This week has been insane for me. I worked nine of the last ten nights, and a few days as well. I have been trying to X-mas shop, and to resist the urge to do so for myself. I am also trying to arrange a night off to attend a holiday party at my own home, to which all readers of cloudwrangler are cordially invited, since I am sure I know you both and you won’t even need a map. In an effort to relax a little in my spare time, I decided not to spend every afternoon at the movies as I often do, and instead rent some videos and rest up at home when I can.
Big BIG MISTAKE.
The problem lies in what I decided to rent. The Sopranos Season 2. In the last few days I have seen every episode. Almost 15 hours of gangsters doing the various things they do, all in my house. Most of you who know me (again, thanks for reading, both of ya) know this is right up my alley. My spaghetti sauce recipe, adapted from my mother’s own, takes four hours to prepare. The recipe requires that Mob movies be played during cooking, a tradition spawned by the scene in Godfather where Clemenza teaches Michael to make sauce since, “you never know when ya might havta cook for like tirty guys someday.” The recipe makes seventy nine gallons of sauce, so I give a lot of it away, mostly to Sarah these days. In perfecting the recipe, I have seen almost every mob film known to man, good and bad. However, only once before have I ever had to process this much TV mafia at once, and I have learned something very interesting this time around.
It’s not very relaxing, and it changes the way you think.
I look over my shoulder now. A LOT. I have awkward moments just before I turn the key in my car ignition. I’ve also noticed my speech patterns are changin’. I say tings lately that I can’t believe are comin’ outta my mout. Like yesterday, dis guy I work wit was walkin’ past the bar, and I says, “Hey Ferris come ‘ere fer a minute.” and he says, “I’m off the clock,” like I was gonna tell ‘im ta do somethin’ and he didn’t wanna on account of he wadn’t gettin’ paid fer it, and I says, “Who fuckin’ asked youse about off !?!?”
It’s also affected my decision making and problem solving methods. Yesterday I couldn’t decide what I wanted for lunch because there just aren’t any really good Italian joints in this town. When I finally gave up trying to find one, I decided to just go to the drive thru window. Then, when the guy forgot to put pickles on my burger, I dragged him out of the window, beat the crap out of him, and ran him over with my car. I had a guy whacked for showing up to work fifteen minutes late a few days ago. I got a line on a whole rack of full length mink coats that fell of the back of a truck, swear to God. It’ not even cold in Austin, fer christ sake! I guess I may need a new nickname.