Don’t spit on my cupcake and say it’s icing

I’m not sure why the title of this post is what it is. I just really liked it and thought it’d be a nice title for the post. Ah well.
Change is a weird thing. It’s talked about endlessly; most famously in the recent past by Independent electoral candidate from Mumbai South Meera Sanyal, M.S. Dhoni, a burly, violent and mustachiod resident editor of a national daily and some geezer called Barack Obama. But no one succeeds in unravelling its intricately woven sub-levels of weirdness. Its weirdness begins long before it occurs and when it’s only the sapling of an idea. And the weirdness carries on, even when you’re left staring at your blood-stained hands and the mutilated carcasses of eighteen middle-aged women.

Err... well anyway, this seems as good a time as any to bring Steady Eddie back. You might remember him from such posts as “Humans v/s Seals: The Path to Victory”, “735 things you can make from earwax” or “Piles: God’s way of telling you to cut back on the Chilli Chips”. This one, however, is Eddie’s only non-fictitious appearance on The View. Revisited it? Ok good. Now, what Steady Eddie says about change is that it works in a number of phases. Using chapters from his own life, let’s try and piece these phases together.

1) Change is desired: Eddie was stuck in a job as a pencil salesman once. It started off as an interesting job, providing him as it did, the opportunity to meet all sorts of interesting people, with uniquely quirky approaches to pencils. The man with a 12 pack of HBs lodged in an uncomfortable body cavity was particularly interesting. Despite getting to travel all over and meet aforementioned interesting peeps, Eddie wanted to break out of his cycle. He wanted a change. A completely revolutionised look at the world of formal employment was what he desired. But of course, he had now way of knowing exactly what he wanted. All he knew was he wanted a change. He made it a point to meet his granddad every week, without fail.

2) Change is needed: A few months on, the job was thoroughly tiring and uninspiring. The task of meeting new people that previously brought a twinkle to his eye, had now turned laborious. Drastically so. The pencils frustrated him with their propensity to keep breaking. And out with the sharpener again. He recalled how much he loved sharpening pencils and keeping them all nice and pointy. Now it was just another chore that had to be done. He didn’t know or care how, but he just had to get out. His visits to his granddad’s place became more frequent, consulting him regularly as he did.

3) Change is around the corner: Finally, Eddie was done selling pencils and was about to start a new job, marketing fountain pens online. He’d gone through endless interviews and sent his CV to more places than he cared to recall. Nevertheless, it all seemed worth it. It was finally about to turn around for him. Maybe life would stop sucking so hard. He’d gone and customised his keyboard, bought a new mouse and was waiting for his new job to begin. While he wasn’t gearing up, he was excitedly talking to his granddad on the phone. You see, it wasn’t really feasible to go and meet him all that often anymore. He needed to be ready for his new job.

4) Change is here: First week on the job and it ruled!!! The work itself was fun, new and exciting, the colleagues were brilliant, the bosses were understanding, encouraging, supportive and nothing, it seemed could go wrong. Those pencils and sharpening them seemed so idiotic and redundant now, he thought to himself as his little finger caressed the side of his brand spanking new keyboard with its new keys that made a crisp clackety-clack sound as he kept typing. Eddie felt a part of a real organisation and went the extra mile to ensure that his work kept his employers happy and kept him an important part of the organisation. Obviously, there was hardly any time to never mind visit, but even call granddad. A couple of “Hello granddad. Yes, work’s great” seemed to suffice every few weeks or so.

5) Change is hell: What a bunch of morons, thought Eddie to himself after another stonkingly moronic decision by his bosses a few months after he began his now-not-so-new job. There’d been a series of foolish directions given to him by people around him, but this one was a total doozy. It was getting harder to get home from work at a reasonable hour and his colleagues were just pricks. Who the hell wants to market fountain pens anyway, he asked himself as he looked at other job opportunities, where people could market colour pencils, sketch pens, magic markers online or even on the streets. Person-to-person marketing. P2P, now that’s the gig for me, thought Eddie to himself. And then there was that routine. That mind-numbing routine. Watching reruns of Happy Days was all that kept him happy these days.

(Take a break for a bit while I finish laughing about that one for just a second. Happy Days kept him happy these days. That’s a good ’un.)

Right, so then one day, he decided to call up granddad. It’d been a while since he’d spoken to the old boy. Would be good to talk to him. It would help Eddie clear his mind and think things through clearly. Granddad could always be relied upon for that: good, sensible and sage advi—...

(Too predictable? Tell me how far back you saw this coming and try not to be ridiculous about it with “Yahhh duuuude, I knew it even before you thought of blogging” type of shit)

That’s right, granddaddy was no more. He’d been unwell. He’d called Eddie to say his final farewell, but after Eddie cut the call, because he was ‘interfacing’ with some colleagues, granddad figured he’d let Eddie be. Poor chap is probably working his socks off, reasoned granddad and tried to sink into the fitful sleep that had now become a daily routine. He’d lived a good life and imparted as much knowledge as he could to Eddie. Eddie, after all, granddad knew was a good smart kid destined for big things. He could take care of himself.

So after that whole experience, now Steady Eddie believes in his new 5-step theory of change and goes around ominously telling people something about how you must always buck trends, speak your mind and among other things, be the change rather than to let that change become you, because according to him, that’s dangerous.

What a dweeb that Eddie is.