Thursday, November 27, 2003
My Goddamn Train
I guess it must be two years ago now, I was hired by the Bon Marché (aka BonMacy*s) to schlep office furniture and banquet tables from one end of this god forsaken building to the other. That didn’t last long. Not because I’m a dilettante who’s unused to hard work, but because they found a better use for me painting and building fashion show sets. That lasted a great deal longer then they’d originally intended, as things tend to do in the Department Store of the Damned; and eventually Summer morphed into Fall. Then the CEO gave my boss a simple task. Build a new train set to go into the corner window. My boss, gave that simple task to me.
There are sets on Lord of the Rings smaller than this fucking window, yet for several months I worked mostly alone (me and the store carpenter, John who had the IQ lower than his t-square and a pathological liar to boot… still, he could build a solid miniature bridge, by gum). Using highly toxic, yet sticky fun materials, I built the ground, the mountains, a house, the track layout, the tunnels, and so on. Once I got some actual temp underlings to push around and direct in the mayhem, I was the happiest geek in Wonderland. It didn’t come out perfect, there were some problems moving the thing from the basement to the window (you mean the pieces are too big to fit through the door? Who knew?), but it was beautiful.
Two years later, they’re putting it up again. Knowing this time that it took more than a day to get it in the window, they started a week early and they rewired the trains and lights as they went. It’s a bit knocked around… chips of pink and blue insulation foam are showing through the snow and rock. The mountains don’t travel well, but the trains have this dirty, grey snowy look which is wonderfully gritty and wholly un-Christmas.
I miss my train. I wanted to climb all over it again and touch up the nicks, but that spray snow crap sticks to your clothes and I’m dressed for the office. I want to run the trains just a little bit and see if the switch tracks are finally working like they’re supposed to. But most of all, I want my fucking name put back on it. The first year, all of our names were on a small plaque in the corner of the set… now that plaque is gone. My credit is gone, and for an artist, that’s truly and completely fucked. Fucking bunch of corporate fucking whores taking MY TRAIN… MINE! I BUILT IT, IT’S MINE I TELL YOU YOU SHIT SUCKING, COCK TONGUED TWITS!
Perhaps I should speak with someone at the Bon about this oversight.
