Tales From the Floor

Kids today, sheesh! Waddaya gonna do?

So, this The Rag operation is still going, huh? I can tell. When I'm sober, usually during the day, but sometimes at night (a floor's got the right to sober up, don't she?) I can hear them talking about the stuff that goes on here. Just yesterday, the tall guy, Eric I think his name is, yeah, Eric with a 'k', (he wears Zips sneakers and his left leg is shorter than his right, or is it that his right leg is shorter than his left and he always walks backwards? Never rule out any possible answer, no matter how silly or unlikely. I learned that being a floor. I learned that real fast. Where was I)? Oh yeah, Eric with a 'k'…Eric, he was complaining that the bourbon machine wasn't putting enough ice in the glasses and that they were going to have to get someone out here to look at it and that that would take up to two weeks! Christ! This guy's complaining 'cos his bourbon rocks is too bourbony! What happened to the days when you had to keep a flask in your bottom sliding drawer and kill the pain discretely? Then spend the all your money at the bar and go home to your loved one and tell her that you ain't got nuthin' to live on 'cos you drank it all away, discretely? Continue process til your flask becomes a paper bag, your bottom sliding drawer becomes a bush in front of a discount cigarette store and your loved one becomes a paranoid schizophrenic, 20 years your senior, that no longer has the self awareness to not change clothes in the middle of an intersection, discretely?

This generation, this The Rag in particular, they got everything provided for them. They don't know what sweat on the brow feels like (well, to be fair, i only knows what it feels like when it falls). Even those giant bugs down in the writer's dome (and I'm not being derogatory this time, they're actually giant bugs) take 5 smoke breaks an hour and have little aphids do the actual typing. Jeeze, they got four arms and can't do their own typing. See what I mean? Soft.

But I seen all types come and go through this place over the years. These The Rag kids ain't so bad, actually. That bourbon machine, I can't complain about it - it leaks! Freebies for me! Forget about it! (Note to self: discourage calling bourbon machine repair center. Might find and repair leak). And they're nice kids. I hear all corporate profits after bonuses and life-enrichment subsidies go straight to the Frank Zappa Presidential Fund, whoever the hell that is. And they ain't the most tidy bunch but the zamboni that comes through here every night keeps me lookin' pretty good, for an old dame! (O, you should have seen me right after I finished settling! I was to die for. All the walls and office furniture had a crush on me. Now I realize it was just gravity but back then…ooo la-la).

Ah, we'll see how long The Rag occupies me. I give them a year, two tops. I don't know what exactly it is they do here. You'd think I would, being the omniscient floor, but I can't quite piece it together. They do have a computer. It's good to see some things haven't changed so much. When I hear the whirl of those reel-to-reels and the chug-chug-chug of those punch cards being read, it takes me back to when I was covered in linoleum; happy times. Oh, but here's the kicker. This is what worries me so much about these kids. They don't have trash cans. Everything they don't need, they just burn. Wherever it is, they just light it on fire. But listen, I'm a tough floor. I can take it, but it's not me I'm worried about. It's these walls. The walls…oh shit. I gotta go. They just lit one up right by a puddle of bourbon I never soaked up.