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Monstech

by Adam Gaylord

It’s tough being a monster nowadays. With the constant threat of terrorism, global warming, and yet another Michael Bay film, the average person just doesn’t have enough fear left at the end of the day for what’s lurking under the bed.

More and more monsters are being forced to find new employment, and we at Monstech are here to help. Monstech gives monsters like you the skills and resources necessary to succeed in today’s workplace. We’ll work with you to turn your strengths and passions into not just another job, but a meaningful and satisfying career.

Just listen to these satisfied customers:

“I figure, I’m a swamp monster; what do I know about business? Monstech helped me get trained in wetland delineation and aquatic plant ID. Now I own my own environmental consulting firm. Thanks, Monstech.”

“I’m not exactly tech savvy. Monstech helped me dust off my computer skills and connect with a client base. Now I translate papyri from all over the world right from the comfort of my own tomb.”

“Me hate fire. Now me firefighter. Me put out fire. Fire bad. Monstech good.”

Our highly trained call center is staffed with monsters who understand what it takes to transition into the workforce and are dedicated to making sure you succeed. As a gesture of our commitment to you, call now for your free, no obligation career information booklet containing such helpful tips as:

• Dressing for Success: Coordinating ties for multiple heads.
• Interview Etiquette: Leave your chainsaw at home!
• Conflict Resolution: When is it okay to eat your boss?

And many, many more!

So, crawl out of that hole, put down that femur, and pick up that phone. Your future awaits: call Monstech today!

Monstech: Out of nightmares and into the workforce since 1967.

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Texas Instruments TI-84 Plus CE: The Chaperone No One Asked For

by Samantha Dunne

I can’t believe Nicholas brought me to the school dance.

Me, the finest graphing technology, the Texas Instruments TI-84 Plus CE, a prisoner in the shirt pocket of a 12-year-old boy…no better than the common iPhone.

I brace myself as he pushes through the double doors of Hawley Middle School’s cafetorium, helpless to stop the taunting sure to come. Strobe lights pulsate with the impulsivity of ancestral electronics, showing none of the finesse of a fine-tuned calculator like me.

I’m not your grandmother’s calculator and these color-changing LED bulbs know it.

Yet here we all are, in the thick fog of Axe body spray, slumming it with the 2009 Yamaha stereo system and witnessing the full horror of hormonal pre-teens gyrating on the dance floor.

Count me out.

(What? I’m a calculator, not unequipped to produce humor. Get with the programming—look, I did it again.)

Nicholas tentatively ventures further into the cafetorium, which has transformed from a room with four walls, fluorescent lights and lines of lunch tables to a room with four walls, dim lights and fewer lunch tables.

There’s also a poster.

“LOVE IS FOREVER”

Mathematically speaking, that’s impossible. Love ends; math is forever. Great-grandfather Abacus taught me that. He crunched the numbers.

Nicholas takes a seat at one of the empty tables encircling the dance floor, freeing me from his sweaty shirt. He fiddles with my buttons, designing graphs his classmates couldn’t dream of.

Around him, the other students shake and bounce on the laminate tile to what my stored intel registers as Ariana Grande.

Nicholas is uninterested in Ariana Grande. He’s a nerd, relegated to the corner, with only me and a single-minded drive to solve the Riemann hypothesis on his mind. Perhaps it’s cliché, but it all adds up.

(I’m here all night, humans. Seriously. Get me out of here.)

Back at the manufacturer, the Kadio electronic calculators were full of rumors about the likes of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg toting devices to dances during their middle school days. I wonder if I’m destined for the hands of a madman billionaire?

And look what happened to them. That can’t be my fate.

Another boy approaches Nicholas, who is still bent over in his frenzied search for answers to the world in my programming.

Ugh. Jeremy.

The last time that bespectacled and freckled friend got a hold of me, the equations he produced always happened to equal 69. I nearly short-circuited. A sophisticated computer reduced to the rudimentary humor of prepubescents? What would Texas Instruments TI-108 think of me now?

Jeremy sits down in a suit that swallows him whole and crinkles as he shifts awkwardly in the chair.

“Hey,” he says.

Nicholas looks up, briefly. He can’t be stopped, punching numbers to the vibrations of the loudspeakers. He doesn’t need the music. I am his instrument.

“Hey,” Nicholas answers.

“Having fun?”

“No. You?”

“No.” Jeremy looks at me sitting on the table. “Why’d you bring your calculator to the dance?”

Nicholas shrugs. “I’m in the middle of a groundbreaking mathematical discovery.”

He isn’t.

“Cool,” Jeremy says, before reaching over and grabbing me. Oh dear.

“Wanna see something cool?” he continues.

No.

“Sure.”

Jeremy types out “58008,” more commonly known as “BOOBS.”

I really have lost all control here.

The boys double over in laughter. Even the most intelligent middle schoolers fall victim to the comedic throes of human anatomy. I malfunction in protest, which just leads to more oily fingers jamming my circuitry.

But if there’s any hope for evading a future as the calculator of an antisocial eccentric, perhaps it’s Jeremy?

He puts me down, eyes scanning the throng of middle schoolers.

“Soo, why aren’t you dancing?” Jeremy questions as a group of children pass by, casting looks at the pair.

Judgmental eyes land on me and the pre-teens giggle into their hands. I heat up. I may be an all-knowing electronic device, but not even my configuration can operate beyond the cruelty of 12-year-old girls.

“Dancing is stupid.” Nicholas looks at me on the table and fiddles with his sleeves. “My mom made me come to this thing.”

“I don’t know, I think dancing’s kinda fun,” Jeremy says. “What if we looked stupid dancing together?”

Nicholas opens his mouth in protest right as I lock optics with Mr. G—mustached and manicured, wearing the unspoken uniform assigned to every dance chaperone: tweed blazer, steam-pressed button down, name tag sticker worn with unearned pride.

58008 still lights up my screen. I feel exposed.

Mr. G saunters over, picks me up and flips me over, scanning my numerical genitalia. “What’s this, gentlemen?” he says.

I can’t get a break tonight.

Red flushes their cheeks as they make a calculated (…) effort to stifle their laughter.

“Nothing, Mr. G,” Jeremy pipes up. “We were just doing some math… for fun.”

Mr. G clucks his tongue disapprovingly. “Likely story,” he says. “You can get this back at the end of the night.”

But before he can carry me away, I debase myself and produce two variables on a graph. Dancing. I calculate a 99.95% chance Jeremy saw it before Mr. G sheathed my screen with a plastic cover.

He places me on the stage next to the sound system. The vibrations rattle my case until it slips off in front of the confiscated Samsung Galaxy S22. Great. The hottest technology seeing me like this.

Above the shrill sound of antiquated mechanics, I detect a nasal regularity belonging to Jeremy.

“Well, I guess we have to dance now. Nothing else to do,” Jeremy says.

He gets up, swaying in rhythm as he steps over to an empty spot on the dance floor. Nicholas is frozen.

“Aren’t you coming?” Jeremy says.

Nicholas shakes his head.

“I’ll look stupid…”

“You can’t look stupid next to this.” Jeremy loses all control of his appendages, his syncopated movements a neophyte attempt at breakdancing.

Nicholas’ laugh cuts through the blaring pitch of the loudspeakers.

He gets up. Steps forward. And then, the two boys disgrace the dance floor in ways madmen billionaires never could.

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Host Commentary

Just because society doesn’t always appreciate your talents, it doesn’t mean you don’t have them. Sometimes, the things that set you apart are what make you special, important, or just what your friends need you to be. I love the way this piece presents the different career testimonials so positively: these individuals aren’t trying to conform to society’s expectations, or become someone they’re not – they’re being their best selves, and taking pride in that.

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It’s incredibly rewarding to spend time doing something you excel at, but sometimes, doing something we’re terrible at in the company of friends is even better. Our true friends don’t place expectations on our shoulders. We don’t have to perform, we don’t have to hide our fear or our joy. We can try new things, we can be foolish, we can mess up and laugh at ourselves. As teens, it can sometimes take great strength of character and courage to just act our age – with so much focus on growing up, impressing our peers, conforming to expectations, that’s not always easy. Real friends will give you the space and the confidence to be exuberant, to be silly without being embarrassing, to be live each moment to the fullest. And those memories will be with you forever.