The Careering Uncareerer

It's a lot like trying to fit a giant tub of spaghetti into a tupperware that certainly is not big enough to hold these globby contents.

I know. I did it that time. Maybe not with spaghetti. But one night, on a whim when I made macaroni and cheese because I just had to have it, I also ate like seven bites and then said, shit this stuff is rich. But I couldn't waste it because all over the media, I'd see advertisements for renewable energy and greening our economy, and in the distant social buzz, I'd hear things like sustainability, which really I don't know what is, yet I think it must have a tiny, or big, thing to do with all this environment hoopla.

So I decide to go with the distant, foggy green program in my mind and opt for putting the macaroni ('character noodles' I hear is best) into a container for later. Will I actually eat it later? Who cares. But then I riffle through my container cupboard (because I own one of those specifically so should this situation come up), and I realize there are only two containers in this specialty cupboard: one is a tiny itty wee bit of a tub. In fact, this wee plastic cup contraption, once used by the food industry to transport sour cream of some sort, can barely hold half of a lemon. That, at least I can imagine going in there.

But this galactic portion of macaroni? Not a chance. And on with the riffling through to the other object: a container which was to once hold sour cream as well. Curious. Do I cook often with sour cream? In any case, same sour cream. Bigger container. Still, that mac and cheese character variety ain't going in there.

And there we are. But what's like this? I told you something was like this. Becoming a careering uncareerer. It's like being those contents of enriched flour shapes and cheese powder cream, and not being able to fit in the erstwhile sour cream tub. I want to. Fit, I mean. Because it would prove secure in there, safe from the microbes in the air (though they would find a way in), from the light of the refrigerator, from the garbage disposal or compost pile or dog jaws or whatever.

In there, I could make a living. A living as dead, used, aging macaroni. But at least I'd have a function. If disposed of, I wouldn't really get that, right?

I'm telling you that making a career out of being uncareerable feels like this excess macaroni must feel looking at the container of air, knowing it can't all go in there, despite its unyielding desire (to fit). Painstakingly searching all those search engines (Google typically suffices) and landing on countless job sites and thrusting what would be--save this wannabe sustainable economy, and the invention of emailable CVs--piles of resumes out into cyberspace. Crossing fingers with secret prayers for a response, yet knowing deep within that response will likely evade delivering to any of the players from my media gadget repertoire.

Or maybe this is what it's like to be a writer. Or like that green-going economy, of the wannabe variety. Stuffing a 32-oz box of prepared mac n cheese contents into a 16-oz cup. To be fair, I'm not sure how many ounces are in a prototype of mac n cheese. This, friends, is the mark of a proper lazy journalist. Would I deserve a fellowship of some sort, in that trade? I'm pretty sure McGee and Snee foundation would want a lazy journalist. A careering uncareerer.

You shouldn't wrap your head around it too tightly. To be sure, the careering uncareerer is a lot like macaroni and cheese and a comparatively microscopic sour cream container.