Truck Day is when a truck full of servers arrives at the datacenter loading dock.
We pull the crates off of the truck, uncrate the servers, stack them on to carts, roll them into the staging area, remove the hot swappable drive holders, unscrew spacers from them and screw the drives into place.
Meanwhile, other crews bolt on rail glides to the chassis, slide out the blades, fill them with memory, pop in the drives, and get them into the racks.
Finally, everything is cabled and scanned into inventory so it’ll be ready to host shit like this stupid story.
Category: My stories
Little Bird
While walking home from the drug store, extra-strength laxatives in a bag, a bird shit on my head.
So, I pulled out my gun and flicked off the safeties.
But I didn’t shoot it.
Instead, I put the gun away and walked to the pet store.
I bought a bird.
When I got home, I thought about taking the laxatives and shitting on the bird.
Instead, I told the bird I love it for as long as it lived.
Which turned about to be five minutes.
My cats caught it and tore it to pieces.
Then I shat on it.
DNA
The DNA test results came back, and my father is not my father.
“Who is my father?” I asked.
“We have no idea,” said the lab technician. “But if you get us a DNA sample, we can run tests on it.”
So, I’ve been gathering up DNA from every man in the world.
Living or dead.
Well, except for the man who I thought was my father.
“I raised you, son!” I heard him say. “Come take a sample from me! It’s the least you can do!”
So, I took a scraping from his cheek.
And closed the coffin lid.
Nothing is off the table
My boss, the President, says that nothing is off the table.
Nothing’s fallen off of it, either. It’s a very sturdy table. Unlike most tables, which have a bit of wobble in them due to uneven legs or a warp in the floorboards.
Sometimes, he puts beverages on the table. I make sure there’s plenty of coasters for them.
You know, because coasters count, too. Nothing’s off of the table, remember?
Oh, and dust. Lots of dust on that table. Dust isn’t nothing, either.
I just know it’s not easy to dust when you can’t take anything off the table.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Whenever I need to get away, I pack a bag and head up to my dad’s old cabin in the woods.
For years, I’ve been doing this, chopping wood to feed into the stove, watching the snow fall, and reading by candlelight.
“Thanks, Dad,” I said to his framed photograph.
It was hanging a bit askew, so I straightened it.
Something fell from behind it.
A letter:
“Dear Son,
This cabin actually belonged to my brother Tom. He’s buried under the floor.
Love,
Dad”
So, I thanked my Uncle Tom, tossed another log on the fire, and made some coffee.
The Guy In 7B
Nobody knows the name of the guy in 7B.
What little mail he gets is addressed to Resident or Occupant.
He must have a post office box somewhere in the city.
If you walk up to him and introduce yourself, he’ll say “Yes, I know you, how are you doing?” but not introduce himself back.
I did a search online, but there’s nothing about him.
Don’t bother trying to look through his trash. He shreds everything beyond recognition.
The super won’t tell me.
So, I called him 7B.
“How did you know my name?” he screamed.
And promptly moved out.
Bubble Boy
Teddy was a bubble boy.
He’d spent his entire childhood in a germ-free environment.
Despite bone marrow transplants, he never grew his own immune system.
So, he stayed in his specially-made room in his parent’s house, and connected to others through his computer and cameras throughout the world.
He had a lot of friends online, one of which who’d ride rollercoasters with a camera on her head, then sending the videos to Teddy.
He loved the thrill, but the dizziness made him ill.
Then came the stroke.
Teddy died with a smile (and a bit of vomit) on his face.
Funerals
A good friend of mine died last week.
Their relatives were contacted, flights booked, the funeral was set for 11 tomorrow.
Last night, my best friend died.
They were on their own for many years, mostly kept to themselves.
Except for me.
They wanted to be buried as quickly as possible, so the funeral home set them for 11 tomorrow, too.
On the other side of town.
Damn! Which do I go to?
I take a quarter out and flip it.
Heads.
And… I use it in a pay phone to make a bomb threat at one of the funerals.
Sesquicentennial
I love the word sesquicentennial. It’s a shame that it doesn’t get used much.
Thank goodness for my state’s urban blight and rural renewal program.
Every week since its establishment two centuries ago, a new village or town was established.
Which means there’s plenty of sesquicentennial celebrations to be had.
Bicentennial celebrations, however, are a rarity, since all population centers are razed and resettled after 150 years.
It’s meant to ensure legacy sewer, power, and road infrastructure are replaced with technologically efficient innovations in the new locations, but I think people just like to watch stuff implode, crumble and burn.
Get To Sleep
A friend of mine said he’s having trouble going to sleep.
His cats jump on the bed and pounce on his feet under the covers.
I used to have that kind of problem, too.
Except that my cat would jump on the bed and poke my nose.
I’d pet him for a while, and then go back to sleep.
Sometimes, he’d poke me again.
But usually he’d go to sleep, too.
I never felt annoyed that he did this, because I knew there’d come a time when he’d be gone.
Now, I sleep. Uninterrupted.
And dream of when I couldn’t.