Situational Comedy
This apartment building is a big sitcom in progress, it could be the next biggest thing on TV if the right directors and film crews were brought in, and especially if it had an effective title, something catchy like George Street Geriatrics, or Age-Shackled Octogenarians. I am not a big fan of staring too closely at background faces, and indeed at first I passed off the resident population as little more than dynamic scenery... rather slowly moving dynamic scenery. But then as time wore on and the faces imprinting on my retina became inextricably linked with their associated behavioural patterns, the local cast changed from casual visual distractions on my daily trip to work into actual internalized components of my everyday reality, hence my new obsession with retirement and a very early one at that.
If I had a TV I would likely keep it tuned to the security cameras all day as a nonstop episode of this so-called sitcom, which when you think about it is a good way to label it, since these actors are rather well situated in their seats in the downstairs lobby from morning to night, unable to easily move around, a sedentary method of living which seems to lend itself naturally to a comedic group discussion and agreement of the last 24 hours of weather patterns. "Oh it's raining again! How about that rain!" "She's calling for snow again!"
When I grow up I shall heartily volunteer to assist the lady who cleans the mall fountain every morning, you should see the beaming smile on her face as she dons her galoshes and twists her squeegee together for another morning's collection of coins tossed in by the hopeful well-wishers of the previous day. You laugh but really this is quite a worthy aspiration for a young buck like myself. If it falls through I've also given some thought to becoming the greeter person at Walmart, which is not at all a thankless job and would fit a man like me quite well, even though I'm under eighty years of age and am turned off by frocks, blue ones most of all.
- Sunday, July 22, 2007 at 23:30
