Working the night shift

If you follow my status updates on Twitter and Facebook (and if not, why not?), you know I have been whining recently about having to work some overnight shifts. I'm still not happy about being used as a hole plugger in the company's schedule, but it turned out to not be all that bad.

• Biggest drawback: trying to figure out when to sleep, before or after work.
• Biggest benefit, and an unexpected one at that: hadn't considered the potential for interacting with weirdos!

For example, the night watchman, who is a combination of Seth Rogen (shown here) and Cliff Claven, asked me if I knew what the Don McLean song "American Pie" was about.

"Sure. It's about the plane crash that killed three rock stars..." I said.

"Three SPECIFIC rock stars", he interrupted, "Elvis, Bob Dylan and Billy Holly."

Trying to be polite, and patient, I said, "Well, I'm pretty sure Bob Dylan is still alive...".

He said, "No, remember the part where he says he borrowed a coat from John Lennon? John Lennon, who was in the Beatles, is also dead."

"James Dean," I said.

"Who's that?"

"He was a movie star in the '50s who died young. The line is 'in a coat he borrowed from James Dean'," I said.

"The song is about rock stars, not movie stars" he reminded me.

Trying to simultaneously remain polite, get out out of this conversation and yet remain engaged, I offered, "speaking of songs with references to rock stars, what about 'Garden Party' by Ricky Nelson? That's a good song too."

"Who's that?"

I tried to explain and there was a brief glimmer of recognition when I mentioned the group Nelson, fronted by and named for Ricky's twin sons and he said, "you mean 'MmmBop'?"

I resisted the urge to point out that he might be the most pop-culturally illiterate human being on earth and pretended to have work to do instead (he carries a gun). He went in the other room with a co-worker and they looked up JFK autopsy photos on the internet (after they were unable to find Micheal Jackson autopsy photos), a subject "I've done a LOT of reading on...you know who Sirhan Sirhan is, right? The guy who killed Robert M. Kennedy..."