how david letterman saved my left hand

HOW DAVID LETTERMAN SAVED MY LEFT HAND

i once ate pizza every night

bought $50 books i never read

and kept the fridge stocked with packets of coke

then i quit college

got a job

in an injection molding plant

second shift

pressed the same two buttons

at the exact same time

4,000 times a night

for a buck over minimum wage

out came plastic earpieces for glasses

and those plastic thermometers

people stick in turkeys in microwaves

the buttons were overhead

and about two feet apart

you had to use two hands

you had to press them simultaneously

for the machine to work

the design was to prevent

crushed hands, skulls, law suits, workman’s comp, any bleeding

that might occur

on their $1,000,000 machine

but i figured out how

by using a pen in my mouth

and standing on my toes

i could press the left button this way

and simultaneously the right button normally

(or the other way around, but

i think you’ll find most people

would prefer to lose their left hands)

i had the time

eight hours  a night

five days a week

and headed nowhere

and in need of a ferrari

but i hung on to my left hand

i’d drive home in time for letterman

mom left dinner leftovers warming in the oven

i watched lettermen with the volume down low

because my father could hear a spider plant sneeze

i sat in the dark eating chicken

mashed potatoes, stuffing, greens

laughing

at letterman’s

first episodes

and it was like a shaman

had landed in my living room

the thing i liked most about letterman

more than his jokes, his grin

how he grilled guests or his band

was how he made not knowing

what the hell he was doing

look so respectable