There are headaches and then there are headaches. Some just come and go. Some move in with you and stay for weeks, months, years… The kind with legs and a mouth. You know what I’m talking about. Pour me another drink, mate.
Okay, okay — you got me. I was referring obliquely to my mill-mates. No, I don’t mean Matt or John, who I’ve known to be insufferable for longer than any of us can remember. (Don’t … get … me … started …) No sir, I’m referring to some other members of our entourage. The Mitch Macaphees, if you will; the Trevor James Constables; the Big Zambooli. Nothing but trouble just lately. Perhaps it’s the confining sameness of our abandoned hammer mill that makes them so difficult to live with. These are, after all, men of the world, used to a far more ostentatious lifestyle than can be had within these rough and clammy walls. Who can blame Mitch for being dissatisfied with the accommodations after having dined with princes, premiers, and potentates in uncounted citadels of power throughout Europe and Asia? No caviar, no braised mutton, no clam pudding, no box car rides, no free balloons shaped like a baobab tree… Let’s face it — he’s seen better days!
I have to say, Mitch has been the biggest headache, pain in the ass, whatever extremity you prefer. Last week it was experiments with the weather — he invented something called the “thunder-quake” which has ruined our fence-mending efforts with the local constabulary (that and his dreaded “hurricanado”). Now he’s “on strike”, which means he refuses to maintain Marvin (my personal robot assistant) until we pony up some cash, luncheon vouchers, whatever. This is not good, because (as you know) we lean on Marvin to do just about everything around here so that we can maintain our slovenly musician-like lifestyles. When Marvin starts clunking in a serious way, his many chores fall to the next person on the duty list. And when I say “person”, I mean to include large, oddly misshapen root vegetables. That’s not a good thing. He’s got strong roots, that man-sized tuber, and a lot of pride to go with it. But as domestic help, he leaves much to be desired.
Don’t think our relationship with Mitch Macaphee is pure friendship — not at all. We have a service contract with him. Mitch is paid to find scientifically valid solutions to a variety of problems around the mill. Not that he always manages to find solutions. But what the hell — he built Marvin from bits and bobs lying around his laboratory. Only he can keep that man of tin on his rails. So when Marvin starts to cant a bit to the left, or his programming goes haywire and he starts watering the mixing console as if it were a fichus tree, I haven’t the slightest notion how to straighten the boy out. And though it pains me to give Mitch money for something he should gladly do for free… the tuber could never tell the difference between a fichus and a Soundcraft. It just ain’t in him.
So pluck me some asper-grass. Something tells me this headache is only going to get worse. Eee – gods.
