So I graduated…and I’m packing up to leave this town. I’m limited to what I can take on the plane, and to whatever costs less to ship by UPS than it does to replace. My computer monitor doesn’t make the cut; I felt unreasonably sad leaving it by the curb, with a red “TAKE ME, I WORK JUST FINE” sign taped to it. (At least it almost never rains out here, so somebody’s likely to grab it while it’s still in good shape.)
But then I still had to deal with the rest of the stuff I needed to ship. It’s only a ten-minute walk to the UPS station in the strip mall, but there are those two freeway offramps–almost like old friends, by this point–to deal with. After I’ve actually lugged all my boxes there (a separate trip up and back for each), the story starts:
My clerk is a guy about my age, with a couple eyebrow rings and the standard-issue LA goatee. His tag says “Assistant Manager,” which means the older guy to my right is most likely Manager. The Manager is in his fifties, probably, lean and powerfully built with a mustache like you might see in old engraved pictures. He’s talking to a woman in a flower-print dress, about the same age as him, blonde hair and gray roots. She has a very small package that she holds out to him with both hands. “Where’s it going?” he asks, more to himself than to her, as he takes the little box. Then he sees the address on top. “Huh.”
“It’s going to Iraq,” says the woman in a very soft voice, sounding like a little kid apologizing.
“I’ve got to take a look inside. Customs.” says the Manager. He takes out a Leatherman knife.
“I know,” says the woman. The Manager takes another look at the box, and realizes it hasn’t been taped shut yet. He opens it and pokes at something I can’t see.
“Those CO2 cartridges?”
“What?”
“Carbon dioxide, compressed gas. You use them for paintball guns, things like that. You can’t send them through the mail.”
She shakes her head. “I think they’ve got enough ammunition over there. Those are chocolates.”
He nods and starts taping up the box. She looks at him, he looks at her. He puts an extra piece of tape on top of the box.
“There, that’ll keep out that Eye-raqi rainwater,” he says kindly. She laughs, then stops and covers her mouth. “We’ve got to get out of there,” she says in a whisper, almost a hiss. “We’ve just got to.” And the Manager whispers back–why are they whispering?–”We will. Soon.”
Assistant Manager looks over at them, and doesn’t whisper: “We can’t just pull out.”
“Why not?” asks the Manager, no longer whispering, exactly, but almost.
“Well, didn’t the British try that?” Assistant says. “And look what happened.”
Now I butt in. “Then we should have listened to the British when they told us this was a bad idea.”
“Oh, yeah,” Assistant shoots back, sneering. “Us Americans don’t know how to do anything on our own.”
“Once we’ve ruled the world for five hundred years, instead of fifty, we can start the bragging,” I say.
“It’s more than fifty,” Assistant comes back. “Started with Teddy Roosevelt.” He’s got me there.
“Listen to them,” laughs the Manager, clucking his tongue. He points at me and Assistant. “War games…” Then he circles himself and the woman sending chocolates with his finger. “…reality.”
“Thank you,” says the woman sending chocolates, blinking back tears, as she leaves.
The Assistant Manager and I must be staring like idiots. The Manager turns to me. “Which side is your motherboard on? You pack the machine upside down, the cards inside’ll get loose.”