Fence Staining, Lunch, and Chechen Refugees

I.
Over the past few weeks I’ve been staining a fence for Jeff  – a professional person with a wife and two dogs, who works (Jeff does) as an Art Director for big time Hollywood type movies. Let me just say that this was a pretty serious fence I’ve been staining – the kind of fence that perhaps nearly justifies an inquiry by the police, who want to know if the owner has been stock-piling arms. It elicits the word ‘Compound.’ But in any case all of this is just to say it was a very large fence and there was much staining to be done.
As we stained, Jeff told me many stories about Hollywood people with projected Nice Guy personas who are, in reality, unabashed jerks and perpetual sack-sacks. He and his wife fed me extravagantly nutritious lunches, the likes of which people in my income tax bracket are normally banned from eating. Plus his dogs are amazingly friendly and smart at many tricks. Also Jeff’s pool-owning neighbor was out of town so after spending each day staining in the domineering Texas sunshine, I was able to swim.

You know, sometimes I can trick myself into thinking that I could easily live a life of abject poverty – that I could live eating nothing but barley and water, earning trophies for how shockingly skinny I would be. I trick myself into thinking that living a life of Grapes-of-Wrath-Style dearth would be simpler, easier somehow than bogging myself down with complex hierarchies of like and dislike. I would like only barley and water. I would spend my life living under a tree where I would probably die. They would prop my skeleton up against the tree and people would come and take pictures with it (the skeleton). Foreign tourists would come. A big sign would say, “$5 Come have your picture taken with the man who died unnecessarily!”
But being in the presence of the very nice Jeff and very nice wife and his two dogs and fence and extravagantly nutritious lunches makes me punch my fist into the air and say, “I WANT TWO DOGS! I WANT FENCE! I WANT LUNCH!” And lunch is not a whole lot to ask for, I would guess.


II.
Today Josey was helping some Chechen refugees buy clothes for their new lives as Bona Fide American Citizens. She took them to a thrift store and told them to pick out some pants. These people were apparently exceedingly friendly but unable to speak much English at all. Josey found them laughing in the pants aisle. She said, “What’s so funny?” The Chechens stretched their arms in that, ‘I caught a fish THIISS BIIIIG,’ fashion and, laughing, said, “Americans!”