At 6:03 AM, May 1, 2019, on the 4th floor of the IMAO headquarters building, Basil had one thought uppermost in his mind: “I really gotta go pee.”
But first, one last thing. He scanned the page of text that displayed on his old refurbished CRT monitor, his eyes following his finger as it passed over the screen one last time. Satisfied, he pressed ENTER.
Finally, it was done. And, it didn’t take all that long to finish the job. Did it?
He pushed his bent metal folding chair away from the “desk” — actually a stack of plywood sheets placed across some cement blocks — and made his way to the door of the 4th floor supply room. He had originally been in the ground floor supply room, but had managed to move up to the 4th floor after the waterline break and all the shuffling around from that.
Basil turned the knob and pulled. Light from the hall showed through. That was good news. The large stack of boxes that had been piled up against the door the previous day had finally been moved. He’d be able to walk the halls this morning. But first, the business at hand. He stepped into the mensroom next door.
As he finished up and walked to the sink, the door opened and Harvey walked in.
“Hey, Chief,” Basil said, greeting the office manager.
“Hey … you,” Harvey replied. He thought, I know this guy, right? He cleans up the breakroom maybe? Or keeps the drink machine filled? Perhaps he’s the parking attendant? Does he have a name badge? Can I look without looking and read his name?
“I think I’m done, Chief,” Basil said.
Harvey nodded, wondering why this strange man was giving a play by play on his hand washing.
Basil stood there, not moving. So, Harvey checked his shirt, looked at his hair, made sure his beard was well groomed. He had done all those things before leaving for work, but was doing them all again so that the drink machine guy or whoever he was would go ahead and leave the mensroom. But that was not to be.
“So, heading back to work, huh?” Harvey hinted. Then a thought hit him. Perhaps this guy was the mensroom attendant. What if…?
“Actually …” Basil began, then paused. He thought back to when it all started, so long ago…
At 9:09 PM, September 23, 2008, Frank J. scanned the page of text displaying on his flat-screen monitor. Satisfied, he pressed ENTER and the first official post of the new blog was published.
He looked at his watch. “Oooh, it’s after 8:00. I hope the Dairy Queen is still open. I want to get a Mister Misty!”
“I don’t think they sell those anymore,” Harvey said.
“But I want one.”
“I’ll tell Sarah that you want to go out for a special treat. How’s that?”
“Goody!” Frank J. said. To himself, Frank J. thought “Yeah, he probably thinks I’m just a kid, but I’m running the show here. I don’t mind playing the fool. As long as I get a Mr. Misty.”
Harvey stood up, “I’ll break the news to that new fellow. What’s his name?”
“I don’t know. You hired him,” Frank J. replied.
“I didn’t hire him. I thought you hired him.”
“Huh. We need to look into that. Oh, and remember to get my keys back from him when he’s done,” Frank J. replied.
There were enough bloggers on staff now. A good crew. A very good crew. “They’ll all be around for a while,” Frank thought. “Except that this Harvey. I don’t think I trust him. He’s hiding something behind that beard. I wonder if he’s wanted by the F.B.I. Maybe he’s a C.I.A. agent or something? I need to ask Harvey about that, since he’s the only one I can trust.”
“What’s that?” Harvey asked.
“Nothing. Just talking to myself,” Frank J. replied.
“I’m right here and I can hear you when you speak,” Harvey said.
“Not if I’m talking to myself. At least, not without a warrant. You got a warrant?”
Harvey walked out the door and looked around. That new kid — he was actually older than all of them — was around somewhere. If only he could remember his name. Harvey walked down the hallway, past the line of cubicles, most of them unoccupied as it was past regular hours.
He turned just past the media center and pressed the “down” button next to the elevator. He heard the machinery through the closed doors as the car approached. The one on the right or the one on the left? Harvey stepped to the right just as the light came on and the “ding” sounded from the door on the left.
Dammit!
The door opened and Harvey stepped in. He pressed the “G” button to head down to the ground floor where the servers were housed. As the door closed and the music started, Harvey hummed along.
Tall and tan and young and lovely
The girl from Ipanema goes walking and
When she passes, each one she passes goes…
Ding! The elevator stopped and the doors opened. Harvey stepped out and headed down the wide hallway. He could hear the clinking and clanking from the cafeteria behind him, and the low hum from the server room ahead.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a movement. Turning, he came fact to face and eye to eye with the new guy.
“Um. Your name’s, um, yeah …,” Harvey started.
“Basil,” said Basil.
“It’s not Basil?” Harvey asked? Then a thought hit him. Imagine somebody actually trying to write this down one day. How would someone write the difference between “Basil” that rhymes with “Hazel” from “Basil” that rhymes with “dazzle?” Oh, well. This guy won’t be around long enough for it to matter.
“Hey, Basil…”
“Basil”
“Whatever. Hey. Um, Frank just posted that the blog is live. The changeover is complete. So, um …” Harvey paused, not sure how best to tell this odd person that he needed to drop the keys off at the front desk on his way out.
Basil spoke first. “I saw that! That’s exciting!”
“Uh, yeah.”
“So, we ready to bring over the old posts?”
“What?”
“The old posts. The URL now points to the new blog. The old blog’s address has changed, and now people have to click a different link to get to the old posts from 2002 to, well, earlier today, right? We need to bring them in to the new blog. Are we ready to start that?” Basil asked.
“Um. Yeah. Um. Uh-huh. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I want you to get started on that right away. Mkay?”
“Sure thing, Chief,” Basil said as he started back to the server room.
“Oh, you need to get your equipment out of the server room. Set it up in, um … um … that room.” Harvey pointed to the small door between the restrooms and next to the water fountain.
Basil stopped and turned, looking at Harvey. He cocked his head slightly to one side. “The supply closet? Seriously?”
“Look, it’s just for now…”
Basil ran back towards Harvey. “I get my very own room? With boxes of Co-Colas, tater chips, and Snickers bars? Really? Thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
Harvey backed away slowly. “O-kay. Uh, you go ahead and get started. Let me know when you’re done.”
“Sure thing, Chief.”
Basil didn’t realize it, but that was 10 years, 7 months, and 9 days ago. He had copied over 10,160 posts and 173,772 comments. But a lot of those comments were spam. And a lot of those comments contained language that was …
“Actually what?” Harvey spoke, breaking the silence.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“You said ‘Actually’ then you stopped, like you had gone into a flashback or something,” Harvey said.
“Oh, yeah. Well, I’ve finished up moving over the old posts and comments.”
Harvey blinked twice. “What are you talking about?”
Basil hesitated. “You remember when we launched the new blog?”
“That was 10, 10-1/2 years ago. What of it?”
“You told me to bring over the old posts and comments,” Basil said.
Harvey paused again. “You haven’t finished that yet?” He shook his head and walked out the door, turning down the hall to his office.
Basil followed behind. “It’s done now, Chief.”
“Did you clean out all the spam?”
“Uh, yeah? Maybe? I think?”
“Did you clean up the language? Some of those early comments contained the F-word,” Harvey said.
“Flapjacks? We call them pancakes in Georgia. I didn’t see them mentioned.”
Harvey sighed. “Did you make the comments PG-13? We’ve got a standard to maintain,” Harvey explained.
“Yeah, they’re all good now. Maybe. Most of them. A lot of them. Some of them. But there aren’t a lot of naughty words. I mean, I took out all the bad ones I knew. So, you won’t find any posts containing …” Basil paused, leaned in, and whispered, “… booger.”
“Okay, good job. And it only took you 10 years, huh?” Harvey arrived at his office, opened the door and the light came on. He stepped over to his desk and looked back at the door. Basil was standing right there.
Basil spoke, “You’re welcome. Oh, and are we going to announce to the readers that the old posts are there?”
Harvey hesitated, “It’s not really that big of a deal. It’s been 10 years. Most of the stuff from those days will contain outdated references. Nobody is really going to care.”
It suddenly hit Basil. “Wait. What? 10 years? I’ve been in that supply closet for 10 years?”
“Seems that way. Well, you did come out to keep the drink and snack machines stocked, but apart from that, yeah, I suppose you’be been in there all this time. Hmmm.”
Basil thought for a minute. “So the election is over? Did McCain win?”
“You need to sit down.”
“Well, anyway, that Obama clown said he was bringing the troops home from the Middle East. So that happened, right?”
“You need to sit down.”
“Did Fred Thompson run again?”
“You need to sit down.”
“Well, who won the last election?”
“You really need to sit down.”
Basil decided he didn’t want to ask any more questions that he probably didn’t want the answer to. “No, I just need to give you my invoice and pick up my check. Let’s see, that’s 8,873 days of work. Here you go.” Basil handed the invoice to his boss.
Harvey looked at the bottom line. “I need to sit down.”
First!
Not surprisingly, the humor from the earliest days is just as funny today.
We can’t say “Booger”?
That is some of the best writing I’ve seen on IMAO since Frank retired or got eaten by badgers or whatever happened to him.
Good work, um… [glances at nametag]… Basil
Hey, wait, didn’t he play Sherlock Holmes last century?
Your memory is Fawlty.
Wait? What just happened? That wasn’t the ending I expected.
Me either. He still hasn’t cut me a check.
The funds that would make your check not bounce were invested heavily in Obamacare futures around 2010.
You need to sit down…
OMG, I can now see that my first my first comment was in 2006 (under a different name) and I have been visiting this site since before that. What have I done with my life?!
You’ve improved it greatly by visiting IMAO. Duh.
A life full of laughter should not be undervalued. I got several laughs from this post.
— from Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain by Justin Kaplan
Coincidentally, i have a post on that very topic tomorrow at 3.
Twain says it better, of course
“You see my kind of loyalty was loyalty to one’s country, not to its institutions or its office-holders. The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter, disease, and death. To be loyal to rags, to shout for rags, to worship rags, to die for rags—that is a loyalty of unreason, it is pure animal; it belongs to monarchy, was invented by monarchy; let monarchy keep it. I was from Connecticut, whose Constitution declares “that all political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority and instituted for their benefit; and that they have at all times an undeniable and indefeasible right to alter their form of government in such a manner as they may think expedient.
“Under that gospel, the citizen who thinks he sees that the commonwealth’s political clothes are worn out, and yet holds his peace and does not agitate for a new suit, is disloyal; he is a traitor. That he may be the only one who thinks he sees this decay, does not excuse him; it is his duty to agitate anyway, and it is the duty of the others to vote him down if they do not see the matter as he does.
“And now here I was, in a country where a right to say how the country should be governed was restricted to six persons in each thousand of its population. For the nine hundred and ninety-four to express dissatisfaction with the regnant system and propose to change it, would have made the whole six shudder as one man, it would have been so disloyal, so dishonorable, such putrid black treason. So to speak, I was become a stockholder in a corporation where nine hundred and ninety-four of the members furnished all the money and did all the work, and the other six elected themselves a permanent board of direction and took all the dividends. It seemed to me that what the nine hundred and ninety-four dupes needed was a new deal. The thing that would have best suited the circus side of my nature would have been to resign the Boss-ship and get up an insurrection and turn it into a revolution; but I knew that the Jack Cade or the Wat Tyler who tries such a thing without first educating his materials up to revolution grade is almost absolutely certain to get left. I had never been accustomed to getting left, even if I do say it myself. Wherefore, the ‘deal’ which had been for some time working into shape in my mind was of a quite different pattern from the Cade-Tyler sort.”
— Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court