Tagged: work

Monotony – A Story – Part 9

I met her at a checkout line while buying a box of 9mm ammo and a bottle of Tylenol P.M. Yeah, that’s right; bullets and sleeping pills. Looking back, it had to have appeared as somewhat of an oddly curious combination. She strolled into my aisle, all freshly beautiful and radiant and mysterious, initially oblivious to my existence. I’d spotted her earlier, looking intently at the beauty products as I passed by and did a double take and subsequent slow down. I paused to pretend as though I was reading a box of cereal while I briefly gawked surreptitiously, but decided to keep on going once my eyeballs had their fill. They were hungry, and she fed them well. Besides, I really did have some shopping to do. A friend and I were going shooting that weekend, and I’d gone to the store to pick up a few boxes of ammo, and as a result of having slept like pure shit for what seemed like weeks, I’d also discovered the magnificently dreary prowess of Tylenol P.M. That stuff had proved to be a godsend; without it, I was up all night. The zombies that I’d normally been dreaming about? They must have been missing the hell out of my flesh. But there she was, just two feet away from me; she reminded me, in just the first glance, of all the things that I’d always wanted. All the little perfect, daydreamy shit I’d envisioned over the years, all the imagined moments, carefully cultivated images, and dream induced qualities were right there in front of me in full glory. Five feet something of just pure rainbows and sunsets. I couldn’t help but to stare…fuck it, right? Why put a painting on the wall if it wasn’t supposed to be looked at? At that moment, I thought “Why else is a beauty like that created?” So I looked, and of course she noticed me looking, and I felt a slight tinge of embarrassment as she scoped my suicidal looking purchases sprawled out on the register, bright as day.

Monotony – A Story – Part 8

So here’s the deal; how many times have you been at your desk, pretending to work of course, daydreaming of another life? How many of us sit in the gardens of our own little secret worlds, scheming of creative ways to shake things up? Dreaming of ways to just flip the script and start over? We don our masks every day and face the world with our pretend selves…most of us tend to fake our smiles, fake our enthusiasm, and fake our brains into believing that we’re all on the same team. We all do it; the customary nods, smiles, and hello’s, the traditional talk about the weather and the local sports teams and what not, and the quintessential remarks about how we all can’t wait until 5 o’clock. It’s all the same; it’s the universal language of things. It’s as if we are all actors, and to be honest, the great bulk of us could truly win Oscars and Golden Globes for our performances. We’re all actors, and we’re scarily good at it. We are all performing on a daily, acting until five o’clock, acting through meetings, acting through the bullshit until we can reach our little safe zones, wherever that may be. Yeah, I get it. It’s like we’re following a script; we’re all different pages of the same book, and not one of us has any idea as to how the story will end. It’s a very thin veneer. Part of me would rather take on that horde of stumbling, slobbering, reanimated flesh that I was dreaming about than spend one more day…one more second, even…typing meaningless entries into that meaningless database.

Monotony – A Story, Part 4

We bought ninja stars and throwing knives online and hurled them like major league pitchers at anything that we could puncture. Nothing was safe from our alcohol infused ninja wrath, as boxes, bags, and everything in between fell victim to our onslaught. We fancied as ourselves blue collar sportsmen as well, and developed our own Olympic caliber games, such as the legendary sports of Warehouse Tennis, Wall Ball, and the venerated Quarterback Challenge. We shoved hunks of raw meat and random bits of leftover lunch under a broken crevice in the concrete floor one entire summer just to see how many maggots and critters that we could attract to it. Needless to say, we succeeded in attracting a city’s worth of bugs to that hole like animals to the Ark. You name it, we did it; nothing was off limits, no dare was too great, no joke was unworthy. Great cardboard tubes that once held monstrous fabric rolls became fabled swords and wicked spears, and hole-riddled boxes stood as a testament to the epic battles and wars that we waged against each other to pass the hours. I was an Obi Wan with a cardboard tube. And the time did fly, let me tell you. It passed in a drunken haze; we spent untold fortunes of cash nearly every day on bottles of booze, bottles that we’d skillfully guzzle throughout the day by the cupful, right before the eyes of management and the front office. We toted our red Solo cups around with pride in fact, and downed our spirits in front of all who dared enter our sanctuary. We practically dared them to approach us about it. And we only got busted once. Our livers suffered greatly while playing the role of a Brita filter that summer, yet we became remarkably adept at getting the job done while being loaded to the gills on whiskey, rum, and whatever other distilled goodness we could muster. The very definition of functioning alcoholics. We were a well-oiled machine, though our gears were greased with Jack and Coke.

Monotony – A Story – Part 3

I slowly (and hesitantly) approached that prisoner of war camp on the daily, that Chernobyl-esque monument to Eastern Bloc deterioration, that shit stained hell that seemingly owned my life. I say seemingly, because at the time, it defined who and how I was. You’ve got to feel the monotony; you’ve got to feel it in order to truly understand it. Up the steps I went, through the door, and with that, each day (and the story) begins. The warehouse itself was pretty damned massive; a deep, cavernous structure stacked to the gills with weathered boxes, bags, makeshift shelving, and various pallet loads of goods for sale. It was an older building, crammed tight with little sold products, all of them well coated with a thick blanket of dust. In any case, the structure was well lit, as the many skylights provided good light where the fluorescents didn’t reach. What a joint to be in, though. Under the rusty tin roof, the place became Congo crotch hot in the summer; guaranteed and absolute sweat drenched bayou balls for all who dared to enter, and winters that would make you feel like you were setting up base camp in Antarctica. The towering shelf walls were lined with various crude drawings, and were peppered with random graffiti of tits, asses, cocks, explicit acts of sex, violence and a sprinkling of cuss words. Don’t ask why. We brandished the humor of a bunch of giggle infested twelve year olds, and we wore that childishness with pride. Our debauched state of mind was a direct product of the boredom that we faced head on, like warriors facing a great foe. Yes, it was very much like middle school all over again. And we reveled in it.