excerpts from Jen’s diary
SAT 20/11/21
“When I Am Recycled, I Want To Be A Picnic Bench”
I saw a poster with this slogan on it today. It showed an old, plastic dustbin — dreaming of a second chance. Reincarnation is no longer a mystery, it’s very real. It just isn’t for us, it’s for council owned utilities.
I can imagine why a dustbin would want a go at being a picnic table. It must be quite difficult having to spend all your days consuming and holding on to rotting trash. Having the half full cappuccino cups leak tepid, sugary milk water all over the bottom of your bag which despite being advertised as “Super Strong & Durable” is actually nothing of the sort. Yes, it’s changed every 6 hours, but like a worker at the fish counter in a supermarket — that scent lingers. Why do you think so many fishmongers live short, lonely lives? (I can’t back this up with fact, but it’s a job with a shelf life is all I’m saying. They say that medical professionals & carers have some of the highest rates of substance abuse issues due to work-place stress, but has anyone investigated the fishmongers yet?)
If I were a dustbin, I’d be grabbing at the chance to be a picnic table. You get human interaction, people put food on you & occasionally an American teen will stand on you for a dance number in a “flashmob” style rendition of the Grease Megamix for a feel-good Youtube video aiming to raise awareness for severe, chronic diarrhoea. Occasionally.
The only sad thing about this dustbins dream is, being plastic it’ll probably never gain the respect of a large majority of wooden picnic tables. As we all know, you can’t change your actual genetic makeup — and a plastic dustbin is destined to become a plastic picnic table at best. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, exactly. It’ll definitely be a picnic table. It just has a shorter life expectancy, probably. Someone’ll still try and carve their name into it.
“I’ve Got a Turmeric & Ginger Latte”
I had to go to the job centre today, which isn’t something anyone has ever once enjoyed, ever. But I’ve been here before — it’s not my first rodeo. Although, maybe it is — because I failed to read the appointment message properly and I haven’t brought any of the documentation I was apparently supposed to bring. The nice woman behind the plexiglass says that this happens all the time, which makes me wonder who’s job it is to send those appointment messages.
The job centre always feels oppressive. There’s a palpable power imbalance the moment you arrive — but the plexiglass doesn’t help at all. I understand that’s its needed in these germy times, but the design does everything it can to make you feel like a prisoner, from a film, giving your last message to a loved one before you’re hauled away back to the cells where you’ll ferment some hooch on a radiator using 3 week old apple juice from commissary.
This woman who is seeing me, she’s really nice. She talks in hushed tones sometimes as if she’s imparting privileged information, because she is human and wants to help me get a little extra summin’ summin’ to boost my self-employed earnings. But she does seem a little bit off. Her attention isn’t fully on me (the mortal sin). She apologises and says that she is just really car sick, which is strange because we aren’t in a car. At least, I don’t think we are. There is a windscreen. She clarifies that she drove into work, and she always gets carsick but today it’s much worse than usual & she can’t seem to shake it off. I open my Big Book of Folkloric Remedies (a metaphorical, mental book) and prescribe her a course of ginger biscuits. I personally have experience with them helping, but she’s way ahead of me. She shows me her Turmeric & Ginger latte, but she says it’s not working. I want to suggest that it might not be working because it’s a latte, and is largely milk based — but I don’t — because I want her to give me money.
Anyway, she prints out a list for me of all the documents I need to bring with me next Friday in order to qualify for money to help me afford my rent in this trying time while I attempt to pursue full time self employment. I thank her, and hope that she feels better soon.
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