Salad Bar Mitzvah.

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For my IT Guy job, I go all around the greater Portland, Maine area to retail and office locations as well as people's homes. Today I was sent out to a grocery store to fix this 42" plasma TV/computer setup that dangles from the ceiling above the store's salad bar.

The TV has a desktop PC bolted to the back of it and a black steel shell covering the PC, the whole streamlined mess suspended from a pole. The salad bar was near the meat counter, so when I arrived, I asked the meat person to page the store manager so I could check in and she did. "Amy Martino to the salad bar please." Suddenly, the poor woman at the meat counter was reamed a new anus by an assistant manager with a greasy comb-over.

"Don't EVER page the manager by their full name unless it's an emergency! That's the code for an emergency! It's 'MIZZ Martino' unless you're being robbed or you cut your hand off in the slicer... I swear to god, if you page the manager by their full name, you'll have four guys running over here preparing for an emergency!"

Then, presumably to call off the approaching mob, the comb-over guy snapped up the white phone and enunciated "MIZZ MARTINO... to the salad bar please... MIZZ Martino." The deli woman cocked her head and fidgeted with her ear. I wasn't sure if she was embarrassed for herself or for comb-over guy.

Anyway, the jobs were easy: remove the massive aerodynamic steel shell and replace some cables. Of course, until I fixed it, I didn't know what the screen would be displaying. I just perched on the stair ladder tinkering with wires and watching the weirdos parading through loading up their salad tubs with "salad," perhaps in the throes of a 2008 resolution. You know, salad-- pineapple rings, jello, pasta, croutons, dinner rolls, cheese, fruit medley, ranch dressing-- healthy stuff. Smashed into a gallon-sized tub, its top held on by rubber bands.

Maybe the vantage point of the stair ladder inflated my confidence, but I couldn't stop judging these people. I wanted to stop, but I couldn't. A goateed employee broke my trance. "LCD or plasma?"

"Sorry?"

"LCD or plasma?" this time nodding up toward the TV I was working on.

"Oh, ah, plasma."

"See, I want an LCD. My wife is making me wait a few more years cuz the price keeps coming down. 10 years ago one of them cost eight grand!" Then something caught his attention and he was gone.

As I worked, I reflected on the day before, and how I was completely out of money and had no gas in the car. I had ended up at a toll booth on I-95 without the $1.25 I needed to pass through. I rolled up to the guy and said "I don't have it!" He calmly wrote me a promissory note (!) and had me sign my name agreeing to mail $1.25 to the Maine Turnpike Authority within 5 days.

I felt so demoralized but was soon distracted by the fuel gauge dipping into uncharted territory. I was so sure that I was going to run out of gas that I was just running damage control, shutting down unnecessary drains on the electrical system-- stereo, headlights, GPS-- in an effort to get the last few meters out of what I had in the tank.

When I thought I felt the car lurching, I called 611 on my cell phone and had Sprint add roadside assistance to my monthly plan. I tried to sound nonchalant: "Hi, is there some sort of roadside assistance that Sprint offers? There is? Hmm, I think I might be interested in adding that today." The operator told me that in the event I ever need to use my new feature, all I need to do is dial #ROAD. Somehow I made it home without needing to.

Then, last night, I did some cash-in-hand Mac support for my film-maker friend David which allowed me to fill the tank with gas, maybe for the first time. I couldn't stop staring at the gas gauge after that. The needle looked so funny all the way up. I was so used to it being in the red or even below the red. I was hypnotized by it, smiling like an idiot.

These were my thoughts when the plasma screen came to life and I was snapped back into the moment, successful in my tinkering. The content on the screen was a bewildering arrangement of panels and frames displaying all kinds of information. Scrolling news, a slide show of supermarket specials, a tanned TV cook talking about lime zest. "I just love to use lime zest. Even when a recipe calls for lemon zest I use lime zest! When you're choosing your lime, choose the shiniest one. The shiniest lime will have the most juice."

Huh. OK. Well, that was fixed. So I wrapped the black shell back around the works and bolted it in place. I gathered up my tools and asked the poor meat woman if she'd please page Mizz Martino back to the salad bar and had her sign my completed work order.

Then, as I walked away I turned to look back at the salad bar. Several schlubs were gathered around smashing "salad" into their tubs, heads cocked up at the TV processing some amuont of the bombastic content. Maybe they were wondering what lime zest was.

I almost turned to leave, then was suddenly proud of what I'd accomplished. I came and fixed something that was broken and now these people were interacting with the thing. Though in the most banal sense, I was useful and felt like a real person. Just like with the gas gauge, I was hypnotized by the TV, smiling like an idiot.