It took since about late last summer, but the weather in Albany has finally gone back up into the positive numbers.
It hasn't gotten warm enough for those glaciers sitting in the middle of the sidewalk to melt, and you can still almost see your breath when you walk out your front door, but that doesn't stop the native Albanians from walking around in t-shirts and shorts.

This, of course, is a bad thing because on top of the gauntlet of retards, psychopaths, and cripples that I have to run through every morning to get through the bus stop or to work who all are screaming about Nam or Buses or deadlines, I now have to deal with relatively more normal people talking to me during my day.

"Beautiful day isn't it?" I heard from a native, still retaining his winter warmth blubber, and flailing around his bare arms pinched pink from wisps of icy Wind slapping them and sending ripples in his chub like waves in a jello pool.

I sat quietly hoping he'd go away, smoked my cigarette and bundled myself up a little tighter as a burst of wind sent chills up my spine, and coincidentally caused this man to fall backwards, bare legs first into a nearby glacier.

Now purple, he brushed the snow off his legs and took a moment to catch his breath, "Names Beamish by the way," He stuck out his hand to me

"don't care,"

"oh well," he replied despondently," Hey, you think the pool's open?"

Instead of questioning which pool he's talking about I braced my self again for another burst of cold wind as I watched a snow drift which seemed to have found its way on top of a lamp post to teeter for a moment, then fall full force on top of Beamish's head.

Looking down at him, curled up in fetal position, gasping for air and shivering from head to toe, I grabbed him by his stiff frozen arms and lifted him back up to his feet.

Stuck in a squat position he looked up to me with a gracious smile.

"hey," I said, " you wouldn't happened to be crippled, mentally disabled or certifiably crazy would you?"

"why I.." He began to scan his eyes up over his head looking to god for the proper answer to the question, "don't think so,"

"Well maiming him is out of the question," I thought, " gotta follow at least some guidelines"

"well the good news is," I said smiling, "I think that pool you were talking about that I've never heard of?"

"yes?," he smiled

"Is completely open and ready," I patted him on the head and made my way back down the street.


Someone like Beamish should almost definitely be an anomaly in this town, there couldn't be that many people so crazed to think that warmer means warm, but stupidity is an epidemic in this town.

Everywhere people in hot pants were eating ice cream on street corners fanning themselves and patting their foreheads with New Orleans bayou fat man rags.


"this is absolutely fuckin ridiculous," I said as I made my way into my office building, stopping momentarily for a full body cavity search. They aren't so painful after awhile, but that feeling of being used never goes away.

"you owe me a nice dinner and a glass of wine," I said to the guard as he wiped his brown glistening fingertips on the marble banister behind him. Then I pulled up my pants and headed up to my office.

"I hear the pool is open now," said asshole number three of my day on the elevator , smearing on globs of spf40 and checking the elasticity of the waistband on his swimsuit just enough so that his crack and ass hair stuck out for the world to see. I am thankful though, because he usually just mentions something about how an elevator is a local when it stops on too many floors or the express when it goes right to his.

I flashed him the evil Greek eye and mutter a quick Italian hex that my mother taught me for such situations right before I came up to this god damned city and made my way into the office.

Nestling into my desk, I moved a couple of piles of paper work to the side, just enough so I can get a clear view of the door from where I sit.

I prepared myself for my morning routine of a quick game of Grand Theft Auto and a quick scan of all the comic strips I can find when I heard a bit of a commotion. It sounded a bit like a train conductor and an airline pilot trying to scream through the same microphone in unison "HI!!"


"shit," I thought

around my doorway he came, right into my office.

I've dubbed him Corky, and since I can't think of any way of finding out his real name which doesn't involve talking to him, I'll let that remain his name.

Corky's quick stats.

Corky is almost definitely the son of a railroad conductor/ airline pilot and a retard/hobbit. He stands three feet tall and keeps his arms in front of him much like a Tyrannosaurus Rex, or perhaps even a 70's robot. His head is always cocked slightly to the side as if a fish hook caught his gill, and he wears a fashionable ear piece. I can only assume the hearing aide is for fashion value because even when he stacks three in on top of one another and makes you repeat everything you said in a loud scream, he can't understand shit you say, although that might just be a side effect of the retard gene from his hobbit mom.

and so on...

So Corky was walking around my office, papers in hand, and wondering where everybody is. I tried my best to remain still, because I know to him I'd blend in with my surrounding papers as long as I did't move. It looked as if he was just going to drop the papers on the desk and walk away without realizing until I saw his face contorting..

"does he smell me?" I thought as I watched his nose twitch upwards for a few moments, "impossible."

suddenly, like a track runner at the sound of a gun, he let loose. A sneeze to end all sneezes, jet streams of snot flung themselves onto all the papers he had out for me.

"WHAT A FUCKIN RETARD," I couldn't help screaming.

I knew he didn't hear what I said.. But the sneeze must of sent some of his chromosomes into the right spot momentarily because he then thought to look around the piles of papers, only to find me back against the wall trying to escape.

"OH BOY," He quacked like a bull dog taught to speak, "I THOUGHT YOU WERE GONE," He finished at optimal sound level, pronouncing N's that didn't exist.

"get away from me, " I said as he tried to force his snot rag papers into my hand, "I will kill you,"

he stepped back and smiled for a second, farted quickly then remembered why he had come, "I HAVE PAPERS FOR YOU!!"

"oh god this is horrible," I thought
I couldn't find a squeaky toy to divert his attention, so I just pointed out the large windows at the end of the office.

He turned to stare at the wall, which is probably where his cross eyes followed the line of my finger to and he froze there momentarily, and farted.

I ran quickly out of my seat, knocking over the piles of paper on my desk and ran towards the window, assuming the glare would render me invisible to his feeble slow man eyes.

When out of the corner of my eye, I saw Beamish, jumping off the high dive head first into the ice rink...What a retard

"OH BOY," I heard Corky bark, "POOL'S OPEN," finding the silent N in pool.

without missing a beat, Corky pulled a pair of swimmies out of his back pocket and ran to get on the back of the line of lemmings waiting to crack their skulls in the name of warmer weather.

"fuck this," I thought as I slammed the door and locked it behind Corky, slipped into the bosses big chair and went to sleep.