple diverting of eyes is insufficient for avoiding their revolting visual spectacle. They seem to have eclipsed even condoms in concentration upon the forest floor. I thought perhaps there had been an uptick in the number of people using the woods as a lavatory, but Gretchen disagreed, pointing out that it's rare to actually stumble upon piles of human feces. There is one guy who seems to delight in squirting his thick dark brown diarrhea against the base of trees, leaving a slowly-drying pooslide for the enjoyment of all. But Gretchen is mostly correct - the toilet-paper-to-turd ratio in the park is far too high for the toilet paper to have resulted solely from rituals of defecation. Gretchen thinks much of the besmirched toilet paper has its origins in gentlemen's attempts to render their assholes more presentable should they occasion into acts of forest romance. Some of the toilet paper might also be the result of what happens when a gentleman fails to take the time to twirl toilet paper in his anus before presenting it to an anonymous lover. After the lovin' concludes, the unfortunate gentleman who made use of such a quagmire might find it advantageous to tidy his now-fragrant manhood before tucking it away into his trousers.
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