Inertia

This week we meet Tammy. Every day Tammy thinks about doing it. And every day she doesn’t do it.

She wants to do it, or at least she thinks she does, but still she doesn’t do it.

She wants to do this and do that, go here and go there, but desire so rarely leads to action.

What is Life? What’s it for? What are we supposed to do with it? Is it anything more than the Random Thoughts in our Heads?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to the ten Minute Storyteller. That's me Bill Simpson,
your host, narrator and author. We hear at the ten
Minute Storyteller endeavor to entertain you with tall tales, rendered
swiftly and with the utmost empathy. We pledge to pack

(00:26):
as much entertainment, emotion, and exploration into the human condition
as ten minutes will permit. Many novels on steroids. This
week we meet Tammy. Every day Tammy thinks about doing it,

(00:47):
and every day she doesn't do it. She wants to
do it, or at least she thinks she does, but
still she doesn't do it. She wants to do this,
and she wants wants to do that, go here and
go there, but desire so rarely leads to action. What
is life? What's it for? What are we supposed to

(01:11):
do with it? Is it anything more than the random
thoughts in our heads? Inertia Wednesday, Oh to hell with it,
Tammy says, right out loud, I'm going to do it.
I'm going to do it now, right now, as soon

(01:31):
as the light turns green. I'm sick of thinking about
doing it, been thinking about doing it long enough, long
enough time to do it and stop thinking about doing it.
Everyone thinks about it, everyone thinks about everything, thinks about
about going to Paris. But how many actually go? Not many,

(01:53):
not many. I've been thinking about going to Paris since
high school, when I first saw a picture of the
Mona Lisa and found out it hung in the Louver
Museum in the middle of Paris. Thinking and thinking, and
never doing, never going. Always some excuse, too busy, too expensive,

(02:14):
hate to fly, Hate the French, Oh god, I don't
even know anyone who's French. Next year, I'll go next year,
of course, next year, next summer. A dozen summers later,
and here I still sit. Everyone thinks about getting a
new job, a new boyfriend, a new apartment, new friends,
new tastes in clothes and movies and books. Everyone thinks,

(02:36):
but no one does, at least I never do. I
just think. I never do. The light turns green, Tammy
doesn't do it. Tammy first felt blue back in high school.
Nothing she or the therapist her parents sent her to

(02:57):
see could put a finger on. Nothing. Just blue. Not
her usual flamboyant, wild red self. Just blue, just unhappy,
not even unhappy, just not happy. Eventually it passed. Thursday.

(03:20):
Look at this traffic. Jesus, I'll sit here inching forward
for the next half an hour, another half hour of
my life wasted. And when I finally get to the
green light, am I going to do it? I? Am?
I Am? I am? I Probably not, probably not, I
don't have the guts, But I mean, seriously, can life
get any more absurd? What's the point? Get up, Wash

(03:44):
the body I hate, and shampoo the hair I loathe,
Brush my way to yellow teeth from my days as
a covert smoker. Eat a few crumbs of food because
I'm totally paranoid of both getting fat and being poisoned
by all the lethal chemicals and sugar and everything from
strawberries to peanut butteredy yogurt. But still, What'll I do.

(04:07):
I'll stop at Starbucks and get one of their gazillion
dollar coffee rip off full of fat and sugar and
artificial flavored drinks. That's what I'll do. If I had
all the money I've spent at Starbucks, I could retire
to Barbados, Yeah, and do what lie on the beach
and get skin cancer. It's all just a great, big,
fucking waste of time. Work friends, boyfriends, work sucks a

(04:33):
third of my life taken up with mindless drudgery and
sow what sew what so what? Go to the gym
after work and work out so I don't get fat,
watch TV, go to bars and the beach on weekends
in the hopes of finding a boyfriend who was in
a complete loser, a complete jackquad. I hate bars. I
used to love the beach till fear of skin cancer

(04:55):
drove me to lather on several coats of SPF fifty
and then hide under my Tommy Bahama umbrella. I prefer
not to even go, but my friends go, and so
I go. And if I didn't go, what would I do?
I'd be stuck home alone in my crappy little apartment.

(05:15):
Tammy finally reaches the light once again, for like at
least the five hundredth time she says she's going to
do it, but when the light turns green, she doesn't
do it. In college, she had a few bad patches,
had to drop out once, come home get some help.

(05:37):
This time she wasn't just blue, but well, according to
her therapist, depressed. Not unusual. Lots of college kids get depressed.
The work, the stress, the food, the parties, the growing
fear of the future, the very real possibility that life
has no meaning, that it's all just meaning less. Living

(06:02):
back home with mom and dad, who every day did
the same things they'd been doing for thirty years was
even more depressing than being depressed. So after missing a semester,
she went back to school, got her degree, found a
job and an apartment, took out a big, fat car
loan to buy her snazzy fire engine red Mazda Mayada

(06:25):
with a six speed manual, easily the most daring and
rebellious thing she's ever done. Friday, Today, Today, I'm going
to do it. I'm doing it. If I do it,
I won't have to go home after work to my dirty, dusty, crummy,
cluttered apartment with nothing in the cupboards but pasta and crackers,

(06:48):
and nothing in the fridge but half and half my
stupid one bedroom apartment. I had to have it. I
had to have it because I thought I wanted to
live alone after living in a house two years with
five other girls. If I do it, I won't have
to drive down to the beach tonight or early tomorrow
morning and sit under my umbrella all day, sweltering and

(07:11):
wondering if the lymphomas are going to start growing just
below my skin. But Tammy doesn't do it. She's never
going to do it. Wait for the light to turn green,
and then accelerate at high speed into oncoming traffic, blow
herself up in a fiery head on collision. It's just

(07:32):
a dream, a fantasy, a way to deal with all
the crazy craps swirling around in her head and all
the dreary boredom in her life. Instead, she pulls into
Starbucks orders her favorite, an iced white chocolate mocha with
extra pumps of vanilla syrup. She has mastered the art

(07:54):
of driving a stick and drinking her drink. That night,
at the bar, she meets Dan, tall, dark and handsome Dan,
Dan the Handyman. That's what he tells her. His name
is Dan the Handyman. Dan makes her smile, laugh, cackle.

(08:14):
He gets a little drunk, tells her he's too drunk
to drive home, wants to know if she'll drive him home. Well,
of course, she's mildly suspicious, but she asks where he lives,
and he tells her. Tammy thinks about it, and, after
a long pause, finally says okay. He folds himself into

(08:37):
the tiny, low slung passenger seat of the Mayotta. Wow,
this is like a toy car, he says. She shifts
expertly through the gears. You're good, he says, I've never
seen a girl drive a stick before. Oh god, she says,
let's not go there. You could drive Formula one to

(09:00):
his house, a small ranch VW Jetta in the driveway.
He invites her inside. She says, oh, I don't think so.
Oh come on, I don't bite. How do I know?
Reluctance pounding at her temples. She goes inside. They start
to make out on the couch. He pulls her blouse

(09:22):
up over her head and tugs off his t shirt.
They start to grind, and then the overhead lights snaps on. Jesus, Dan,
Who the fuck is this? Startled Tammy looks up and
sees a woman in silk pajama bottoms and no top
standing in the doorway. This is says Dan. This is

(09:47):
what's your name again? Dan and his wife are interested
in a menage autoi. Two girls and Dan, Dan the handyman.
Tammy pulls her blouse says, okay, maybe some other time, Hey,
says Dan, No time like the present. Driving back to

(10:09):
her apartment. Racing along the dark, quiet streets, shifting through
the gears like Lewis Hamilton, she asks herself, why didn't
I do it? I should have just done it. Damn,
I never do anything. I think about doing stuff I do,
I think about it, but I never do. I never
do ever. Hey, thanks for listening to this original audio

(10:37):
presentation of Inertia, narrated by the author. If you enjoy
today's story, please take a few seconds to rate, review,
and subscribe to this podcast, and then please go to
Thomas William Simpson dot com for additional information about the
author and to view his extensive canon. The Ten Minute

(11:02):
Storyteller is produced by Andrew Pliglisi and Josh Kilani and
is part of the Elvis Duran Podcast Network in partnership
with iHeart Productions. Until next time, this is Bill Simpson,
your ten Minute Storyteller.