Last Tango with Over-not-Under

Yesterday was The Great Plotnik's annual lunch with his Boss, who refers to himself as Overworked but Not Underpaid. Plotnik has always been underpaid but seldom overworked. When Over-Not-Under hired Plotnik to be the sole writer for OLI's new content pages, at the end of 1999, Plot figured the job, at best, was good until the Spring.

Flash forward to December, 2006, and Plot gets paid, with checks that don't bounce, to review theater, something he loves, and also restaurants, something he likes almost as much. He is forced to augment his prodigious income with writeups about the Fifth Annual Felon Festival (fictional) at the Hall of Justice (even more fictional), something he dislikes, but for $16 million a year you'd do it too.

Plot works out of his house, but the office is downtown. He has never had to go into the office more than a few times a year, but since he started working for OLI Plot has always maintained one superstition: he keeps at least a buck or so on his Bart Ticket. The superstition is that if the ticket runs out, so does the job. See?

So yesterday, when it was time to go to lunch ("All right, Blackie, you 'n me we're gonna take a ride Downtown...") he put his Bart Ticket into the turnstile, hopped on the train, got off at Montgomery Street...and heard the most delightful saxophone music. It was this guy playing, of all things, 'Nemia' by John Coltrane.



Now what would you expect a young kid cadging for change in a Bart Station at Christmas to be playing on his saxophone? 'We Wish You A Merry Christmas.' 'Deck The Halls.' 'It Must Have Been the Mistletoe.' You know, standards.

Nope, he was playing Coltrane. Plot immediately thought about his fine friend Miss Domin-Nik who has written about seeing signs in the most unusual places. This was clearly a sign.

(Maybe you didn't know that 'Nemia' was going to be Baby Isabella's middle name until they settled on 'Louise.')

Plot set a buck in the man's horn case, then slid his Bart ticket into the turnstile to get out of the station -- nothing came back. The machine read: EXACT FARE. NO TICKET RETURNED. Uh oh.

At lunch, Plot listened as Over-not-Under announced that he, Over-not-Under, had been let go, that his position had been eliminated, that his last day was tomorrow, and that from here on out The Great Plotnik would be working with a new staff.

(CLEARUP TIME: That's Over-not-Under having been let go, not Plotnik. Let us make that perfectly clear. ONU is retired, not TGP.)

This is not good news, but it isn't the worst news. Plot immediately ran down and bought another BART ticket and loaded it up.

Plot will hate to lose Over-not-Under. He has always been the only person in the entire organization with a writing background -- as Managing Editor he was an ex-newspaper man himself and taught Plot all about form, and the first paragraph, and, not, using too, many commas and above all, to research everything and assume the Press Agent who is promising that THIS YEAR'S FELON FESTIVAL IS THE LARGEST FELON FESTIVAL ON THE FIRST FOUR PLANETS FROM THE SUN is smoking crack and lying like a rug. Nobody else at OLI, except for Plotnik, has ever given two hoots about anything but page views. Sigh.

But OLI is still publishing. The Great Plotnik is still in demand. For how long, we never know, do we? For his part, Plot ran downstairs to hear another chorus of Nemia, but the sax player had already jumped on another train and headed to a brand new station.