The History of Great Things by Elizabeth Crane

News; unfortunately, they put you on the graveyard shift. One night, during your three a.m. lunch break, one of the local weathermen sits down next to you in the commissary, asks if you mind having some company. You tell him you don’t mind at all; the weatherman is super cute, even though it’s hard to tell with the suit and the combed hair and the moustache, which you are way not into. It’s 1984. Didn’t people stop having moustaches about five years ago? You’re not really up-to-date on weatherman style; maybe this is überhip on the weather scene. The commissary is a bleak landscape at three in the morning. The room has no windows, dropped ceilings, and fluorescent lights; it’s like a grade school cafeteria without the noise, which would be a welcome relief from the odd, steamy silence. The only other person here is a janitor eating some pudding on the other side of the room. Roger McMenamee , the weatherman says. You say Hi, Betsy Crane, yeah, you do the weather, right? I do, but at 3:25 a.m. I’m sort of the tree falling in the forest of weathermen. You smile. So . . . if you talk about the weather, is that like, work? Exactly. Esoteric subjects are wide open, though. Oh good. I was hoping to talk Derrida tonight. He laughs and asks what you did to get yourself on the late shift. I guess I graduated from college with no previous work experience? He nods. Oh, that’s good. You have a chance of getting out then. You aren’t really sure what he’s talking about. I drank my way onto overnights . You smile, assume he’s joking. You are not yet at the point where you might talk about your own drinking mistakes. Everyone drinks in college. When you do talk about your drinking mistakes, it’s with a certain amount of pride. That time you and your friends got loston the Beltway back to DC after a house party in Arlington and mistook the Peruvian embassy for your dorm is still hilarious to you, even though it was not hilarious at all to the Peruvian diplomats, who nearly had you taken away by the cops. Roger the weatherman has a curious smile on his face as you tell him this story, nods in a way that you can’t totally break apart, and you’re usually good at reading people. He asks what department you’re in; you tell him you’re sending facsimiles in the traffic department, ask if he knows what a facsimile is. He laughs, says he knows what the word means. You say Well, it’s like sending a letter over the telephone very slowly . He thanks you for educating him, you tell him you didn’t know until you got there that traffic wasn’t traffic, like car traffic; he laughs again, finds you charming. Would you like to dine together again, perhaps somewhere with fewer mayonnaise-based choices? You say Sure, I’d love to .
    Dinner with Roger the weatherman is surprisingly fun. He’s funny. You are big into funny. So did you study . . . weather in college? It’s called meteorology , Roger says. But no. He tells you he didn’t go to college at all, that he was a comic before he was a weatherman. No kidding? Actually, all kidding. Okay, I gave you that one. So . . . how did you get into weather then? Believe it or not, I was recruited , he says. They found me at a comedy club, where I also happened to be bussing tables, and when they told me what the salary was I told them I had always wanted to be a weatherman. I used to bus tables! you say. I knew we were soul mates , Roger says. He’s kidding, but he’s flirting-kidding, and it’s fun.
    The waitress comes to take your drink order. You ask for a vodka and soda. Roger says he’ll just have the soda. You try to hide your disappointment that he’s making you drink alone, but he gets it. Trust me, you don’t want me to drink. I don’t? Well, maybe you do. Are you into drooling and public nudity? Not so much ,you say. Yeah, not too many women are. He said