Diary of a Low Budget Superhero

Hey, guess what? It's time for a re-telling of the asparagus fart story. It's been eight years since I've told it and seventeen years since it happened. This is for Adam.

When I first moved to Massachusetts, I was poor. I'd left New York with nothing but lint and a looming student loan, and after a weird summer spent in my parents' nuthouse, I was living with my first boyfriend in the basement apartment of a squat brick building in Reading, Massachusetts. The apartment wasn't a dump -- it was clean and warm and everything worked -- but it was small and dark. The only natural light came from a sliding door that opened onto a tiny concrete area that the portly property manager had called the "patio." That descriptor was a bit of a stretch, and being 22 years old and therefore constantly turning the sarcasm dial up to eleven, we spoke the implied apostrophes whenever we referred to our, um, "patio." Sub-level, our view from the "patio" was the commuter rail train track, just in front of that sat the building's blue gape-mouthed dumpster, and butted up against the "patio" wall, we faced off with the bumpers and grills of the cars parked against the building. There on the cement "patio" we could enjoy eau de dumpster, the massive purple-line trains rumbling to-and-fro hourly, and the clangorous comings and goings of our neighbors. But only up to crotch-level.

Hub, who was good with tools and armed with a handy knowledge of basic construction principles, crafted us a kitchen island out of particle board, and he also made our "couch" from a plank of plywood set on four cinder blocks and topped with the lumpy old futon cushion from my college apartment. The couch was also our only bed for awhile until we bought an air mattress. We didn't have a real TV, but we did have one of those radio/TV combo things, with the antennae and a little four-inch black and white screen. This we'd hooked up to a Nintendo we'd inherited from somewhere so that we could play very tiny games of The Legend of Zelda with our noses three inches from the screen. I want to say that we were 22 and in love and didn't care where we lived, but we were 22 and in love and we couldn't wait to trade up to a place that didn't make us suicidal in the mornings.

Such was the setting for our post-college lives.

We needed to get out of there. For that, we needed money. I had a job in retail and Hub was temping, but we needed more if we were going to pull ahead.

Poring through the want ads, we applied for the only part-time job that seemed easy to fit into our work schedules. We got a paper route. We were gonna deliver the Boston Globe in Hub's earwax-colored 1988 Toyota Corolla.

Aside from the fact that you have to show up at 3am, and that it's relentlessly there every single day, including weekends and holidays, a paper route is a pretty good deal. At the time you could pull in an extra $600 a month, which is huge when you're looking for another nickel so that you'll have two of them to rub together.

We charmed the boss and got the job easily, and then there we were, suddenly part of this whole paper carrier sub-culture. We didn't fit in at all. Say "paper route" and you think of some eleven year old tossing papers onto front porches from a bag strapped to the handle bars of a bike. This isn't THAT kind of paper route. This is different. In the middle of the night a silent contingent of gray people in pilled gray sweatsuits and flannel, squashed fingers in fingerless gray gloves, converge upon the main newspaper distro centers. They come in station wagons, they come in vans. Exhaust fumes in the pre-dawn mix with their cigarette smoke. They don't say much but they work steadily, piling load after load of newspapers into their vehicles, then they drive away in a cloud smelling of Dunkin Donuts, old sneakers and smoke. They regarded us as interlopers, two young, pink newcomers, this tall, skinny long-haired dude and his little paper bitch. Driving away from the gray stares, Hub said, "I'm driving and you're working back there. They think you're my paper bitch!"

"They all wish THEY had a paper bitch!" I cried.

This is like, serious paper delivery, whole stacks to apartment building lobbies, hotels, and businesses. The way we'd work was, Hub would drive and I would sit in the back seat prepping the papers, which towered in a stack beside me. I'd fold each one into thirds and secure with a rubber band. In heavy snow or rain I'd also sheaf each one in a plastic bag. On a route like ours, it was mostly bringing single papers to individual homes, and smaller stacks of ten or fifteen to some kid's house, which is where the eleven year old comes in -- we were the ones bringing the papers TO the kid who could later be seen tossing papers onto front porches from a bag strapped to the handle bars of a bike. Or more often what we witnessed, being driven around by exhausted, puffy moms in the family minivan.

I could usually prep a good number of papers in the time it took Hub to drive us from the distro center to the route's beginning. Then we'd split the job of exiting the car and running up to the drop site. We did this every single day, covering several routes in Reading and Wakefield. It was hard being at a job in the middle of the night, but like most humans with eyes on the prize, we adapted. Hub had it harder, because he had to come home, shower off newspaper-reek and go to his temp jobs. Being in retail, I could catch some sleep for a few hours before the store opened at ten.

Aside from the pitiful little radio/TV combo, the cinder block couch/bed and the depressing sub-level apartment, another side effect of being poor was that the supplies in our kitchen were pretty much limited to pasta, pretzels, and peanut butter.

As soon as we got more nickels to rub together from all our hard work, we started buying better, more nutritious food. Hub and I both liked to eat a lot of vegetables, and I particularly had an unfortunate penchant for the vegetables that are on the expensive side. I'm okay with a green bell pepper, a bargain at fifty cents. But my heart soars for a red bell pepper at two bucks - if you've never lived below the poverty level, I'm here to explain that a buck fifty makes a big difference.

One night in deepest winter, I went wild and bought asparagus, out of season. I could have gotten about five pounds of carrots for less than that few forkfuls of asparagus. But I LOVE asparagus, I saw it, and I splurged. That night I steamed it and served it up with some roast turkey.

Now, it's a well known fact that men fart more often than women. I did some research on farting (nothing I can show you, just trust me) and my research results show that women fart about half as often as men do, and it's never as putrid nor as forceful.

Wanna know what levels the playing field? Asparagus and turkey. Both at the same time.

For all the months that Hub and I did that paper route, we have few specific memories of it, but neither of us will ever forget a day we called Fishbowling with Asparagus and Turkey Farts.

It's Massachusetts, so it was icy, unforgivably cold in the wee hours of the morning after the asparagus and turkey dinner. We were driving all over hell and gone delivering those Boston Globes. The whole time, I was farting like a football team after a chili cook-off.

I farted so much that there was no oxygen left in the car. My gut gasses had replaced every molecule of breathable air, leaving only a stench so foul I cannot even put strong enough words together to explain it. My farts were so thick and heavy that they just hung there like air biscuits, each one barely getting a chance to dissipate just the slightest bit before another one would let go with a voluminous whoosh. They were forceful, too. I wouldn't have been surprised to turn around to find actual visible green clouds coming out of my ass like they do in cartoons to represent poison odors. I had never smelled such a smell coming out of me before. It was rancid.

I didn't expect sympathy from Hub, which was good, because I didn't get it. "Evil!" Hub was yelling, trying to steer the car on the icy roads while simultaneously pulling his sweatshirt up over his nose and mouth. He was doing everything possible to avoid breathing it in, but it wasn't avoidable. "OH GOD, FOUL!"

It was relentless. I couldn't stand to be around myself, but there was nowhere I could go. It was also FREEZING out, we tried but it was too cold to even open the windows. To make matters worse, this was when the Toyota was having exhaust problems, so we couldn't even turn on a fan.

"Ugh--GOD! What the---holy HELL!" Normally, Hub and I would be arguing about whose turn it was to exit the car to bring the papers up to the houses. On that frigid morning, we argued about who had to stay in the car fishbowling with my death stench.

Eventually the turkey/asparagus methane frappe I'd created in my digestive system worked itself out. In the coming months and years, once we were solvent enough to afford plenty of vegetables on a regular basis, our digestive systems learned how to process asparagus. Needless to say, we never again did combine asparagus with turkey on the same day, and I haven't done it in all the years since that day. It may have been seventeen years ago, but I am quite certain that Hub is telling his version of the same story to his lovely wife and her family whenever the topic of "turkey farts" comes up in conversation. (You'd have to know Hub to realize that it's not unlikely that such a topic would come up in conversation. He's got kids now but that hasn't changed his sense of humor, and farts will never not be funny.)

Looking back, the paper route was a genius idea. We did earn enough to move to a better apartment, got a new car, one with exhaust fans that worked, and we got better jobs. When we quit the paper route, our boss was sad to see us go. "Youz was good carriaz." Carriers.

You know what, we WERE good carriers. I was an excellent little paper bitch, farts and all.

(continued from Part 1)

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I see you over there in the menu bar, Weight Watcher's tab, don't get all lonely because I haven't touched you since summer. I got stuff for you too, I just haven't felt like writing. And you know those Facebook statuses? They've been taking the place of Low Budget Superhero. Almost a decade of writing, and it's coming undone because I can now post my thoughts in 220 character micro-blogs throughout the day and night, getting immediate and satisfying comments from every other obsessive Live Feed button-pusher. You know who you are! I have no legitimate claims to outrage, having been the cheerleader whose rallying whoops enticed at least five people to join. If you're tweeting because of me, I'm sorry.

I do need to write up the essay about that October trip. I just need like a, I don't know, a decompression? Like a couple of weeks off with no TV and no Facebook. So that I can write about Facebook and how it's blurring the normally linear timeline of our weird little lives. Come on, your old boyfriend commenting along with your best friend from fifth grade and your new boyfriend's mom is just...well, you'd never find all those people in the same room. Worlds colliding, rainbows connecting.

You'll notice there's no longer any commenting available HERE. This I changed so that I could control a spammer problem I was having, but I think I'll keep it comment'less for awhile. The people I would want to hear from, you know how to reach me if it's so important. And there's always the Facebook comment, because you know I'll be posting this to my profile...what a brave new world we live in, hm?

So much going on, so much. Let's see, well, the earthquake in Haiti is the worst thing I've seen in my lifetime. Here at home, the nation's economy is in the toilet. Last night was the State of the Union address, and while I'm still an Obama Mama, I just feel like it was too much salesy talk, finger pointing, platitudes and "in a perfect world" promises. OH, and too much applause by the Dems for what really amounted to a pep rally! Anyone else annoyed by that? When did that start, the constant applause during the SOTU? I don't recall that from when I was a kid. I don't know what any of the answers are, I just know things need to change. That's what drove the commonwealth, which was rocked by the Scott Brown win last week. Because nobody knows what to think past "what the f....?"

Joe's still not working. While I must say I like that he's picked up this new hobby of cooking, I would also like to, oh, maybe buy a house? Or at least a condo? My credit is only in the high six hundreds and my savings is like two or three paychecks' away from not-existing. Realistically, we need both incomes and his superior credit if we're ever going to move out of this tiny apartment. It's hard to believe October was a whole entire calendar year since he was laid off. I'd just made an appointment with a Realtor to look at some condo's, and by the time the appointment day came around, he was out of work. Thanks, Universe, yer hilarious. That was a good one.

Joe has become quite the cook, though. Last Thanksgiving, I mean 2008, he watched me taking down a raw butternut squash and turning it into a delightful soup and, when he turned out to love the soup, acted like I'd just leaped a tall building in a single bound. By THIS Thanksgiving, he had experimented with a number of different variations on butternut squash soup (with apple, with leeks) and made a big pot to take over to his sister's house. Leeks? A mere few months ago he had to call me from the grocery store with list in hand.

"Which ones are leeks?"

"They're with the swiss chard and kale." That didn't help at all. I suspect he thought "swiss chard" and "kale" were some kind of fish.

"They look like scallions, but bigger and fatter...scallions look like leeks' mini-me."

Now he's expertly washing leeks ("That's not easy, baby!" "I know, I found a video online!"), crisping them and using them to top his culinary creations. It just proves that old adage about the clouds and the silver lining. "Oh, 2009? Yes, Joe didn't have a job for one single day of it, but on the plus side, he learned to make a perfect pie crust...from SCRATCH." We may have limped along on one income, but holy moly...fresh pie!

Actually, it's overstating to say we're "limping along." We're fine. We can live perfectly fine on one income. For one thing, they just keep extending the unemployment bennies, though we won't discuss how much of that goes straight into paying for health care. For another, we don't have any of life's luxur...I mean money pits. No house, so no lawn to care for or snow to remove, there's no repair bills for big appliances because we own no big appliances. No property taxes, heat is part of our rent. No car, so no insurance or gas or repairs. No pets, so no food or vet bills. No kids. When I think about it all, you know what? I don't know how people are doing it. Even just adding a car right now would change our whole financial picture. And I have decent income!

How are people doing it?!

Are they living on credit? We only got credit cards because, last year, our mortgage adviser dude said we both lack revolving debt, which hurts our credit for home loans. Meaning: you guys actually SAVE UP for what you want to buy? Oh, that won't do, you need to fling credit cards all around so we can see that you...have...credit?

I am sorry, I still just do NOT get the whole credit dance. It's retarded, and yes I know that's un-PC language, and since I'm already offending your delicate nature, it's motherfucking retarded. If you're frugal, non-extravagant, careful to live within your means with habits such as saving up for the big ticket purchases and only buying them when you have the money, it's the same thing as being a deadbeat loser. Really? REALLY? Credit score what? It is my belief that CREDIT SCORE should only be the jumping-off place, not the be-all and end-all factor that spells out a person's entire financial story. There's so much more to define a person's financial responsibility than just that score. I care about being careful with money, that's all. Score THIS, hosers. Makes me want to live somewhere where I can give you a chicken and a goat in trade for a hut.

People are angry. I'm angry. There's going to be a lot more flag-waving in 2010. What's your flag going to say on it?

One of my co-workers...FORMER co-workers...made his own stimulus package. Sticky Fingers decided to sneak out with about twenty grand worth of electronic parts. Can you even imagine? It's a pretty good story too, but I'll save that for another day.

Al ist klar, der kommisar.

The latest barrel of hot viscous suck-juice to get dumped on the Internet is this thing called automatic comment generator, or blog comment widget. I'd like to track down the person who thought this kind of marketing would contribute to society and ask them a question or two, the first being simply: "What the fuck?"

But let me tell you why.

Some of you guys remember this, my online diary, from way back when it was called Jungle Sweet Jungle, so named for the inspiration provided by Geoffrey Holtz' book, Welcome to the Jungle: The Why Behind "Generation X" and the slant of my own writings, which was, is, and I guess will always be me searching for a foothold in history. Home, sweet Home. I don't crochet doilies, so I made a diary. Okay, blog, if you must. My first-ever post was about my erstwhile ebay addiction, where I spent my 1990s-boom era fat salary...a moment of silence for the dot-coms...on dust-collecting trifles like Brady Bunch lunchboxes. That last sentence ought to be in the dictionary under "Gen X."

So yeah, I'm in my ninth year here. Changed the name five years ago, changed the tools I use to do it, changed the style around a bunch. But I'm old school. I still only link to other diarists (okay, bloggers) that I actually read and enjoy. I still don't sell ad space (like, who would buy it). And I still view Low Budget Superhero as basically an adult version of the forts I used to make out of my Wonder Woman blankie and a couple of dining room chairs. You can come in if you want to, but you have to wear this Burger King crown and sing "Sesame Street" with me.

APPARENTLY, now that there's like eleventy-jillion blogs, and blog is a word now, and many of them have grown into quite the respectable (or at least oft-quoted) online news magazines, and everybody and your dog has one, and some have been made into books and movies, there's a great focus on making money from it. And part of that money-making hunger is getting more clicks. Clicks, clicks, clicks, it's all about the clicks, at the expense of basic Netiquette. Me, I hold no truck with this predatory practice of "generating more traffic" to one's blog by installing a fake comment widget.

Oh, you didn't know about the fake comment widget? Then your blog must have a WAY better defense against spambots than I do here at Low Budget Superhero. I've been battling these things with increasing fervor for years. I've tried everything on my utility belt except the shark repellent. Sometimes my arsenal of blockers wins, sometimes the hackers that write these spam codes win. I shake my fist at you, evil geniuses! I shall smite you with my strong words!

The idea is, these money-hungry dingleberries want more clicks, so they employ one of the comment spambot tools, and configure it for certain key words. Then it'll automatically go all around the web and leave comments in other blogs. With a link back to theirs. I don't know how they get past some of the things they get past! But they do. They'll leave you a comment right now, see if they don't. By leaving a fake comment with their link, they think this is going to get you to click on their link, because you think you got a comment. If it looks real enough, you'll leave it sitting there in your comments section and maybe some of your readers will click, too, and then...somebody...somehow makes money off that. I don't know quite how, I'm not good at that kind of thing. I still haven't worked out precisely what went on there at the end of Trading Places with the crop report and the whole "turn those machines back on." I've only been pretending to understand it for 26 years.

I get these automatic comments every damn day. My site here is set up so I get email saying there's a comment on one of my posts, and I have to log in to approve it first. Now, sometimes it's really you guys, which I adore and encourage, even if you don't agree with me -- but most of the time it's some horrendous auto-generated nonsense message that I just delete. I tell you, I must delete ten of these a week. They're insidious. I get auto comments with tracks back to websites as far reaching as shoe stores, phone companies, printing houses and dating sites. The worst offenders are online gambling sites and, of course, that mack daddy of the Internet, porn. What do they say? Occasionally the comments are somewhat normal, though just a little bit off...like, it could almost make sense when viewed in a certain way. For example, on my post called Oblique Strategies for Life, "Janice" posted this:

Well, yeah, true. But does it really pertain to the topic? Kinda not. I do know a Janice, too, so that one took me a few minutes to inspect. I may have even mentioned her in an entry, which may even have been the trigger for the auto-commentor. I knew it wasn't my Janice because the trackback url didn't make sense. Some handbag clearance website. That one pissed me off because they got me --I clicked it. I clicked it just to make sure it wasn't my Janice merely being loopy in her comment choice. She can be loopy now and then. She recently broke her ankle just walking. That takes a certain loopitude. But no, it wasn't her, it was some damn bot.

Other auto-commenter aren't so clever. Sometimes it's a bunch of random character gobbledy-gook that fools no one. Some are English words, but strung together into nonsense, like this one that repeated for about a week straight on a single post of mine. It read simply:

Then there was "Mort from Tonga," whose engine thought an appropriate reply to "I Don't Have The Guts For Health Care Reform" was this ramble:

Hey Mort, how about I "learn YOU into a rack with assets and companies." And what's with the sad emoticon? Christ, he's rude, crazy AND a downer. This is just terrible, terrible stuff.

I Googled for the widget applications so I could see how these marketing geniuses justify such spamming. Here's what one of them says:

You see that? This is only the beginning.

We have their word.

I want to hear one good reason why national health insurance cost can't be on a sliding scale based on individual income and expenses. Just one good reason. I, for one, would welcome that at this point. Because from everything I'm reading, hearing and watching, I'm starting to worry that health care "reform" is simply going to be new legislation stating that every person must buy health insurance, and that nobody is addressing the COST of it nor the list of benefits included.

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I didn't so much clear yesterday's Hurdle of Blah. It's more like I kinda shuffled up to it, stared at it awhile, drank a second cup of coffee, nudged it aside with my butt as I plodded past. Hey, I got to work and did my stuff, didn't I? Leaping over hurdles is for next week.

This is the kind of mood when I just do not get people. Every day there are new feats of Stupid that trumped yesterday's, and there will be still more Stupid tomorrow, and yet the world manages to spin around the sun and we do it all again the day after that.

Some are Big Stupids, like Michael Vick, that Arizona pastor who is publicly encouraging his flock to assassinate our country's leader, everything Sarah Palin says, and whatever unholy thing that makes Paris Hilton famous.

Most are Little Stupids.

On most days, I just gawk at the Little Stupids, even when they add up and make me question mankind's survival. I just say "If traffic is so bad at five o'clock, why do you still leave at five? It's the same thing every day!" I say "Dude, of COURSE you're tired, you went to bed three hours before you're due at work!" I say "Hey lady, I'm no expert, but wouldn't it be better if you wait for the walk signal before darting out into traffic, then that cab wouldn't have almost hit you?" I leave friendly notes in the restroom that say "Don't pee on the seat, thanks." I handle the Stupid and maintain a level of Happy.

But on days like this, the Blah days, I can't even bear to look at the Big Stupids face-on, and the Little Stupids make me want to go home and hide under my covers. It's like the more Stupid there is, the more it eats away at my normally sunny disposition and leaves me wondering just why the hell am I so happy all time?

I might have a new way to gauge the Stupid level.

Every single shopping cart at Stop N Shop bears a clear notice stating that the wheels will automatically stop turning once the cart gets a certain distance from the store's electronic sensors. Do you get it? The cart won't GO. You can't take the cart with you when you leave the store. Yet every single day there's a sad little cluster of dead carts, in the exact same place on Everett Street, shining under the afternoon sun like a chrome monument to that day's fresh batch of Stupid. Some days as I walk past on my way to get some lunch, there are six, seven, eight carts.

I muse "What was the first guy thinking." OK, he's easy. Let's assume he didn't or couldn't read the sign. We live in a very mixed neighborhood, you will hear any number of languages walking around. It's one of the things we like about living here, it makes for awesome bodega's and funky little eateries and an overall cool "neighborhoody" vibe, where you can still get a cup of coffee that doesn't come from Starbucks, a bunch of flowers that doesn't come from a Kabloom, and an ice cream that doesn't come from a Baskin Robbins. Plantains and golumki and knishes and karaoke and falafel, we got it all. Not all signs are in English.

But then what was the second guy thinking? He doesn't need to understand the sign saying "cart will stop." He can clearly see the stopped cart. But then, maybe that guy didn't get the connection between that cart, quite immobile, stranded on the corner near the bridge where that homeless guy sleeps and huffs his Reddi-Whip cans, and his own cart, which is about to lock its wheels and grind to a halt.

But how about that third guy. And the fourth and fifth. Because by then, it's like a friggin' cart pile-up. Look, if I'm walking along a wintry sidewalk and I see five people flailing on the ground ahead of me, I'm gonna say "Hm, must be icy up there." I won't need a sign warning me "Icy Sidewalk!" No language is needed, no college degree, not even a high-school equivalency. Just your eyes. You could land on that corner from another planet and "get it." Cart stops here.

Yet every day. Every single day, new batch of dead carts.

Just like the pollen count I check each morning on the weather scan channel to see how the air quality is that day, I'm gonna start doing a cart count to see how the Stupid quality is that day. One or two carts, I can expect to get a lot done and no one will piss me off. Three to six carts, it'll be a busy day and I will require some good music or a good hard workout to clear out the Stupid. Over six, and everybody just better watch out. You want to talk to me, bring chocolate.

If only I could go home and hide under the covers on those goddamn 9-cart days.

This video that I posted earlier tonight on Facebook is worth reposting here, even though at this point I don't think anyone reads Low Budget Superhero who isn't also a Facebook friend. Unless I've blocked you and you don't yet realize it, which probably means you suck, so go away.

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Heather posted a Bostonist.com blog about the utter horror that are flip flops. My friends know enough not to wear flip flops around me, I cannot abide them.

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Jen and munk were Facebooking some frustrations tonight. The topic? Outsourcing North American call centers to the other side of the planet. Mostly to India. Now, my Spidey Sense told me that some people were, if not offended, then surprised that Jen and munk would be so blunt about this, but I totally get what they're saying. I hate it too.

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