Organs, package-slammers, manholes -- the undertones of homoeroticism among salesmen are not unlike those created by the ass-slapping men in tights who play football for a living and the pudgy, drunk men who pay money to scream their name. I'd had enough. I retired to my suite on the 11th floor and soon fell fast asleep. That night, I dreamt I was trapped in a giant chicken coop with the Phantom of the Opera. Headless chickens danced around us to the distant sound of a Hammond organ. I tried to gnaw my way out of the coop while the Phantom rapped about the existential loneliness of the C-Level guy. He was wearing a big gold chain. When I bit down on the wire that formed the wall of the coop, my teeth shattered. Just before my 5:45 wakeup call roused me from this revelry, I remember screaming at the Phantom about my inability to fix my teeth due to my lack of dental coverage. He offered me his mask, but I threw it back in his disfigured face.

I didn't have a clue what my dream meant, but it was unsettling. I went upstairs to the indoor pool, located on what the girl at the front desk called the "pee ay-ch" level, for a morning swim. After a sumptuous room-service breakfast and the usual morning maintenance I packed, dressed and went down to the lobby to rendezvous with the rest of the group for the march to the office. There was nobody there. I circled the lobby. Not one soul from the night before. Thinking I was perhaps early, I took up a post by the door next to a 3-by-5-foot poster advertising the chicken show -- officially known as the International Poultry Exposition. Highlight events included the presentation of the Poultry Processor of the Year Award and a forum called "The Avian Influenza Experience." I was thinking about what a great band name that would be when Vole Man appeared at my side. He was significantly less manic than the night before.

"Hey. We're either early or late. What do you think."

I thought he was asking a question, but there was no rising intonation at the end of the sentence to indicate this was the case, no aural question mark. Wanting to seem like a man of decisive action, I suggested we wait three minutes and then walk on our own. This satisfied Vole Man. He turned his vole back, his vole head hung low between his vole shoulders, nodding.

"Hey. You see this." Mimicking his ask-without-asking Jedi interrogation technique, I gestured toward the chicken show poster with my jacket. He turned back to face me. "It's the chicken show." I was out on a limb now. Would he recognize the profound comedy of the chicken show, or would he draw an imaginary line through my name on the list of candidates in his head? I felt that I was in safe territory, as I was pretty sure he had not the foggiest idea of my name.

"Heh. The chicken show," said Vole Man. He raised a nonexistent eyebrow, which made me uncomfortable. So uncomfortable that I cracked and revealed my backup plan for the day.

"Yeah. I figure if it all goes to shit by midday I'll just swing on over to the chicken show, get me a rubber chicken or something."

He looked at me square in the face, the tip of his vole nose hanging down to just above his upper lip. "If it all goes to shit."

Before I had time to answer his question that was not necessarily a question with a bumbling explanation about my cab ride from the airport and the hilarity of the chicken show concept, he turned on his little vole heels and scampered out the door, dragging his luggage behind him with one hand and gesturing for me to follow with the other. I wondered: If the uniformed bellhop hadn't been there to hold it for both of us, would Vole Man have held the door for me? I pondered this in the silence as we walked the four blocks to the office.

I felt comfortable in the office. Located on the eighth floor of a restored 1920s hotel, it was dot-com redux: navy blue carpets, three-dimensional geometric shapes jutting out at odd angles from the light-blue walls, glass everywhere, and a busty receptionist with a lush Georgia accent. On her desk was a basket of the softest peaches I've ever caressed in public. They felt like baby chickens. The conference room in which we met (Vole Man and I arrived five minutes late) was called the "Spaghetti Junction Conference Room." I thought it was rather droll to name a conference room after what sounded like a children's cooking show. When I later inquired of an employee where the name "Spaghetti Junction" came from, I was informed that "Spaghetti Junction" was the name of a highway interchange that was the site of more fatal accidents in Georgia than any other junction of its kind. People were killed at Spaghetti Junction. Frequently. This may or may not be true, I do not know. But I do know this: None of the other conference rooms had names.

I was assigned a seat at the far end of the 30-foot conference table. At my place I found a clear package containing around two pounds of printed collateral describing the company's main intellectual products, the day's itinerary, bios for the six people I was to interview with over the course of the day and a notebook with a black cover embossed with the company's name -- CogentResponse. It was filled with blank pages of the kind of gridded paper that I hadn't seen since I took high school chemistry for the second time. What was the name of this kind of paper? I assumed the book was for taking notes during the two-hour introductory session just beginning. It sure beat the pink, spiral-bound, one-subject number I would have been otherwise forced to pull from my laptop bag.

The presentation began with a few words from the new president of the company. He was a large, affable guy. I had already spoken with him at length on the telephone. His was the "view of CogentResponse from 50,000 feet." I thought about my flight. I had the window seat. Everything pretty much looks the same from 50,000 feet. I directed my attention to drawing big boxes by connecting the little boxes printed on the paper in my CogentResponse notebook. I suddenly remembered: graph paper! Everything was coming back to me now. I may have been in the woods for a while, but I was not off the map. I felt pretty good about my prospects.

The accompanying PowerPoint presentation was filled with charts and boxes and Venn diagrams all designed to illustrate to the audience why CogentResponse was unlike any other consulting practice. It looked a lot like the presentation I'd seen given by just about every other consulting practice. I decided to take some notes. This is when the trouble began in earnest. President Bill was not speaking a language that one would immediately recognize as English. He was speaking an obscure dialect known as Business. I once spoke Business fluently, but I was now having a hard time understanding much of what was said. "Share empiricals to create synergy." "Data drives collaborative learning to create lock-in." "Leverage unparalleled knowledge to generate superior prototypes."

I felt like an adult returning to the foreign country of his birth, not having heard his native language since his last diaper change. I had a sense of vague familiarity when the locals started making noises, but an inability to determine the meaning. I required nonverbal communication. I needed hand gestures, grunts, the beating of breasts, the flapping of wings. The PowerPoint was of no assistance. Halfway down the other side of the table, Salesman Mike nodded deeply to express his profound appreciation for the company's ability to "streamline human systems utilizing technology enabled processes." My organ did not make these noises, but apparently his did.

Two hours later I knew even less about what this company did than when I'd arrived that morning. It is important to note that I did not come in blind. I spent a great deal of time doing my "due diligence" in preparation for the phone conversations with President Bill and salespeople Brian and Julie, the success of which led to my invitation to this meeting. I had looked at their Web site.

The problem was that this didn't seem at all like the same company. What they did made sense to me two weeks ago. Now it certainly did not. The only thing that happened in the interim was an unexpected seven-day trip to Nova Scotia during which I arrived about 40 minutes too late to witness the death of my grandfather from cancer, ingested about 12 of my late Pa's leftover Ativan to stop the dreams I was having about Pa's resemblance to the creature Gollum as he lay dead but still warm on his hospital bed, and took a few trips to the "woodpile" with my Uncle Smokey. I was certain my inability to comprehend the presentation was not chemical.

I wasn't really too worried about it, though. This was just a sales job. I'd learn about the products prior to and during training. To get to training, all I had to do was tease these people with a brief introduction to the smooth, smart young man known as Andrew Grant. They'd love me, hire me, and whisper to each other how I might "represent the future of the business." "Sure," they'd say between awed glances as I strode past them down the hall, whistling Puccini and throwing the occasional cartwheel, "He might come off a little eccentric once in a while, but that's part of what makes him such a visionary. He's no package-slammer."

The presentation ended and it was time for the interviews to begin. I had my first interview with Julie, a salesperson who was also President Bill's daughter. I had talked with her for a while on the phone and figured I had already blinded her with charm. As long as I didn't belch or fart in her presence, she'd sense only a pleasant white glow during our time together. Or so I thought.

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