24: The MCFiles

I love 24. Every season comprises a single day, with each of the 24 episodes covering one hour of that day. Jack Bauer has gone through 6 such days, with little or no sleep, each time saving the world and overcoming terrorist threats. A lot happens in each of these days. People die. Stuff blows up. Presidents don't always remain in office. 24 hours in the lives of the people on that show are a lot more interesting than say, 24 hours of my life. Let's take a look at one such day, Friday, the longest day of my week...

HOUR 1) 5AM-6AM
• I sleep.
• My cat Chirp sleeps on the floor next to my bed, wedged between boxes of DVDs, sleeping on gloves, and purring contentedly.

HOUR 2) 6AM-7AM
• I wake up from a dream mumbling some of the new jargon I've picked up at my new job. Work is seeping in to my subconscious again. Uh-oh.
• I look at my cell phone, charging by my bedside, see the time, and go back to sleep.

HOUR 3) 7AM-8AM
• My dad calls me in the middle of the hour.
• Closer to the end of the hour, I drag myself to the kitchen and pour a bowl of cereal. I slump into a chair in the living room.
• “Are you going to work today?” asks my dad, as I realize I've finished eating and have been staring into space, holding an empty bowl, for a good five minutes.

HOUR 4) 8AM-9AM
• “Are you going to work today? It's almost a quarter to nine!” My dad's voice snaps me out of a daze, as I realize I've been standing in the shower thinking about my tasks for the day and washing the same spot on my left shoulder. I quickly towel off, get dressed, and hit the road.

HOUR 5) 9AM-10AM
• Jewish holiday=Very Little Traffic.
• Construction on a One Lane Road=Significant Traffic.
• I walk in at 9:20. My boss is at a printer with his back to me. “Morning, [MCF]!” he says cheerfully without turning around, as though unconcerned by my tardiness. I still wish I could move more quickly in the morning.
• My 401K Saga continues. After a week with no responses to an important e-mail, a contact at my old company finally responds with a crucial fax number. Unfortunately, it's the one day I didn't bring in the form I needed her to sign before I can deposit my money in the new account. Classic MCF.

HOUR 6) 10AM-11AM
• I race to make corrections and have printouts ready for a meeting, even though my boss told me I wasn't expected to get everything done since people got back to me late. Fifteen minutes before the meeting begins, when I have all my copies printed and collated, new information arrives and I have to reprint several pages. More classic MCF.

HOUR 7) 11AM-12PM
• My meeting goes very smoothly. Further changes are minimal, and no one spends a lot of time checking to see if I did the stuff I'd been so frantic about. I make a mental note that sometimes I create my own stress.

HOUR 8) 12PM-1PM
• I start making whatever changes arose in the meeting. Just as I'm about to go to lunch, I get an e-mail with more changes. I go to lunch.

HOUR 9) 1PM-2PM
• Subway continues to disappoint. The old man who was at the cash register on a previous visit is now at the other end of the process, taking initial food orders. He disappears for a good five minutes to find chicken. On the plus side, the kid who was taking initial food orders on a previous visit is now at the other end of the process, working the cash register. Even though coin change is dispensed automatically by the machine, he hands me more coins from the drawer.
• I find my dad's sunglasses in my car, apparently left there a day prior when he had new brakes and tires put on. I call my mom to let her know, and get stuck in tangential conversation about what mail I received, what my uncles were up to, and what the ladies from the garden where she volunteers were doing. I finally lie and tell her I'm driving and can't talk. Then I flip my phone shut, start the car, and pull out of the parking lot.

HOUR 10) 2PM-3PM
• I work.
• TheGreek calls with a question about my old job, which he inherited after I was let go. After I'm able to help him, for the first time in weeks I remember some of the fun stuff I used to do with a pang of regret and nostalgia.

HOUR 11) 3PM-4PM
• I do more work.
• I start having trouble concentrating as I think about heading in to the city in a few hours to meet old friends and former coworkers.

HOUR 12) 4PM-5PM
• I try to do some more work. A visit from a friend at work is a welcome distraction.
• My cell phone rings loudly, in my office. I'm not used to getting reception indoors. A text message from my friend Sparkplug confirms that happy hour is still on. I assume he's already in the bar at this point.

HOUR 13) 5PM-6PM
• It's time for the birth of a new ritual. Scouting the area where I now work earlier in the week, I calculated the best possible parking spot. The lot at the station requires residency and a permit, while the surrounding blocks have either meters or signs with limited parking. A 90-minute parking zone works since it's only in effect between 8AM and 6:30PM. Whatever the night ahead holds, I'm sure I'll be back to my car before 8AM. What could go wrong? Classic MCF.

HOUR 14) 6PM-7PM
• There are a lot of young people on the train. I feel old. One couple, high school or college aged by my estimate, talk about almost missing the train when their daughter fell and bumped her arm. I realize these are twenty-somethings, and I really feel old.
• The husband talks about a lock on their house breaking and states that he'll have to buy a new door. One of his wife's friends laughs that all needs is to buy a new “locky-thing” and that buying a new door is such a rich person thing to do. I'm on a train full of giggling rich girls and their husbands or boyfriends. I feel poor, and annoyed.

HOUR 15) 7PM-8PM
• Manhattan, and the freedom to travel wherever my legs take me is a welcome respite.
• On the way to the bar, I see a war veteran in a wheelchair playing trumpet on a corner across the street. It's dark, but he looks a lot like another trumpet player that used to be in our band. He wasn't a veteran, and the only time I saw him in a wheelchair was after he broke his leg and showed up for a procession in one(only to be sent home by our leader). I'm guessing he kept the chair and found a new gig. One of our band leaders did discover the guy on a subway platform...

HOUR 16) 8PM-9PM
• An interesting group is gathered. I find out who's still with my old company and how things are going there, as well as catch up with other people who've since gone on to new jobs.
• I completely lose the end of a sentence when a cute waitress rubs my back as a sign to let her walk by.

HOUR 17) 9PM-10PM
• “She hurts me,” confesses Sparkplug, in regards to his current lady friend. “Emotionally?” I ask. “No! She hits me!” I think he's drunk or kidding or both, but as the night goes on I notice playful punches to his arm are delivered with force, and once or twice she slaps him loudly. Joey Tribbiani once dated a girl like that. The greek beauty admits to being part Spartan when one of Sparkplug's buddies makes a 300 reference, and it explains a lot.
• We all share a plate of amazing hot wings, and I discern two distinct sauces working together.

HOUR 18) 10PM-11PM
• When I tell one girl I'm 32, she calls me a “baby” and I don't feel as old as I did on the train. I do feel the need to tell the rest of the group, mostly 3-4 years older than me, that I'm not that young and will be 33 in a little over a month. “That's an important year if you're Catholic,” points out one girl with sincerity, “That's how old Jesus was when He died.” I thank her and point out that I'll take off if I see Romans with wood and nails on my doorstep that day. Classic blasphemy.
• Sparkplug suggests that a couple of girls make out with each other. With not much persuasion, they comply in spades and I decide Sparkplug has super powers.
• Five minutes after these girls are gone, my friends and I are still staring at the empty space where it happened, either in disbelief or clinging to the image.

HOUR 19) 11PM-12AM
• “I don't believe in that whole toilet paper thing,” proclaims the Spartan chick, “Europe has the right idea with bidets!” With some hesitance, I ask what she does since we're not in Europe, and she says she'll usually take a shower afterward: “I took TWO showers today!” I turn to one of my friends at the end of the bar and repeat her stance, and he agrees enthusiastically and shares his similar morning ritual. I wonder aloud how in the span of an hour we've gone from girls kissing to people's toilet practices.

HOUR 20) 12AM-1AM
• The night slows as the bar gets quiet, picking up briefly when a bachelorette party arrives. Some guys do body shots off of the girls' chests before the group gets too rowdy and they're asked to leave.
• I'm no longer drinking. A lot of the girls have left. Conversation ranges from a future paintball trip to the fact that I've yet to see Fletch or its sequels.
• I'm bored.

HOUR 21) 1AM-2AM
• Since nothing interesting is happening, I decide to head out early.
• Apparently I checked an old schedule, so I miss my train by five minutes. I have a two hour wait until the next train. Classic MCF.

HOUR 22) 2AM-3AM
• After buying a ticket, a man asks me for some loose change to get home. I happen to have extra change from Subway at lunch, and the universe balances out.
• I wander a bit, opting not to walk seven blocks back to the bar and I settle in to a McDonald's.
• A lot of pretty drunk girls in stylish outfits stumble in. They're talking about their classes on Monday, and I'm trying to figure out if they're in high school or college. Either way, I'm a tired old man at a small table in Penn Station in the middle of the night.
• Someday, I'm going to see the dude driving the floor cleaner run someone over. He beeps his horn, and narrowly drives around people slumped against walls or pillars waiting for the next train, but he never, ever slows down.
• Sparkplug stumbles in near the end of the hour, surprised to see me still in the city. After I left, not much else happened and the few who remained got pizza. I didn't miss much.

HOUR 23) 3AM-4AM
• Finally, I'm on a train, sober but exhausted. The train is packed with drunk young people, some unconscious. A conductor shoves one kid about 15 times before he wakes up. “If you don't know how to drink, don't drink!” she admonishes, “Get your ticket out or get off; I've been standing here for 10 minutes!”
• The other conductor shows up, and asks the first one to “get them”. A minute later she returns with two big cops, and a lot of the kids perk up. The second conductor tells them there's a belligerent passenger in the next car refusing to produce a ticket or money. As the train sits in the next station, I wonder if I'll ever make it back, and if my car will be ticketed or towed.

HOUR 24) 4AM-5AM
• My car is still there! I don't have a ticket! The walk back is pleasant and uneventful, and soon I'm driving home.
• After shouting to be heard in a noisy bar all night, my voice has a great quality for singing along with ”Hey There Delilah”. Someday I'll have someone to sing to again.
• I'm enough of a blogging geek to prepare posts in advance when I know I'm going to get home late the next day. The pre-written Cloakfest 2K7 is posted a few minutes after the hour, before I collapse into bed, only to be called three hours later to help my dad with something....to be continued...

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See? There would be a few good episodes, but some would be horribly boring and I don't know if people would stick around until near the end of the season during my sweeps hours. I guess 24 should stick with the whole counter-terrorist super agent theme.