2003-02-01

I helped my friend move last night. Which was a relief, since the original plan was to move this morning, like at eight o�clock. In the morning. On a Saturday. Eight AM on Saturday should only be experienced from the point of view of an extended Friday-evening bacchanal.

She had to move because her roommates were driving her quite nearly literally insane. The lot of them seemed to be budding Pinkos in the sense that they considered all property in the house to be communal, including food and alcohol, which would perhaps have been a tenable situation if they themselves had brought anything to the table. They had no qualms whatsoever about just taking any groceries or beer my friend had the poor sense to leave unattended in the fridge, and couldn�t get it together to buy so much as a roll of toilet paper. And, of course, being musicians, they did the whole �rock star lifestyle� thing constantly, drinking and smoking up and playing loud guitar at all hours every night of the week.

I arrived at the place yesterday evening to start hauling boxes, and was fortunate enough to be witness to a friend of the roommates� new career endeavor. She�s decided to start hawking vacuum cleaners, and she apparently gets a bonus if she does more than a certain number of demonstrations a week. Of course, this means that every single friend and acquaintance of hers gets an in-house presentation of the amazing powers of a $3000 vacuum. (Who the FUCK would pay $3000 for a vacuum cleaner? Brings new meaning to the word �sucker.�) I got to watch the whole �OD of a Salesman� pitch. She arrived with her kit in tow, and immediately announced that she�d done a couple of lines to psych herself up. She opened the box of accessories and pulled out two beers and a baggie of pot. Beer and joint in one hand, she assembled the vacuum cleaner and extolled the virtues of �this fucking Hepa filter thing� that apparently �like, keeps the shit from your carpet from shooting back out into the air.� She vacuumed a spot of carpet (which hadn�t seen the business end of a vacuum cleaner since vacuum cleaners were invented, by the looks of it) and, I have to admit, the thing did a damn good job of sucking up a few decades� worth of cigarette ash and spilled beer. The whole scene was pretty surreal. The roommates were all laughing like hyenas on amphetamines, especially when she realized she�d lost a part of the vacuum and freaked out, stomping around and screaming �I�m not fucking paying for this fucking piece of shit!�

My friend, happily for me, lives like a monk and was only moving her meager possessions about three blocks, so the whole ordeal was over in a few hours and I got to enjoy a few subsidized pints for my trouble. All in a day�s work.