(At
a Customs desk)
Official:
(Stamps a passport) I’ve heard enough – welcome to Denial Land, enjoy your new
life of blissful ignorance, next!
Immigrant:
(Approaches the desk and hands over passport) Hello, how are you today –
Official:
(Takes passport and slams a button on the desk) You’ve been selected for random
interrogation – follow that officer, please.
(Gestures to Officer standing off to the side)
Immigrant:
Oh. Blast. Why?
Official:
You’re too chipper. Look at all the lost
souls around you. (Immigrant looks
around and sees everyone on the lines have faces of despair) Need to make sure
you really mean to block out all remnants of your old life and resettle in a
new land of thought suppression.
Immigrant:
But I do, I –
Official:
Save it for the interview, next!
(Immigrant
is led to a back room and seated at a table across from Officer, who looks over
the passport)
Officer:
So: what brings you to Denial Land?
Immigrant:
Well, for starters, my whole family is here – they came quite some time ago.
Officer:
Understandable.
Immigrant:
So you see, there’s nothing for me back home; I need a fresh start.
Officer:
Details, please.
Immigrant:
(Slumps back in chair) Oh, where to begin?!
Officer:
Preferably the beginning, but anywhere will do.
Immigrant:
OK, um, one major motivator is, my job is garbage.
Officer:
So nu?
Immigrant:
Yeah, except mine is literally garbage: I drive a truck for the
sanitation department, so you can imagine the stench alone would drive one mad,
if I still had my sense of smell, the loss of which has also affected my sense
of taste, but I digress.
Officer:
You do.
Immigrant:
So, the work can get pretty dangerous, with the unpredictable dumpsters and the
homicidal street traffic and the random unruly residents, and the hours are
really bad, and I just survived another round of layoffs which means they
doubled our routes yet expect us to finish them in the same amount of time as
before, which is physically impossible.
Officer:
I would think so.
Immigrant:
It’s gotten unbearable, multiple times: I get so little sleep, and my nerves
are shot, and I keep getting colds all year long, and the union can’t really do
much for us anymore, and the worst part of it is, I can’t just quit and find
another job because no one else’ll have me.
Officer:
I doubt that: even if, I’m assuming, you don’t have a higher ed degree, you
have the driving and operating heavy machinery experience – plus customer
service, dealing with the rowdy homeowners.
Immigrant:
I’ve gone on 200 interviews in the past three years.
Officer:
Ouch.
Immigrant:
That’s what my brain says every day.
Officer:
Well, I can see how that’d put a damper on things, but I’m gonna need a little more. What else do you want to be in permanent
denial about?
Immigrant:
Um, well, lately my friends’ve been saying they don’t want to hang out with me
anymore because I spend the whole time complaining, which bums them out.
Officer:
I agree with them.
Immigrant:
They also say I never include the tip when I pay my share of the check, which
is totally bogus.
Officer:
`Cause you actually include the tip and they don’t see it?
Immigrant:
No, I mean tipping is bogus: just pay your employees a living wage for doing
their jobs, for crying out loud! No one
tips me, and my life is on the line a boatload more times than theirs.
Officer:
Really?
Immigrant:
Have you ever had a two-ton dumpster hanging above your head and the only thing
keeping it from crushing you flat is a set of weathered levers?
Officer:
Fair enough. Anything else you’d like to
add?
Immigrant:
Yes: I will never find true love and I would like not to care.
Officer:
Done. (Stamps passport and stands; Immigrant
also stands as Officer hands over the passport) Welcome to Denial Land; hope
your new life here treats you better than your life in Reality Land did.
Immigrant:
Thank you so much! I’m really looking
forward to this: I’ve heard it’s very serene and comforting, living in Denial.
Officer:
It’s freakin’ amazing – I’m frankly surprised the entire world hasn’t immigrated
here yet.
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