JIM'S ADVENTURE ONTHE HIGH SEAS BEGINS

Call me Jim. Some years ago (the precise number is unimportant, but it is twelve), I, being of sound mind and body, other than the fact that I am totally deaf.... I will not resort to that old saw "deaf as a doornail," as the fact that doornails are deaf has been disproven and is the topic of a peer-reviewed article in Audiology (July, 2009). It showed, through painstaking statistical analysis, that dooornails possess some rudimentary hearing. This has to do with their peculiar alignment of iron atoms. Not being sophisticated as to the scientific methods utilized by the authors, I readily admit that I found this argument very much on the obfuscatory side, but their conclusions were pretty much unavoidable: doornails are not deaf. But I digress. Every so often, the sea calls to me. "Jim," it says, "you must come down to me." Now, dear reader, I am far from the adventurous sort. I am quite happy in my life as a janitor at the customs house here in Jersey City. Actually, I hate my fucking job. My boss is a real jerk, and if you have a boss who is a real jerk too, then you know of what I speak. Anyway, the sea calls to me at odd times, like when I am cleaning the public toilets we have here in the customs house. I am reminded by the beginning of the poem Sea Fever by John Masefield: "I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely seas and sky."