Static on the Line

"Second verse....same as the first."

It's been one year, nine months, fifteen days since I got the call saying that I was closing the file on being unemployed. It's also been two years, one month and eight days since the last time I sat in an office looking across from a boss I didn't respect who was feeding me a steaming pile of insincere half-truths.

"Budgetary reasons" he said as he reached across the table to shake my hand. I looked at his hand, slightly shaking, then withdrawing, then drawing tightly to his body as he excused himself out of the conference room.

Cut ten minutes later, after the unfortunate human resources lady has finished her spiel and I'm being escorted out by the lanky security guard, who asks me what my plans are. I tell him it might be a little early for plans considering I was just told moments ago that I was without employment. He apologized, thinking I was one of the group from a few weeks prior that had been alerted to their working demise before it actually happened. Respectable style. I, myself had no such luck. One to the back of the head. Check the pockets.

He took the numbered hang-tag that allowed me to park in the parking lot without getting towed and shook my hand and wished me the best. I saw an acquaintance who asked how I was and I told her I was fired. She didn't really know what to say. I didn't either.

I texted a friend to bring my backpack outside, since I wasn't allowed to go to my desk, and a few minutes later she and another friend came out with my bag, stuffed with desk tchotchkes and got to see me cry in my car and wonder what the hell was going on and why it was happening to me.

Is this really happening again?

Waiting On The Call...

The last interview I had went well. So, of course, I didn't get the job. It's the way of the Unemployed Warrior, really. A week went by and the other interview was going to happen. I didn't have a good feeling about it, mostly because it was a phone interview. I hate phone interviews. I don't even like talking on the phone. I'd never even had a phone interview before and I knew before it even happened that I would hate being on a phone interview.

So it came. Five people who's names I tried to scribble down futilely were all talking to me on a speaker phone in some obviously drafty room. I couldn't make out words they were saying. They were asking me questions I couldn't understand. I went outside of typical job-hunter mentality and followed my previously stated edict: The Truth.

They thanked me for my time and that was that. "Fuck..." was what I said when I sat back in my chair following the call. The dog trotted in the room and I knew it was time to go hang out with her, or, let's be real here...she needed to go outside to relieve herself.

Let's just call it a day.

----

Three and a half weeks later. Phone rings. They ask for me. "Hi!" I said, "This is me..."

It's a lady who's name I don't catch. She's in Human Resources. They want to meet me in person.

"Wow, okay..."

She asks what time and day is good for me. She says they'll see me then and we both hang up.

"Fuuuuuuuuck...."

So I'm in a similar situation to before. I'm looking for things to wear. I realize that the people I will be meeting in person for my interview really have no link whatsoever to the people that interviewed me at the interview-that-went-really-well-but-didn't-pan-out-for-whatever-reason and that I can just wear the same thing I'd worn before.

I shaved off my beard. It still hurts to do it.

I go and meet them. I'm sticking to my plan. If I don't know something, I don't know it. If I do, I talk about it. They will like me for me or they won't like me for me, but they will have some opinion of me by the time this thing is over.

I stutter and stammer several times and make jokes at my own expense. They assure me I'm doing fine. The five person panel read from a set of questions that are slightly altered versions of the same questions and I quickly think of ways to answer the same questions in a slightly different manner.

I tell the main guy the building is really interesting on the way back to the elevators and we talk about that. He tells me it was really nice to meet me and that they'd be in touch.

I feel horrible about how it went. I sit in my car for ten minutes out in the parking lot and feel like I'm going to puke.

----

September 16th. Two days later.

Around 10:30 a.m., the phone rings. They want to talk to me.

It takes a second to figure out who it is, and I hear another voice on the line. I'm being conferenced in.

I realize that I want to talk to them, too.

"Hey, I've got some good news..."

I'm standing in the laundry room, looking out the back door at the propane tank..

"...We want to offer you the position, you know, ...if you want it..."

I can't talk.

"...You there?"

"Yes! Yes, I'm here... Yes, Yes, I am definitely, I mean, I definitely want the position. Yes, I'll take it. I do!"

They're laughing, I'm laughing.

I can't wipe the smile off my face.

My wife is sitting on the couch looking up at me with her eyebrows raised and a big stupid grin on her face. I have a big stupid grin on my face.

They tell me some stuff about how much I'll make and what the official title is and when I start and I go over all it with them one more time to make sure all of this is real.

They assure me it is. I assure them that I'm very excited and they assure me that they are as well.

We hang up.

My wife jumps up and hugs me and we jump up and down turning in a circle like we just won the World Series, Super Bowl, Family Double Dare, Donkey Kong Final Board and the fuckin' lottery all at once.

"I got a fucking job." is what I told my wife.

"I know!", she said.

"I got a fucking job!"

----

I got a fucking job.

GUEST POST: Unemployed Year-In-Review

EDITOR'S NOTE: Another guest post, from another friend of U.F. that has been out of work, this time for exactly a year yesterday. Please take a second to comment if you dig it. Thanks.

Today was a bad day. For a lot of reasons, actually.

Mainly, it was a day I had been dreading for a week or so now. Sept. 3, 2009 is the one-year anniversary of what has become, in retrospect, the worst day of my life.

Only 365 days and about 12 hours ago, my cell phone rang at what I'll guess was 8:30 a.m. This was odd for a number of reasons, the foremost being that sportswriters, as a general rule, don't like to be awake before noon. I'd been called at 11 a.m. before, and I was fine with that. Reasonable people, I assume, will have been up for at least three hours by this point. But 8-freaking-30? This is the civilian equivalent of being called at 4 a.m., I think.

On the other end of the call was the editor for the smaller paper that technically employed me, even if I did split my time more or less down the middle between it and its much-larger affiliate newspaper. There was something odd about his tone of voice, but given my inexperience with the time of day, I figured I just didn't know what people sound like before The Price is Right ends.

"(My name), it's (his name).. uhhh," he started, "There's something going on. I need you to come into the office as soon as possible."

My first thought was that "as soon as possible" could only refer to a time that was much closer to lunchtime (I promise that I will soon stop making references to how early this call came, but I cannot impress upon you enough that it was very jarring). I grudgingly drove to the office without showering and it only dawned on me that this might be The Day as I was about halfway there. That made the back end of the ride seem like forever, you understand.

When I arrived at the office, the editor that called me was nowhere to be found, so I dicked around on the internet for close to an hour before the paper's EIC poked his head in the sports office and said with a sigh, "Oh, (editor) hasn't talked to you?" My life didn't flash before my eyes as I followed him into his office, and I didn't feel my whole body tighten when I saw that a second person, another higher-up within the editorial department, waiting in the office.

I don't recall what was said in that office, except that I just muttered "Yup" a lot throughout the five minutes or so it took them to explain that I was out on my ass and then make me sign some papers to this effect (what indignity!). I don't remember much else except that, like everyone else that's been laid off the past two years or whatever, "it has nothing to do with performance." In my case, I knew that much was true since I'd been nominated for and won a number of New England Press Association awards (and indeed some more came in after I got laid off, and I heard through the grapevine that this was much to the embarrassment of the editor who called me that morning/decided I'd get the axe, which was a bright spot this year for sure). These awards, however, offered no consolation.

Neither did the woman to whom I was whisked, whose company the newspaper had hired just for this occasion (and probably cost about half my annual salary for a day's work). She was, I'd guess, in her late 60s or early 70s, and seemed nice enough as she explained that everyone I knew would understand my plight and that it was okay for me to be angry. I remember exactly what I said to her, with what I think was disaffected nonchalance: "I want to punch you in the fucking face right now." To her infinite credit, she took it in stride. I imagine she got that response a lot.

I made a number of calls on the ride home, to my girlfriend at the time, to my parents, to my now-ex-coworkers. None of them had much to say to me other than, "Oh, that blows."

I kind of can't believe it's been a year since that sunny, doom-filled morning. I don't feel like a different person now, or anything like that. I just feel as empty as the days that have rolled past with an irritating lack of speed under a microscope, while the weeks and months have positively flown by. I got sick of playing XBOX every day at least nine months ago, and yet here I am. I've sent out literally hundreds of resumes and heard back on a percentage that's right below the Mendoza Line. Actual interviews? One in 20. Maybe. As it happens, people that hire other people are assholes.

But as I reached this first birthday of the shitty part of my post-college life, something that was too cruel to be coincidence happened: for the first time since college, my checking account is below $100. My "generous" severance checks stopped arriving at my house just two weeks after I stopped arriving at work. My unemployment payments ran out four months ago. My various part-time jobs as a hockey writer have, understandably, not paid very well in the hot summer months. In stark contrast to the ice on which hockey is played, it was my liquidity that started melting away come June.

I don't know for sure when I'll get my next paycheck from anyone. I don't know what I'll do for food and gas when that $100 dwindles to $0 sometime next week. I don't know anything. Except that this has been the worst year of my life in a goddamn runaway. And also that, while I thought writing this would be cathartic, it has, instead, just made me feel worse.

Blah.

Ringing In Your Ears

One thing the Unemployment experience teaches you is to be humble.

After a harrowing, near-death experience (from nerves, not actual real danger) buying clothes and getting, *ahem*, groomed for The Big Interview last week, I entered the period known as "Waiting For The Call" where all of your senses are heightened and any sound, from a bird chirping to a cat throwing up to the mailman pulling up to the mailbox all the way at the end of the driveway -- sound like your phone ringing.

But it's never really ringing until you go to take the dog outside.

During this stage of your Unemployment, you will occasionally think it's ringing when it's not (which is key to the whole experience) you will, if you are in any way high-strung, have what we call anxiety. Some of us who are little more high-strung than others have what can only be referred to as panic attacks. For those of you that aren't as perceptive of everything going wrong in your world, or just lucky enough not to be ridden with anxiety, I can best describe this with a quote from Chris Hardwick, who broke it down to it's brutal explanatory truth.

"A panic attack is like getting fucked in the HEART. "

You can beat these attacks.

The key to getting around this is to tell yourself you don't want a job.

It's not the end of the world if they don't call. (Yes, it is.)

To breathe (which will happen anyway, I assure you) and to focus on your breathing. (Oh God, I'm breathing...)

To keep your heart rate down and to avoid caffeine, if you can. I can't. (I won't.)

Or you can just be a real functioning human who doesn't think that not getting a call from someone who might give you a job will make your head explode like you're an extra in Scanners. Do whatever you think works best.

So I'm in "Waiting For The Call" mode and what do I get? My old friend Insomnia! You might remember Insomnia from earlier in the Unemployed Files, where he visited for several weeks. I quickly went from DayWalker to Bill from True Blood, burrowing into the ground at Sun Up and only peaking out once that damned fire orb goes back behind the trees and wherever it goes when I am amongst the living.

Of course, insomnia is no good when you're "Waiting For The Call." Mostly, because those that could potentially be making the call are awake, and outside, and wearing pants and are at an office and ostensibly, on the phone...

..and they're calling you while you're sleeping.

Of course, sleeping really doesn't happen either, since you're in "Waiting For The Call" hypersensitive senses mode where your reflexes are augmented by 315% and your needs for sustenance and rest are negated by the needs or wants of, well, what you think you need or want.

So every noise wakes you up. REM sleep is a thing of the past. Dreams are gone. Nightmares prevail. They adapt quickly, like a virus, learning to strike quickly in the short times you make an appearance in the Land of Nod. Tense muscles give way to body aches, and the sleeping positions that work for you also make you snore, and therefore, don't work for the wife, so you're forced into an uncomfortable position that makes you snore less and Oh, Why Not: Stop Breathing.

All this fun multipled by a few days of it plus the general uneasiness of being Unemployed in general leave you with a Unshaven, Grumpy, Surly, Un-rested, Jumpy, Skiddish, Ill-Mannered, Over-Tense, Heart-Fucked, Soulless, Panic-Ridden, Anxiety monkey waiting for a call from a potential employer.

I got one. I had the phone in my hand when it happened.

Remember the interview from my last dispatch that I killed at?

It was those guys.

Remember how I thought I killed at that interview?

I did.

They love me.

They think I'm incredible.

They're so impressed by my abilities and how I came across and were so happy to meet me.

And, that they offered someone else the job.

Well, there you go.

I was told they liked me a lot, and want to work with me in the future, and that they'll keep me in mind.

I said thanks for the opportunity and hung up the phone, and looked out the window. I saw a bird on a tree and the mail truck pulling up to the mailbox.

Suddenly they just didn't sound like the phone anymore.

Nothing does. Because the phone's not ringing.

It's hard not to take it personally, because every call that doesn't happen, and every call that does but includes a "I'm sorry to inform you..." is just another in a long line of the thing that most humans are allergic to called rejection.

It's become a theme this year, and the worst part is that I'm getting used to it.

I'm an Invisible Man walking through a society that's drudging on around me, pushing my way up and down the aisles of stores in slow motion while the manic hysteria of the working world goes on around me. I hear about The Unemployed on the news and in the papers and on the internet, but I never see any of them because I suspect they're all on odd-time schedules and have become recluses like I have.

It's hard not to feel like the only one living this reality.

It's even worse when you realize that you're not the only one.

The production world that I used to be a part of has been described many times as "A Lot of Hurry-Up-And-Wait" and I'm finding that's more true now, and appropriate for more situations than just that tiny block of the entertainment business.

Jobs come and go and opportunity comes knocking when you least expect it to. If you're wanting it too much, you might as well just kiss it goodbye.

You have to remind yourself that work doesn't define you and life is what you make it.

Sometimes you need some rejection to put that back in frame of focus for you.

Cursing In The Dressing Room

"Clean shirt, new shoes
And I dont know where I am goin to.
Silk suit, black tie,
I dont need a reason why.
They come runnin just as fast as they can
Coz every girl crazy bout a sharp dressed man."

— ZZ Top - Sharp Dressed Man

"Fuck. FUCK. FUUUUUUUUCK."

I hear the Dressing Room Lady outside the door.

"Everything okay in there?"

I sigh.

"No... Yes."

This is the third pair of pants I have tried on, and the fourth or fifth shirt.

It's right at Six O'Clock and the place closest to here that cuts hair on Mondays (because strangely most barber shops here are closed on Mondays) closes at 8 O'Clock.

I still have to shave this beard off.

I don't have shoes that will go with whatever I end up buying that I am currently trying on in this stupid dressing room at this stupid store that doesn't make freakin' clothes that actually fit my...I'm guessing, totally freakish and awkwardly built body.

Sorry, I've gone and got a little ahead of myself. I'm in the middle of the PRE-INTERVIEW JITTERS.

I don't wear what I call "dress-up clothes." I appreciate the whole Mad Men aesthetic of tailored suits and bespoke shirts, but I can't put it any more clearly that my ideal mode of dress is a t-shirt of some sort along with blue jeans or shorts. Original, I know, but it let's me put absolutely zero thought into what I'm wearing so that I can focus on what I'm doing.

Anyway, today I care. I'm trying on dress shirts.

I am attempting to find a proper pair of fucking khakis.

After nearly giving myself an anxiety ridden panic attack trying to find clothes for what, in my head, will essentially be a quick trip to a footstool covered in thumbtacks in front of a What's Your Line panel of people who hate me upon sight, I finally settle on a pair of proper light brown pants and a white and blue checked button-up.

I can't pay for it quick enough. My wife wanted to look at some things in the ladies section of the store but my interview is first thing in the morning and I have to get my hair cut so I am freaking. My stomach is in knots.

The kid checking us out has to call his manager because I have a coupon. Of course I have a coupon. Of course it doesn't work.

The manager takes care of it. I pay. We are going towards the car. "Don't run off on me!" my wife says. I look back and she's five feet behind me. I am unaware I have ran off towards the car in a power-walking sprint (of which, in the spirit of transparency, I am accused of often. What? I'm tall.) and have a mission. HAIR CUT.

Ten minutes later we're at the barber shop. I go inside and the girl at the counter asks me for my phone number. The last four digits. I give her what I think I gave them last time (I've changed numbers a few times for various reasons) and it pulls up nothing. I give another number, and it's the wrong name.

"That's not me." I say.

"Well who are you?" She says.

"Well...I'm me."

"What's your phone number?"

"Can't you just make a new person on there with my new number?"

"No, I don't want to. What's your phone number?"

At this point I want to scream "I hate you and I just want a motherfucking haircut, bitch." but instead of that I give her my full name and she pulls up a number I didn't even think about as my phone number.

I still am not really sure why I even have to give a phone number to give a haircut, but whatever.

A few minutes later I'm in the chair.

A few minutes after that I'm out the door with a lighter wallet and am off to Wal-Mart.

I point out that "That's a lot of gray hair on the floor."

The lady who cut my hair says "Everyone says that."

It was a lot of gray.


After Wal-Mart, my wife tells me it's all going to be okay. She's said this several times tonight but I am less than half a day from the thing I hate most. Being judged on who I am, in tiny cereal box form where they just see the cover and maybe read the ingredients, but don't really know what I am, or what I can do, or if I'm even crunchy in milk.

It will be okay, she says. I want to trust her.

We get home, and groceries are put away. Everything in it's right place. Food in the fridge and the pantry. Toiletries to the bathroom and all that. New clothes off the hangers and all put in their final resting place.

On me.

I actually look okay.

My wife tells me to come out and she sees me. "You look really good. I told you you would."

She then tells me I freak out too much. Guilty as charged.

A belt ties it all together. My dog is giving me that smile. She must be thirsty.

I go to bed early but not before setting every alarm in the house in staggered times so that I don't sleep in like I have the last few months.

Today I had my interview, and I feel pretty confident that I killed at it.

Everyone was laughing at my jokes, and giving eye contact, and seemed genuinely interested. Out of hundreds of applicants I was one of only a few they asked to come in.

Cross yer fingers. I want to be writing Employed Files sooner than later.

And if you're in the same situation, for the love of god: Don't Freak Out.

Pre-cursor audioblog I did yesterday

Drenched To The Bone

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

— Bob Dylan, The Times They Are A-Changin'

With enough distance it all makes sense.

You serve your meager purpose, and subject yourself and those close to you to your routine. You have your insecurities, and if you're secure enough about yourself to show them you ask questions. Or if you're insecure enough to need approval, you do the same.

It is a thankless world. For those that need recognition, morale boosting, friendship and camaraderie, work isn't the place for it. Not anymore. Not by any standard that could be considered realistic. Not by the needs of anyone who needs anything.

I will admit it. I'm a needy person. I put up walls. I played misdirection with the best of them. If a chink in my armor was to be made apparent, what better thing to do than bring up a weakness that someone else had. They don't know this. They can't do that. None of it mattered.

I spent the majority of a career glad-handing to be in a position and the rest of it struggling, fighting, to stay in my spot. Did I earn where I was? Sure. I am talented, or a lot of people with no personal stake in how I feel wouldn't tell me so. Was I well liked? That's not really something I can accurately say given my predilection for deprecation. I am told occasionally that I am missed at my former place of employment. That it "just isn't the same" without my presence.

I suppose the same could be said of the communal stapler. Right?

In hindsight it is all a strategic game. Legitimacy is something you strive for. To be seen as a legitimate authentic relic of a time gone by when people had balls and could do what they said they would do. I would argue points I thought were valid. I would chastise those that were ignorant when I felt it was warranted. I would commiserate with my colleagues about those that were daft, and out of touch, and maybe useless, and probably getting paid more than the rest of us were for no apparent reason.

I was one of the grunts, the cast-offs, the worker-bee's. The Peons.

I would occasionally let my ill-advised (now) attempts at climbing the ladder up to the glass ceiling happen. When in the company of the higher-ups I would let slip carefully crafted half-truths to see what would happen. To see where it would take me. I remember fondly e-mailing a catchphrase spewing, corporate book devouring "company savior" that was formerly President of a major Cable TV network an e-mail vaguely pointing out how excited I was about "new procedures" that we had in place and how pumped I was about "our opportunities to discover new ways to strategize, synergize our teams" and "come to new ways to maximize ROI (return on investment) and to capitalize on what we already had in place. "

He e-mailed me a very positive reply a few days later saying that he would be very interested in sitting and talking with me as I had the right outlook that the company needed and that our company needed "more positive thinkers like me."

I was so very frustrated. I had e-mailed him the equivalent of verbal corporate catchprhase diarrhea and he'd eaten every drop up and probably licked his fingers clean before asking for seconds. I'd said nothing. Seriously. I could look back on it now and have no clue what I even was attempting to say, but I do remember laughing as I sent it, telling my wife "I'm either going to get a raise for this bullshit or I'm going to get fired."

Click. Send. Praise.

Shake your head and carry on. This is what you're dealing with now.

The last two years were a blur. All the inroads I had made in my years at my workplace were being squandered by the monkey business of the new regime in charge. I didn't know the new bosses and living many states away would rarely get the chance to meet them without the local higher-up rats sniveling about looking for a way to stay on the ship.

I made a decision shortly after I had a realization.

The quick ride to the top was over, and there is nothing to do but stay my ground.

Stay my ground and stare at the fork in the road. Weasel's way out or Legitimacy. For whatever Legitimacy is worth, anymore.

I saw and see what the weasel's of the world do. They might make more money, but they have more people wanting to meet them in a dark alley with the business end of a tire iron, too.

I can't live that way. I won't live that way. I couldn't live that way.

"Yes Men" get the raise and the pat on the back. Honest Men get told they are a budget cut that had to be taken.

I regret nothing. I am not ashamed of what I did while I was there. Part of my life under the roof of that job was self-preservation. The other, realer later half was, in hindsight, an act of retribution. Asking the hard questions, and standing for what I believed and not putting up with lies, and pettiness, and ignorance, and refusing to say "Yes" without actually meaning it.

I saw a good friend of mine who was highly praised for his dedication and skill at his profession derided for complaining and essentially treated like shit and pushed from his post for wanting to be treated like a human.

I saw another friend of mine, one of the more talented scribes I've ever had the chance to know personally told that his award winning work "just wasn't enough."

I took pride at a job that I wasn't particularly interested in, and gained skills in a part of my profession that I'd never wanted to be a part of, and made a stand for quality in the face of a "just get it over with, no one cares" attitude only to realize that the people in charge:

1. Don't know what quality is, and wouldn't if it hit them in the face.
2. Don't care about your attention to detail, because they don't have any attention to detail.
3. Couldn't care less what they're doing, as long as they make money. Period.
4. If you are talented at your work and actually make money, you will someday be pushed aside for a younger, less talented version of you -- but it doesn't matter to them because they can rest on their laurels (aka The Work You Did Long Ago) and save money.
   

Don't get me wrong, I like money. Partially.

But sometimes I sit back and wonder, why exactly no one seems to take real tangible pride in their work anymore. Why they don't spend the time, researching the past, seeing what worked and what didn't, no matter what their profession, and try their best to blend old and new, making something special, that hopefully someone in the future will see and go "This...this is the good stuff." I am addicted to the craft of essentially anything. I like to know why things work the way they do.

I don't expect to be famous. I'm not the best at anything. Not even close.

I'd just like one person, somewhere, to stumble across something I did, many years from now, and wonder who I was, what I was like, and how I ever came up with the things that I worked on.

They won't know that after amassing a library of work that was praised by colleagues I respect and people I'll never meet that I was just a social security number that was taken off of a ledger by some anonymous accountant because my supervisor wouldn't take the time to think twice about what he was doing.

When I hear bad news about them, it pleases me. But it doesn't matter at the end of the day.

I'm where I am. They're where they are. Who's right? Who feels justified? Who knows.

Pride is a stupid thing, but sometimes it can be a very important thing.

I am proud of who I am and what I do. I am proud of the work I do. I am proud of my wife, and I am humbled that she gives me the time of day, much less loves me. I am proud I have made it as far as I have in this life. I am proud that the news from the day of my firing was that most of the people I'd worked with the last seven years were shocked and scared, because if "I was let go...anyone could be let go."

I hope they're not. I wouldn't wish the uncertainty I live in daily on anyone.

I am proud, however, that I am handling it like I am. I am fighting and I am trying and I will try to balance the scales of craft vs. work.

I will keep swimming until I sink like a stone.

Anyone even notice we haven't been updating?

Thought the Wednesday's guest post was very good and chock-full of tips and tricks for the newly Unemployed person that I'd leave it up on top an extra day. As for myself, I've working on some actual projects that might make me some money! So I might miss a day or two occasionally. The whole "posting everyday" thing was a little ambitious, anyway, without me giving up my actual identity and all the juicy details. Which ain't gonna happen.

If you did notice we were not updating yesterday, give us a comment and let us know. Otherwise we'll start thinking that no one cares, and hell, we might just abandon the site. So if you like what you've seen so far, let our anonymous keesters know it. Not only are we out of work but we're attention starved and crave your feedback as much as we do our unemployment checks.

We'll be back soon! Make sure to follow us on Twitter and RSS!

-U.F.