Monday, July 17, 2006

This sentence concocted by the Random Logline Generator:

"A timid zoo keeper, a paraplegic voice-over artist, and an overbearing cashier hide from their oppressors."

Supposedly random sentences like this are good therapy for creatively bereft fiction writers.

I'll assume the zoo keeper has been unwittingly "employed" by a hostile dystopian government to supervise the care and feeding of mutated humans while the voice-over artist is on the run from a "Ministry of Truth"-like job making politicians appear articulate before their images are transmitted.

That leaves the overbearing cashier. Hmmm . . .

(Thanks to The Huge Entity.)
Posted by Mac at 10:22 PM

6 comments:

W.M. Bear said...

As a former Walgreens (nonoverbearing) Head Cashier myself.... (Tech writing jobs dried up after 9/11 and I had the luck to get laid off just BEFORE 9/11, speaking of being on the run from a job!) How about this one: The cashier is on the lam because he (or, better SHE) had the temerity to call the cops on a customer she suspected of shoplifting. The customer turned out to be an undercover agent who WAS shoplifting as part of his cover. Needless to say, blowing the undercover agent's cover got her fired from her cashier's job, to say nothing of making her a persona non grata as far as the oppressive government is concerned.... (Of course, the overbearing cashier falls in love with the paraplegic voiceover artist and urges him to "exceed your prosthesis"....)

11:32 PM
Otis the Wondernerd said...

Easy - the cashier is the unassuming everyman whose shallow, self-centered paradigm is blown wide open when forced to see through the lies of the government. And he's not happy about being taken out of his little comfort zone.

On a completely unrelated note, W,M. Bear, I'm mildly surprised to find that I'm not the only Walgreens employee who reads Posthuman Blues. That place is quietly encroaching on far too many facets of my personal life... ;)

8:29 AM
Mac said...

I sorta like Walgreens.

6:30 PM
W.M. Bear said...

Mac and Otis -- FORMER Walgreens employee, I should add. (I did finally manage to find another tech writing job.) But honestly, I wouldn't trade the experience for the world. It gave me an invaluable perspective on things, people, money, consumerism, "working in retail" (as it's fondly called) -- you name it! I washed windows, stocked shelves, smilingly and politely dealt with overweight customers stocking up on yet more junk, and once gave a customer a $100 bill in change, mistaking it for a $20. (My boss was amazingly understanding about this little goof, so yes, I do still have a considerable fondness for Walgreens also!)

9:26 PM
Mac said...

I, too, have experience Dealing With The Public . . . and I'd readily trade some of my experiences in! But I suppose they can offer a unique sense of perspective. I think of it as "field anthropology."

9:58 PM
W.M. Bear said...

I think of it as "field anthropology."

Plus, isn't this the kind of thing that writers are "supposed" to do? Then we can more readily get into the heads of overbearing cashiers, etc.!

2:37 PM