The third installment

An automated voice chirped "Thank you for starting your day with Start Mart" as he crept through the sliding door, knocking over the stack of bright green shopping baskets that stood beside the entrance. Five minutes late. But maybe Marge had not taken roll yet. Maybe he was still in time for the Sample Wars announcement.

Every work place has certain traditions, intended to inject vitality and ambition into an environment where the day often falls into plodding routine. These traditions usually involve competitions, tournaments that, like marathons or jousts, allow individuals to compare skill and showcase impressive talents. But while most contests are held in good humor, with an understanding that the entire thing is not meant to be taken too seriously, the weekly Sample Wars at Start Mart often escalated into something much more desperate. In a realm where work mainly consisted of unpacking oranges, sweeping aisles of canned goods and arranging packages on hooks, there were few such chances for anyone to satisfy their need to conquer, to prove their own superiority.

Contrary to its name, the Sample Wars depended a great deal more on your luck in the food draw than on any pea flicking abilities. As long as the slip you drew from the tray was a popular item, as long as enough people decided to purchase, for example, frozen chicken wings after visiting your sample stand, you would be crowned King or Queen for a day. But whereas victory was sometimes easily attainable, failure was at times just as certain. Once assigned something like lima bean dip or brussel sprouts, you understood from the beginning that it was a lost cause.The rest of the afternoon would be spent watching hordes of people gathering in front of other stands, emptying the sample trays the moment the potato wedges came out of the microwave and carting away shopping carts filled with frozen pizzas. 

It sounded comical, but these contests came to mean more than frozen foods or being crowned SMart King or Queen. They came to symbolize agency, the power to influence some course of action, if not his own, and his inability to sell lima bean dip seemed to him to summarize everything that was defective in him.

While Marge Lionel did feel it was necessary to enforce her authority as Head Manager, she did not take particular pleasure in reprimanding her staff or humiliating latecomers.  But as is often the case when it comes to human interaction, her treatment of Boggs that morning was driven by a series of circumstances that were not all directly related. She had run out of eggs and toast and so ate nothing but crackers for breakfast. After taking the elevator down to the basement she had remembered that her sister had borrowed her car for the day, and in the time it took her to remember this, she missed the bus. As shipment of bottled water was missing. There was a leak in the bathroom downstairs. 

Then there was the fact that it had been Boggs again.

His repeated tardiness despite threats of earlier shifts and extra hours confirmed what she already knew: that he would not continue to be late despite her warnings, and that there were other factors in his life that wielded more influence than she did ever could. These reminders of the one-sided nature of her feelings hurt her, and though she suspected that most at Start Mart held little respect for her, his continued disregard struck her as betrayal. That he could not see how she protected him, how she hid his tardiness from the owner though twelve late slips far exceeded the limit, how she had had a crush on him since his arrival at the supermarket two years ago seemed to her a sort of rejection. 

Nevertheless, for all her insults and threats, Marge had never planned to turn him in. But the late slips were adding up, and she could not protect him for much longer.

The second installment

Like cleaning windows for a living or eating fettuccine with a spoon, being a full-time coward was no easy feat. He could no longer remember when he first realized that was what he was, but the signs had always been there, and he had been bound to catch on eventually. Who but a coward could not admit to his mother that he had been the one who unearthed her potatoes fifteen years ago to make potato stamps for his print collection? (She still suspected the postman.) And who but a coward would pretend not to notice when Mrs. Boggs from Building C dropped her quarters into the last washing machine, even though he had gotten there first?

    

Unearthed potatoes and washing machines aside, he believed he handled it well. As well as any disability, and the frustration and isolation that came with it, could be handled. In his mind, his cowardice was a disability because, much like a missing toe or hearing impediment, it made life unfairly difficult. There were too many things to avoid, too many people to hide from, too many reasons to stay crouched behind his umbrella stand.While others took buses to new towns and auditioned for parts in plays, he could not even bring himself to try buy a new brand of deodorant. He went through each day at the supermarket surrounded by reminders of his uselessness and yet constantly gave himself new reasons to despise himself, collecting vague insecurities like a lint roller until had no stickiness left and could only retreat to books of valiant knights, desperate to avoid further contact with a world that had become too much.

Pathetic. Breakfast was not even over yet, and already he had begun to feel sorry for himself. Shifting his arm to cram the last of his cucumber sandwich into his mouth, he glanced at his watch. 7:14. Eleven minutes before everyone who worked at Sam's Market gathered behind the gardening section, before Brenda began roll call and announce the Sample of the Week. Sixteen minutes before he was marked for his 55th late slip. It took about ten minutes to bike from the apartment to the supermarket-if Ms. Kendricks left No. 201 in the next six minutes, he could beat the elevator downstairs and still have a chance. 

  

Or he could just tell her about the slippers.   

It occurred to him that Ms. Kendricks might not even care. Perhaps she had not even noticed. They might laugh at his mistake, make a few jokes about his carelessness, and then chat for a while about the comforts of casual footwear. All would be well then, and he would be able eat breakfast at his dining table again, blissfully unaware of whether his neighbors had left their houses yet.

But still he remained in the dirt and bread crumbs, stooped between the wall and shoe cabinet. 

The first installment

Had it not been the slippers, it almost certainly would have been something else.

Even now, as he squatted behind the wooden elephant umbrella stand and candy wrappers that had somehow gathered inside his front door, he smiled at the way things had turned out. Smiled to himself as though this routine of lurking behind the umbrella stand, listening for the footsteps that would leave No. 201 so that he could finally begin his own day, was merely a game he happened to be playing. As though the 54 tardies he had collected since the first Tuesday of March and the discomfort of eating breakfast wedged between a shoe cabinet and the wall were things to be dismissed, even laughed at. As though he were kneeling in dirt and bread crumbs simply because he wanted to.  

In truth, he had been driven to this particular spot behind the umbrella stand by a series of incontrovertible truths. He could not arrive at the supermarket before eight because he could not leave the house until he had heard Mrs. Kendricks, who lived in No. 201, step out into the hallway, water her pea plants, jingle her keys, and lock her door. He could not leave the house until he heard these sounds because he could not chance an encounter with Mrs. Kendricks. And he could not chance an encounter because he could not bring himself to tell her about the slippers. It was all as logical and as inevitable as the progression of a chemical reaction, and he had no choice but to look on. 

Smart

In the first two years of your life, smart is being able to repeat "mama" and "dada" under the scrutiny of ever-doting relatives who can't seem to find anything else to play with. As you enter kindergarten, smart is no longer having potty-trained yourself, but rather becomes remembering the words to "Yankee Doodle" or the pledge of allegiance before everyone else. In high school, smart is being able memorize every single formula, fact, and term in the textbook and knowing when to regurgitate them. Perhaps by the time middle age rolls around, smart becomes knowing which vendors to haggle with in the marketplace, and being able to buy a head of cabbage at your own price.

"Smart" is actually a measure of what society expects from you at that particular stage in life. As a baby, you are expected to entertain and perform, and once you catch on, you are deemed a smart baby. As a kindergartener, you begin training to become a moral, upstanding citizen, training that involves instilling a sense of patriotism by drilling songs and chants (sometimes of questionable nature--macaroni? "with the girls be handy"?) into your mind. Once you succeed in holding onto these articles of culture and legacy, you are smart. In high school, you begin amassing the knowledge and skills that will eventually transform you into a productive member of society. Exams and homework become essential tools in showing you how to structure your thinking, and if you find the right way to fill in the blanks and crank out those essays, you are smart. Being smart simply means fulfilling someone's expectations for you, and once those standards change, you are left groping for something you thought was unchangeable.

A taste of greatness

The transition from disgusting smugness to crippling self-doubt is almost always disorienting. Unless you are already familiar with the feeling, in which case there is nothing but numb resignation. Here we go again.

The cycle usually begins with unexpected boost in confidence. Perhaps someone "liked" your Facebook status, or you stumbled across yet another article on Paris Hilton's escapades. Their generous displays of support convince you that you are worth that thumbs-up on the screen, and their flagrant stupidities somehow allow you to forgive your own faults. You pull out your victories and lovingly polish them. For a moment, you are inconquerable. You are certain you will write a national bestseller, save the children, and change the world, all before the age of 21.

Of course, this lasts fleetingly. A self-image built on external sources has limited warranty, and you are inevitably reminded that you are merely mortal. That you cannot spell "occasionally" without using spellcheck, that you find basic math challenging, and that you are not a child prodigy. (It doesn't help that there are child prodigies out there.)Your newly acquired optimism and confidence crumble like the cheap wafers you find at supermarkets, the kind that flake all over your couch even though the packaging reads "crumb-free." Even the simplest tasks begin to seem like insurmountable obstacles, and you wonder how you could have possibly imagined accomplishing anything more complicated than brushing your teeth. Everything you write, everything you draw, everything you think seems worthless. No matter how desperately you flounder, you cannot cling to that energy that bubbled inside you only a moment ago, an almost irrepressible feeling that made you want to go out into the world and do good for mankind. Now you just want to rummage through the refrigerator and each whatever you happen to find. Even you are surprised by how much you despise yourself at that very moment, now that the effects of self-delusion have worn off. The only book you will ever write is an address book, and because you have tasted greatness, you are all the more bitter for it.

Some days are for people watching

While there are many things wrong with this house--the screen door leading to the patio often swings open of its own accord (especially on typhoon days), the bars in front of the study room window are not unlike those found in jail cells, and the kitchen is so narrow there is barely enough space for groceries, much less for any brandishing of pots and pans--there is one thing that may make up for everything else. Along one side of our living room runs a wall-length window complete with sliding glass frames and cream-colored curtains, a window that overlooks the sunbleached roofs and rice fields behind our apartment. On days that are too hot or too perfect to be spent doing anything else, it's nice to lounge on the couch and watch old ladies in wide-brimmed straw hats, laying out radishes to dry, or people puttering down the winding road in motorcycles that could probably be outstripped by those snails lay salmon pink eggs in the fields.

Do I feel guilty, sitting in an air-conditioned room sipping guava juice (or whatever my mom happens to make that morning), looking down on these people going about their daily business and being productive in the sweltering air of Taiwan? Somewhat. But there is something so soothing about peeking into someone else's life, about being able to observe another individual going about their daily business as though you cannot be touched by such things such as time, survival, or heat. To be able to look on as others carry on the business of living, to leave your own private struggles behind and become, if only for a moment, an observer, above such trivial concerns, unmoved by such petty patterns. Even if it is all only pretend.

I wonder if someone else spends their times gazing on my life. Looking on as I agonize over last minute papers and emails I have put off for too long, watching as I talk to my rabbit or leave my nail clippings on the coffee table when I think no one is there to see, observing my clueless attempts to start a blog or to find some definite direction in life. I wonder what this person would be thinking as they watched my days unfold like some low-budget soap opera. Would they wonder, "What was she thinking when she decided to eat that sandwich that had been sitting in refrigerator for a week?" Would they sigh with exasperation, or smile their knowing smiles? Or would they simply switch to another channel, to another more eventful, more stimulating story?

I often don't notice the unremarkable, even repetitive quality of my life unless it is in retrospect. I am (all too easily, according to my mom), satisfied with the ordinary, everyday flow of things. If we had carrot-flavored oatmeal for breakfast every morning, I would probably come to like it, and maybe even eventually relish in the repetition of a daily ritual. I actually don't mind wearing a uniform, or the fact that my world essentially consists of a single street. It rarely occurs to me to be discontent or to reach further. My Biology teacher once wrote in my yearbook that he "hoped to see me on the cover of Time magazine someday," but I probably won't ever appear on the cover of any publication unless it is for something mind-numbingly mundane. Like for brushing my tongue consistently each night before I go to bed. Is it because I'm lazy? Because I lack initiative? Because I fear change, and so cling to the familiar instead? Because I'm too narrow-minded, and can't possibly conceive of doing things any other way? I get the feeling that I will never head a large corporation, become a "pearl of price," or win a Nobel Prize.

I don't know if this attitude is a sort of graceful acceptance or self-defeating resignation. After all, aren't people supposed to reach for the impossible (and then wince in pained surprise when they fall on their behinds)? But, then again, I have my own small triumphs to celebrate. Another favorable rating on Teen Ink, another completed blog post. And most of the time, this is enough.