Well, hey, yinz guys, it's finally the fricking weekend, and I'm sitting at home on my ass at last. I never realized how hard this 9-6 job thing would be until it happened, and it made me realize a very important thing. I haven't done this since high school. Seriously, I get up at, like, six, leave at seven thirty, catch two buses to Oakland, and get there by around 9:10. I rush into work, whirl around like a coked up fucking octopus, and leave in a daze around six. Then I hop two more buses back to the apartment, fall in the back door around 7:00, scarf some food lying down, and fall asleep before the news. I did live exactly this same routine in high school and seem to remember having no problems, and I was like, yeah, I can handle that again. But I forgot some crucial factors that make this no longer possible. I shall list them below, as a public service to anybody else thinking about "the real world."
1. I am not seventeen. I cannot live on cherry coke and bacon bits, and four hours of sleep a night.
2. I am not only not seventeen, it has been (... counting on fingers ...) lots of years since I have been
seventeen. In fact, it's been a good little while since I was even twenty-two. That means I am waaaay
out of practice at this professional high-stress endurance shit.
3. Sitting at the coffee shop for an hour after work getting buzzed up is fun, but your body's ability to
digest that much caffeine breaks down after the rigors of college.
4. I have kicked the dayquil monkey off my back, so I no longer have the "dimethorpan buzz" or
whatever it was that kept me going for the last four years of my private college prep career.
5. I didn't have to think, gee, are my kilt and polo shirt today acceptable business attire? It now actually
takes time and effort to fricking get dressed.
6. The emergence of Britney Spears, boy bands, and egregious abuse of the morning talk show have made reading over people's shoulders the last fun commuting activity. That, and imagining that the entire
bus gets sucked into another dimension in a langoliers-esque scenario.
So as you can see, the cushy regular schedule and nice pay aren't really what they're cracked up to be. I do have to work awfully hard for my dollars, and I give up most of my free time to do it. But this is America, after all. If I can dodge the ulcer bullet, kiss enough ass and be fifty percent more aggressive, I might have enough money to enjoy my retirement for a year or two, until I die of massive heart failure. And that's my great, glorious dream, my friends.
(index of craptacular news)
tasty paycheck june 27 issue
Tasty Paycheck index page