SCRIBE PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS: 10 SUPREME IRONIES!!!

As a self-described wordsmith and stud muffin, extraordinaire, I am often struck by the ironies that make up our experiences as human beings on this ball of mud and fast food establishments we call “Earth.”

Irony is the bread & butter of any creative person but it’s also really good for starting religions and calling yourself a maverick while being another Washington, D.C. insider. So basically any and everyone should be able to appreciate irony. Unlike sarcasm, most people can experience it without feeling stupid. And unlike reality TV, most people can…experience it…without feeling…yeah…let’s move on.

I sat down and thought of ten supreme ironies that have occurred, mostly to me, but also to those around me. Some of them are amusing, but not all. Some are downright depressing and tragic.

Here’s the list:

-“FIX THE PISS!”- That’s what my once former & again current supervisor yelled when she went to the weight loss clinic to prepare for her trip to Cancun. What brought that one, you ask? Her urine test came back telling her she was six months pregnant. Only one problem there: She had her tubes tied last year! Understandably upset, she accused the clinic of providing false results, then stormed out of the building, stumbling around in desperate search for the exit. She turned to the women at the receptionist’s desk and yelled, “Would one of you fuckin' bitches tell me how to get outta here!?” They pointed without expression to the door right next to her. She went home and blamed her husband, jumping on his back and pounding him repeatedly for not having gotten a vasectomy as an extra precaution. That’ll make three kids, two girls and a boy on the way. I only feel comfortable telling this story because she tells everyone who will listen and even those who won't. Not to sound selfish here, but I really needed this for obvious reasons.

- DAN'S KARMIC PAYBACK - I’ve written about the pivotal moment of my fiction writing future more than once on this and other blogs, but it should be mentioned one last time in this context. This is the guy who ridiculed my writing during my first trip to the writer’s workshop in Kansas after he and I had actually hung out and talked. How ironic that a mere three years later he would be on the receiving end of my and other writers’ ridicule with his psychotic, disturbingly bizarre stories. I, on the other hand, was generally praised. Like Buddha said, “Fuck‘im!”

- MOM & GEORGE LUCAS - It’s amazing how prophetic a person’s words can turn out be. My mother, whose numerous complications due to childhood Diabetes crippled her by her early fifties, was a huge Star Wars fan. She pent years after the final chapter of the original trilogy wondering when Lucas would get around to making the next set of films. “I’ll be dead by the time he makes them,” she’d often say. Turned out she was right. She died a year and a half before the release of “The Phantom Menace.” I almost didn’t go see it but was persuaded to honor her memory.

- MOM & THE NURSING HOME VOW - She was only in her fifties when she wound up in a nursing home. Her Diabetes caused neuropathy and all sorts of secondary issues up to and including eventual kidney failure. One day, when she was in her second and much worse nursing home, I held her and cried with her as I vowed she would not have to stay there. I was true to my word, getting her out of there and back home a year or so later. But she just got worse and worse and before I knew it she’d gone into a coma, only to re-emerge a shadow of her former self. The hospital, afraid she would die on their watch sent her to…you guessed it, a nursing home. She died there a week & a half later.

- GREG P.’S HUMILATION - He was the quintessential company boy, a by-the-book rule follower whose life seemed to revolve around his career in retail management. He spouted company propaganda with the passion of a Nazi war criminal and never said a bad thing about the store or the company. One person changed all that. We called him “Skippy.” He was the new, younger store director with lots of fancy ideas and a Yuppie’s obnoxious outlook on life. His hatred of the blue collar Greg P was palpable and made life as miserable for him as Greg P had for those of us he didn’t like. By the end, he was a shattered remnant of himself, shuffling around during his last weeks still acting like he would be there forever, somehow forgetting the fact that Skippy has encouraged him to find other work. It didn’t matter that Greg P was the most dedicated and possibly competent manager in the building. Skippy hated him. “Buncha fuckin' morons running this company!” Greg P yelled one day, then added, as if afraid he’d be overheard, “At least, that’s my opinion.” On his very last day he was still giving orders until one of my co-workers looked at him and said, “Greg. Go home.” He left without another word and we never saw him again.

- ZEN GOES COMMERICAL (And makes me an award winning writer)- Religion & spirituality do not mix well. Just because I found my answers in Buddhism didn’t mean there wouldn’t still be materialistic people more concerned with improvements to an emerging temple than in the quest for enlightenment. I just never thought it would be a monk that would hassle me for not being able to afford a voluntary monthly donation. I guess I was just supposed to capitulate or disappear, but when I wrote a commentary aticle for my college newspaper, a reader just so happened to be an attendee of the temple. Reportedly the female monk was rather upset, so imagine how much worse it must’ve been when I placed first statewide in a college journalism competition! This was the first negative press the place received and suddenly all the ass-kissing articles in various papers disappeared. Sorry, monks, but Karma applies to you, too.

- IT REALLY IS WHO YOU KNOW, ISN’T IT? - This is a two-part irony concluding in the next item. Having become almost unbearably embittered by my experiences at a previous job, an angel arrived in the form of a contractor who shared office space with me. He must have sensed my disgust and seen me as someone who deserved better, and so he asked me if I’d applied for work at a certain cellular service provider. I’d never even thought about it but I went and did it the same day. I have been working there for almost three years now. This advice came from a guy I never spoke to during my pre-layoff period. It was only because of the layoff that I was given a new seating area near him. I owe him my gratitude and, if he plays his card right, a reach-around.

- “YOU’RE LAID OFF/I QUIT” - Imagine yourself sitting in your office with a temperature of 103 degrees, swooning and damnnear blacking out, when your boss walks in wearing an odd facial expression. Smiling nervously, he hands you a piece of paper and waits for you to read it. You’re so out of it, you have to reread it several times before you realize it’s one-part layoff notice and one part recommendation letter. He gives you his spiel about how and why, etc. but you are losing the ability to follow along by the moment. He’s confused by your reactions, even asks you if you want to kick his ass. You remain professional, finishing out the day and handing him all relevant materials when you leave, much to his obvious shock. You spend the next five months desperately trying to find another job so you don’t have to go back, but it’s an employer’s market and the economy is dreadful. Five months later you are called to return to work….with a twist. You’re no longer full-time and you’ve lost your office to the guy that replaced you…the guy who isn’t working out! As mentioned above, a contractor sharing pace with you mentions someone who is hiring. The job is too good to pass up but they want you to start immediately after orientation. You feel bad at first, and then you remember the way your layoff was delivered to you on the day it was to begin. You merrily, merrily, merrily drop your resignation letter in their mailbox after hours and begin your new career path. I loved those guys but fuck 'em in the ear.

- OVER A WOMAN??? - You must be sick and tired of hearing about this but it qualifies so shut up, lay back, and take it! Don’t make me gag you and tie your wrists to my vintage Pinto, ‘cause I will! You don’t know me, man! I’m crazy! The supreme irony of a so-called “man” who couldn’t stand the sight of the woman you were with who now stares at her adoringly and had shared in bad-mouthing you deserves to be listed here. Especially because there's no way in Mexican hell he can ever have her. I won’t expound any further.

- BLOGGING- The reason I included this is because without it I might not be writing anymore. Although I had a publisher three and a half years ago, I had nothing resembling a finished novel I had any faith in and with the death of one of my mentors, not to mention a whole lotta other shit, I’d basically started re-examining the dream. I didn’t know much about blogging, thinking it was a refuge for people in love with themselves who think their boring lives are interesting enough to write about online. Soccer moms, I’m gazing hostily in your direction. I was right about some bloggers, but many of us do have something to say. Reconnecting with an audience and remembering why I got into writing in the first place has proven invaluable, And it all started because my buddy Dutch wanted me to see his latest foray into dorkiness.