Apr
17
I was kind of hoping for a nice upbeat week after the drudgery of last weekend’s endless traveling and myriad associated ass-pains, but first JB came down with a miserable cold (which came on at his mother’s house and I had to keep reminding myself that when my sons are grown men I too will probably still think of them as my baybees and may even possibly fret to their wives over their every sniffle and moan but still, there is only so much eye-rolling a person can be expected to hold at bay before they experience something like a total system meltdown complete with a sarcastic diatribe about how I’d spent the entire night with 9 and 1 dialed on my cell phone, breathlessly waiting to hit that second 1 the moment his condition deteriorated, IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT TO HEAR) and has left him a hacking, ague-ridden husk of his former self, unable even to muster the energy to ask me if I needed my own temperature taken orally or via backdoor meatstick; then Riley got sick as hell and ran a scary fever and couldn’t sleep and oh yeah, barfed all over the backseat of my car; then I had a routine checkup for Dylan this morning that resulted in an unexpected ear infection diagnosis and a motherfucking amoxicillian prescription, AKA the Pink Stuff You’re Supposed to Get Down a Resistant Baby’s Gullet Twice a Day for How Long Wait Say That Again Are You SHITTING ME TEN DAYS?
Hi! Dosing syringes make me puke, so THIS ought to be interesting!
I remember when I thought it was stressful to go to the pediatrician when I had one child. Who was in a carseat. Now I have to keep one eye on Riley who’s beelining for the chalkboard in order to scribble giant screechy letter Rs all over it while yelling LOOK MOMMY R FOR RILEY AND ALSO ROCKET!! and the other on Dylan who oscillates between staring openmouthed at the fishtank and making a break for the front door because hey you know what’s more fun than a giant room full of unfamiliar toys a BUSY PARKING LOT.
Riley seems to be on the mend, but his mood is fractious and he’s about one serotonin level away from filming himself doing the ugly cry about how we all just need to leave Britney alone because she’s not well right now.
I only made it to work one day this week while we’re in the midst of a busy project, my house looks like it should be featured on one of those Dateline specials about pathological hoarding, and I suppose I should be happy it’s Friday but all I can think is we have the whole weekend to go still and I am le tired.
So! I’m holding out major hope this weather forecast isn’t bullshit, because RAIN TAPERING OFF sounds pretty damn good to me, in every sense of the word.
Apr
16
As I stumbled out of my teens and into my early twenties, distracted by the great quantity and variety of questionable lifestyle choices in which to submerge myself, I plowed through a seemingly endless series of low-paying, crappy jobs. There was the movie theater position where I donned a clip-on bow tie and polyester vest and spent my evenings troweling oily popcorn into giant tubs; the printing company where I had to be there at 7 AM and as a result called in sick at least 75% of the time until I finally, to everyone’s relief, quit; the graveyard shift data-entry job where I nodded off over blinking DOS commands and got thousands of paper cuts; the brief, humiliating stint at a fast-food restaurant where my greatest fear (aside from someone I knew seeing me there) was that I would be asked to clean the grease trap.
The longest I stayed at a place where I was given both a uniform and raises in nickel increments was Kinko’s. I worked there for what seemed like a very long time, mastering every position available in the store, and had it not been for the day I sort of woke up and looked at my coworker, an exhausted silver-haired former fighter pilot grinding out what should have been his retirement years being yelled at by Sunday parishioners needing 500 copies of their church program immediately and what do you mean you’re out of yellow paper and realized I was seeing my potential future, I suppose there’s a good chance I’d still be there today, wearing a FedEx apron and explaining the concept of “single to double sided” to the slackjawed new recruit for the eleventy frillionth time.
It was a menial position with 10 minute off-the-clock breaks, barely-above minimum wage pay, and the indignity of being treated like some sort of copy machine fluffer by the majority of the customers I encountered, but I was friends with all of my coworkers. We joked and laughed all day long, even when we were mired in eight hours’ worth of brain-numbing tasks—or maybe especially because we were.
I still remember all these ridiculous things that happened there. The day I was oh-so-carefully aiming a fancy map through the laminating machine and watched in sheer helpless horror as a fly spiraled downward onto the paper just as the plastic squished it flat, leaving its bloody innards permanently sealed across Italy. The time a proud dad wanted us to create a giant color copy poster of his young pre-teen son at a Hooters, two waitresses leaning over him and smiling, and the uncomfortable, impossible-to-miss erection that became more and more visible as we enlarged the stupid thing. The smarmy frat boy who demanded that we produce a “Gucci-level” printing quality for him, my coworker’s mumbled comeback as she walked to the machine, my hysterical laughter at the transaction that actually resulted in me having to go home and change my pants.
Oh, good times, Kinko’s. I went on to more professional jobs, better paying jobs, and jobs with many more benefits, but sometimes I think that stupid little copy store was the best place I ever worked.
Do you have any fond memories of your entry-level jobs?
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