AS I SEE IT...

Appearances and Misconceptions

I was sitting here, enjoying my first cup of coffee of the morning, and for some strange reason the phrase, “The more things change the more things stay the same” popped into my yet under caffeinated brain. Since I already had too many things I needed to do other than explore the meaning of the aforementioned phrase, and being the Master Procrastinator that I am, I decided to explore the question in excruciating detail.

Why?

For days, I have been trying to decide from whose point of view I will tell a story that I’m writing. (It is NaNoWriMo month after all) Most of the characters in this particular story are way smarter than I am, and this is causing me untold grief.

So it occurred to me to search for someone that absolutely everyone could hold in common, regardless of whether the characters in my story be highly educated, world renowned, rich, have friends in the highest places, or just have an abundance of plain, old dumb luck.

Thinking back to my college days (luckily my college days are not that long ago, or I wouldn’t be able to remember them), I remember how much I appreciated the janitors. Okay, so I was older than most of the other students, and especially older than all of the students that were living in the dorms.

To make a long story short, I realized that no matter how smart, rich, or connected any individual is there is always a need to have someone there to clean up their mess. Viola!

I'm content and relived to think I am at least as smart as any janitor I’ve ever met. Maybe?

I wonder what type of security clearance the janitors have to have that clean up the mess all the folks at the Pentagon make?

Don’t think for one minute I am belittling janitors; I am not! I would never do that. I think Janitors, along with all the other types of service related employees, are highly unappreciated, and I bet the majority of them could tell hair-raising tales about what is really going on.

I’ve given this considerable thought this morning, and it is titillating to think about telling my story from the janitors POV. For the most part I think people employed in service related occupations are better grounded in reality. That is not to say that people in service related jobs are not like everyone else – of course they have their dreams and aspirations, too. And who is to say that a janitor couldn’t be a covert operative, or shift shape changing alien, operating under the guise of being a janitor, or cook?

Of course, I’ll have a few more cups of coffee, and expound on my current train of thought about the tales a janitor can tell about the other characters in my story.