I like to consider myself the grand dame of temping, everyone else refuses to identify me as such. I was temping before I even knew it: I was hired on a full-time basis only to be fired or laid off a short time later (or both, if the company was particularly vindictive and could figure out a way to do it). 

The great thing about temping is that it gives you plenty of time to reflect on questions like, what is the meaning of my life? Why am I here? However, I find it more useful to contemplate the meaning of other people's lives and wonder why they're here. Be that as it may, I have to believe I was put on this earth for a reason. 

I believe my true calling is to be bedridden. I ought to have the kind of prolonged, genteel, and nameless illness that, while not leaving me completely and thoroughly debilitated, would leave me laying in bed propped up against pillows wearing a pink bed jacket looking pale but lovely in my frailty. Ideally, it would be the sort of affliction in which I would still have all my mental faculties - in fact, they'd be heightened and enhanced because I wouldn't be engaged in such taxing activities as using the remote or bending over to retrieve errant q-tips. Whenever I felt tired, I could simply drift off to sleep without having to endure the repetitive annoyance of changing into pajamas and climb into bed only to have to do it again the very next day. I would be a wonderful conversationalist and everyone would marvel at how brave I was. I would never talk about my illness, leaving it deliberately vague and interrupting inquiries with a brave, quivering, "I wouldn't wish this on anyone...", then I'd look forlornly out the window. I would be paid handsomely for my incapacitation, perhaps by some sort of Foundation for the Gifted Bedridden. 

I want to be imprisoned for a non-violent crime. I just want to a year all to myself, reading and writing and renting videos and hanging out with people. Prison life is the best of college life without the responsibility or tuition. I'd like to be incarcerated just long enough to complete an advanced degree. However, I would not pursue a degree in jurisprudence; it's become such a cliché among felons and the system is already glutted with felons cum lawyers and vice-versa. Under ideal circumstances I would be incarcerated with fun people, like all my friends (except you, Debbie, and you know why). 

Perhaps my true life's work is to be the beloved queen of a small, obscure Caribbean or African nation. Perhaps I might be chosen as the bride of some military strongman or self-declared president-for-life kind of guy who, once you got to know him, was really pretty okay. My benevolent-but-touchy dictator-husband would be misunderstood and maligned, but I, with my guileless blond looks which are so often mistaken for idiocy, would be beloved and cherished as a national treasure. I would be the heavy-set, graceless, and even dim-witteder Princess Diana of my small country. Like every beloved first lady, I would have my high-profile pet causes, like equal rights for the long-waisted, or working tirelessly for legislation making it a felony to inconvenience me. Ours would be a borderline "rogue" nation, the kind of country where we'd still get invited to the White House for state dinners, mostly because of my husband's unusual and flamboyant national costumes. 

And so, after a systematic grid search of my soul I have discovered that I'm as scared and lazy in my dreams as I am in real life. But pursuing one's dreams begins with the smallest step: excuse me while I slip into a fetching pink bed jacket and retire to my quarters.

Mary Jo Pehl Interview & Links  ::  Back to Not My Desk

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