I've been doing more research into school options lately because, let's face it: the high life of living in cars and basements isn't going to last forever. I haven't said anything to anyone, but MTSU has a fairly applicable straw I could grasp at while remaining under the fam's roof in Nash. I know that living on your own, or even the pseudo-independent thing I've been doing, is supposed to totally turn you off from ever living with parents again, but in my case it did pretty much the opposite: I will gratefully put up with any rules or requirements provided that I get a worry-free place to stay. Surely I can't be the only one thinking this. Right now I bet millions of recent grads are having the same conversation: Yeah, what now parents? You said the real world was horrible and you were right -- so I'm moving back in with you forever!
So it looked like there might be a tiny little flicker of light at the end of this tunnel of perpetual unemployment, which was a cheerful thought. But now I can never live back home in Nash, and I'll tell you why. This is the horrible story, and I'll end with a funny one so everyone who reads this doesn't get the urge to go out and just end it all. I know there've been a lot of depressing entries lately.
Long story short, my brother's been house hunting. But isn't your brother, like, 24? Yes. Is this the same one who makes ungodly amounts of money with a degree from an institution that advertises on television? The very same. So when I was briefly back in Nash, I spent a lot of time being dragged around to look at houses all over town that I thought were perfectly nice, but which were never good enough for him. Yawn. But wait... aren't you in the process of losing your home right now? Why yes, we are. So probably you can understand the ragecanoe that erupts whenever I have to listen to this dude's fake problems of finding a house in a neighborhood without kids (yes, he is bothered by even seeing other people's kids -- how is it not abundantly clear to everyone that he has sold his soul to the Devil, I'll never understand), or whether he wants carpet or hard wood floors, and all I can do is remember when he refused to loan my mom a cent to keep the damn lights on. It takes a special kind of evil to show off what you have in front of the people you've wronged (also via FB, so my mom knows all about it), especially when they've swallowed their pride and asked you for help.
My anger at this shmuck could go on for pages and/or years of therapy, so I'll get right to the point. Today I talked to my dad and he told me bro's finally found a place. Hurray! No more looking at houses and trying to figure out how to key his car (or motorcycle!) and make it look like an accident. Then my dad tells me where the place is.
Our neighborhood.
Um, what? My dad lives in a condo development on the outskirts of town, and allegedly found my bro a great deal on a place in the same subdivision. I did not ask for more details of this nightmare, but wherever he lives it will not be more than a tenth of a mile from us. Every day I stay at my dad's I will be have to be reminded that this tool lives around the corner, in a far better situation than anyone his age or character should have. And he's doing it while screwing the rest of us.
So I think living there will be awful from now on, and perhaps not a viable grad school residence once I finally lose it and put a brick through his window. Back to the drawing board.
Let's get to the funny story before I resort to slitting my wrists casually.
One department of the place where I work is the Smithsonian Folkways record label, which specializes in world and historic music. They produce all kinds of recordings, from Amazonian war songs to Appalachian banjo to some dude playing a recorder near a wolf and calling it "interspecies communication." Folkways was the world's most democratic record label, and now that Smithsonian has acquired it, it's even better. You can buy any record that was ever recorded for the label since its inception, and they often acquire labels that are going out of business or just want someone awesome to take care of their catalogues and make sure they reach as many ears as possible.
So last week we get the word that a tiny label in VA that specializes in historic local recordings is donating their catalogue to us (that means we get the master tapes and right to reproduce the albums under the S-F name forever). And since the owners are buds of the CFCH team, they're coming up to deliver it personally. Interns are invited to lurk in the back and observe the momentous occasion.
In walks the label owner, a man I can only describe as a cowbilly. Graying hair past the collar, long curled moustache, granny glasses, cowboy boots... he looked like either a young Wildford Brimley or an old George Custer. He swapped folk song fieldwork tales with the staff and invited us all down to the annual Blue Ridge Folklife Festival, which features such events as a tractor competition and coon dog racing. Seeing the puzzled expressions on the faces of some of our more citified employees, he explained that a pack of coon dogs are raced across a pond by hauling the carcass of a raccoon on a zip line overhead. The first dog to swim across the pond, plant four feet on dry land, and bark is the winner. That is all I needed to hear - sign me up.
But wait, there's more. As the meeting adjourned and everyone was filing out of the room, there was a point where only me, Wilford Custer, Jr., and a CFCH director ("Dr. A") were left. I went back to my desk, out of sight but not out of earshot. The man from the mountains approaches Dr. A with a grin and a conspiratorial air:
"If you get everyone together later, you can all have a little celebration on us."
There was the rustle of a package being opened and some quiet chuckling from WCJ. Dr. A politely thanks him and I poke my head around to see what I anticipate being the presentation of a bottle of champagne.
Dr. A is stuttering. "Um... is this... spring water?"
"Not quite."
Another long pause. And then, "How did you get this past security?"
As WCJ and Dr. A leave the room, I get a look at what's just been exchanged. It's a quart Mason jar full of clear liquid.
...
Yes, WCJ congratulated us on the label acquisition by bringing us a gift from his homeland: moonshine.
After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I told the other intern, but she seemed skeptical. Un-be-lievable.
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