Get Away Faster

I see a banner ad at the top of my email today, since I use Yahoo email, I see a lot of ads. This one has a sapphire blue ocean, a bright white sandy beach, a red and white striped beach umbrella, a sunny yellow feeling, though it might not have a crayon yellow ball of sun that I notice, but I get the beachy feeling -- it sweeps over me -- I may need to look down between my toes to check for sand. It says "Get Away Faster" and it says something else about getting 10,000 frequent flyer miles as a bonus, or some such thing.

What are they selling? Unspoiled nature and worry-free days for sale. That's what it's really about, which makes me know that it assumes, rightly, that we are far from a beach on this cold spring morning and far from worry.

Frequent flyer miles hardly seem the remedy for a morning like this, and I'm still stuck on the beginning of the phrase -- Get Away Faster. It means "Run For Your Life" or maybe "Run Away From Your Life" and so you can't help wondering what kind of life we've all made for ourselves that running away from it at breakneck speed is a sound philosophy that most people reading the ad would not only be willing to agree with, but be moved, if not seduced into a bit of a early morning coffee break swoon to consider it.

What else are they selling? Sex of course and a way to escape your life. The two go hand-in-hand.

So you are Jane or Joe, sitting in your company cafeteria, a scatter of cheesy plastic furniture around you and a vending machine against the wall of equally polyurethane food on little shelves next to you, but your mind is filled with this abandoned beach scene, the beach umbrella tilted in a sexy way, away from you, the viewer. And you are left wondering what's going on behind the umbrella. You can't help but wonder.

You're wearing clothes that didn't really come out of the dryer wrinkle free, in fact, you look a little sloopy. You're watching an icy rain storm hit the not so shiny cars out on the company parking lot. The cars all look grey and a little dinged up. You're thinking of an 11:00 meeting where that egomaniacial tyrant in Marketing is really just rounding you all up to tell you you're a bunch of assholes and can never get anything done on time or to his liking. The heel on your right shoe is in need of repair and you have a sad place inside that you contemplate for a few seconds -- why it is you always scrape your right heel like that in a shameful, "don't hurt me, I didn't do it!", babyish way. If you dare to go there, you wonder, "Did my mother do that to me, make me feel that shitty about myself that I still scrape my foot like that when I've done something wrong?"

If you are Joe, behind the umbrella, there is a model, you can't remember her name but she's topless and getting pretty impatient with you for not staying with her and making love to her and instead you have to go to some idiotic meeting at 11:00. She doesn't get it and is not willing to let you go. You yield to her finally and it's delicious. No one else in the cafeteria is begging you to let her give you a blow job, last you noticed.

If you are Jane, behind the umbrella, there is a model, you can't remember his name and he's been very romantic all morning, and teasing your clothes off you, making love to you, very skillfully, you've come twice -- no explaining or pointing out any anatomical roadmap thank you -- he's really good -- you knew he would be, since he doesn't speak English anyway, that was a tip off. And then he wants to take you shopping in town, ride you around on his motorbike and buy you stuff. He doesn't know what the hell an 11:00 meeting is.

STOP ... I'd like the audio of someone tearing an old record player needle across an old Hawaiian hula dance LP to stop the music, but that's so passe, a record player, sorry ... anyway, stop the fantasy for a second and think to yourself, "Wait a minute, maybe I could get out of here, really get out of here, maybe I could make a life I liked and not have to get away faster. Maybe I could have a life I liked so much I wouldn't ever want to run away from it." Now you are really getting away. Now you're thinking straight. Straight out of there in a few months, into a life that might be real and fun and really fun. Some people do it, you know that. There must be a way to find out how they pull it off. And you think of that uncle of yours. Everyone thought he was half nuts, but he had a life that guy, he had a wonderful life and you decide right then and there ... you'll figure out how he did it and you'll do it too.