"Er . . ." said the guard, "er . . . er . . . I dunno. I think I just sort of . . . do it really. My aunt said that spaceship guard was a good career for a young Vogon--you know, the uniform, the low-slung stun ray holster, the mindless tedium . . ."
"There you are, Arthur," said Ford with the air of someone reaching the conclusion of his argument, "you think you've got problems."
Arthur rather thought he had. Apart from the unpleasant business with his home planet the Vogon guard had half-throttled him already and he didn't like the sound of being thrown into space very much.
"Try and understand his problem," insisted Ford. "Here he is, poor lad, his entire life's work is stamping around, throwing people of spaceships . . ."
"And shouting," added the guard.
"And shouting, sure," said Ford, patting the blubbery arm clamped round his neck in friendly condescension, "and he doesn't even know why he's doing it!"
Arthur agreed this was very sad. He did this with a small feeble gesture, because he was too asphyxiated to speak.
Deep rumblings of bemusement came from the guard.
"Well. Now you put it like that I suppose . . ."
"Good lad!" encouraged Ford.
"But all right," went on the rumblings, "so what's the alternative?"
"Well," said Ford, brightly but slowly, "stop doing it, of course! Tell them," he went on, "you're not going to do it any more." He felt he ought to add something to that, but for the moment the guard seemed to have his mind occupied pondering that much.
"Eerrrrrmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm . . . " said the guard, "erm, well, that doesn't sound that great to me."
Ford suddenly felt the moment slipping away.
"Now wait a minute," he said, "that's just the start you see, there's more to it than that, you see . . ."
But at that moment the guard renewed his grip and continued his original purpose of lugging his prisoners to the airlock. He was obviously quite touched.
"No, I think if it's all the same to you," he said, "I'd better get you both shoved into this airlock and then go and get on with some other bits of shouting I've got to do."
I wasn't all the same to Ford Prefect at all.
"Come on now . . . but look!" he said, less slowly, less brightly.
"Huhhhhggggggnnnnnnn . . ." said Arthur without any clear inflection.
"But hang on," pursued Ford, "there's music and art and things to tell you about yet! Arrggghhh!"
You know, I sort of get the Vogon. Even if you're miserable in a life situation, especially one that you've been in a long time, it's still difficult to make a change. The thinking sort of goes like this: you choose familiar pain versus the unknown (which might be painful or might be wonderful). The unknown is scary.
Perhaps I'm investing too much humanity in the Vogon guard, but, given my current situation at work, I can't help it. I've been living with the unknown for over a month now. Not a very fun place to set up camp. It sort of feels like I'm about to be tossed into outer space, like Arthur and Ford, and I'm trying to talk my way out of it. But, I know you're tired of hearing me talk about this subject. I apologize.
It has been an exhausting Saint Patrick's Day weekend. Yesterday, especially. Between practicing and playing the pipe organ for Mass and doing the last-minute preparations for the benefit poetry reading I organized last night, I am pretty whipped. When I got home from church this afternoon, I actually took a nap. A long one. Now, I'm moving forward with grading and school work.
I guess I'm just trying to get myself mentally ready for the next five days. Tomorrow will be the hardest and longest. Work at 6 a.m. and then teaching until 9:30 p.m. Long, long hours. I know that I'll be nearly brain dead tomorrow night. It's a matter of just keeping my nose to the proverbial grindstone for the next day.
That is my known. I can handle that. I've done it before. This coming week, I have a couple job prospects that I'm following up on. One prospect is a total blank page for me. I just have a vague notion of what the job would entail. The other prospect is a position that I've held before, with people that I know and really like. I'm hoping that, within a week or so, I will have news as to what I'm going to be doing with my life for the next several years. (Just typing that last statement also makes me anxious. It almost sounds like some kind of prison sentence.)
Of course, all of this upheaval could turn out better than expected. Maybe I'll get a big bump in salary. Have better benefits. Be able to save up some money for rainy days (translation: car problems, heating bills, broken TVs, etc.). Retire before I'm 80. That's what I'm going with this evening. It's a good dream.
And then, as Ford points out, there's music and art and things.
Saint Marty is ready for all of that.
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