Carl Blasé

Carl was a normal guy with six legs.  He had a home, he had a college degree and he had a enough money to buy coffee every morning.  Even though he felt like he was always catching up with the rest of the world, he felt like his head was usually above the water.  He quit smoking and eventually started watching his weight.   He finally gave in to his mother and went to see an eye doctor--the doctor said he could use some glasses, so Carl now uses glasses.  He owed a lot of money to the government for his education, paying on time when he could and not on time what he couldn't.  He rented his home in the city and not much arose to make him question the price or location.  The water in Carl's life was very undisturbed.

Carl walked into the Office of Preparedness and Response.  The walls of cubicles weaved inward into the large office, creating a maze of wall hallways.  Carl didn't think that he was like a mouse in a maze because he didn't think that way.  He walked up to the secretary at the front desk.  She vomited into a trashcan and wiped her mouth.

"Can I help you?" she asked politely.  She looked pretty and bored. 

"Yes, hi, I am Carl.  I'm here for the interview with Mary."

"Sign here," she said, pushing forward a visitor sign-in sheet.  "She will be with you in a minute."

Carl felt nervous.  The aggressive halogens above his head made him want to chew his arm, but he didn't.  It's just the way he thinks.

Mary walked around the corner and asked Carl if he was Carl.  They exchanged names and followed her through more hallways into a little office.

"So why do you want to work for the OPR?" she asked.  "Your resume indicates that public health and policy is not your field of expertise."

"Well," said Carl, "If it truly opens me up to a more fertile career, then maybe it is better than teaching history."

"What do you find wrong with teaching?" she asked.

"Well," said Carl, "I guess it depends on what kind of teaching you want me to talk about.  Teaching youth is not something I want to do, and the collegiate environment that higher education provides makes it a bit difficult to live, well, comfortably."

What Carl said was true--this was his fifth year of teaching at the university level and so far all he could muster was a sub-poverty salary and a sinking feeling that he would be hired and let go three times a year, as long as spring, summer and fall will always be in session.  He felt unappreciated, and he guessed that so did 73 percent of the rest of the nation teaching in higher education when he found out that number.  Everyone told him what a solid gig he must have landed teaching at a university, or at least that doors should open for him left and right.  That was not the case, alas, for he had to continue climbing the ladder to become even a consideration for something full-time.  His long-time dream of becoming a professor had slowly turned into a very lucid delusion.  

"How does working for emergency and response mean that you could live comfortably?"

"I'm not really sure.  Maybe out of default."

"Teaching is that bad?"

Carl struggled with this.  He couldn't make up his mind as to whether teaching was bad or if he allowed it to be bad.  Was it more than he anticipated, and if so what?  Students don't need discipline and don't fail much at the college level, and adult conversation is what really stimulated Carl's mind.  Was teaching really just teaching, or is it more than that?

"I think it's just administration that I have problems with.  Or maybe it's HR and payroll.  I don't really know."

He sat there in silence for a minute while she took notes.

"I guess I want something I can believe in."

This story will continue, one day, but for now it is just a riddle...  The moral is:

History repeats itself even when it's wiped out.

Question: Who, or what, is Carl?