Bottle Up and Explode

This is a continuation of a post I made back in May…wow, I really haven’t been blogging…

Step 11: The longest hour. That hour right after you return from lunch has got to be the longest hour of your entire life. See, each day it gets longer and longer, thus becoming the longest hour of your life - with the exception of that hour you sat next to the big, smelly guy on the plane that kept looking for the flight attendant to order his next round of drinks as a continuation of his layover hangover busting romp in the airport bar. So now you are back at work, calls are waiting, your stomach is turning after eating something that appeared to be a chicken sandwich but you are now thinking it was fried rubber, because, hey, everything tastes like chicken. Anyway, your all too brief respite is soon forgotten as the work piles up and your co-workers have all gone off on yet another birthday luncheon for someone you aren’t even sure works in your office. As your body begins to make noises and hemorrhages that alerts seismometers of subterranean movement and you think you might just spontaneously implode you look at the clock and it has only be 15 minutes since you returned.

Step 12: Afternoon “nap.” At this point you have survived the morning obstacles to the shower, the nascar race they call a morning commute, the co-worker arrival gauntlet to your desk, the over-caffeinated callers and their fix-my-problem-now user incompetence issues, and the after lunch, steel cage match, bare-fisted bout your stomach had with your large and small intestines. Now it is time for that caffeine induced afternoon crash. That blissful, quiet time of the day when you shut out the world, stare off into space as if you had blinders on. Calls go unanswered but you don’t care. Paper work blows away with the wind like leaves in autumn. Drifting, drifting away. Reality and daydreams meld together and you lose track which is which. You call your male co-worker Alice and the e-mail notification sound is like seagulls chirping just outside your beach front home. The hand on your computer screen that signifies a link can be clicked looks like one of those foam hands saying your team is #1 as your team wins the big game. Whammm. Back to reality, some server went down and the place has gone to ludicrous speed with people all up in a frenzy.

Step 13: Final countdown. Waiting, watching the clock, its 4 o’clock, its got to stop….I know, I know, too many unrelated musical references there but you get the point. Those last few agonizing minutes when you are doing everything possible to make the time go by faster…even by doing work, actual work. Amazing, never thought I would see the day when you would actually do work because the alternative is you being so bored that time has completely stopped. Now fellow disgruntled employee, hang in there for it is almost time to go, almost time to leave all of this behind, relax, sleep, then start all over again in a few hours. What a fun life we have.

Step 14: Closing time. So the clock has struck that time, you know that time, the one that releases the 300 pound weight that you’ve been supporting on your head for the past 6+ hours, that time of the day that if you work in a factory back in the 19th century or a query in Bedrock would be accompanied with a steam whistle or a really loud prehistoric bird screaming. Now it is time for the escape. Imagine that scene in Indiana Jones, no, not the one when everyone melts away for looking at the arc, you know, the one at the beginning, where Indy is stealing the golden skull looking thing. He weighs the bag of sand trying to judge to right weight, then makes the switch. All is clear right? No booty traps this time, you mean booby traps, that’s what I said, booby traps. But we all know better. And like a big ass perfectly round rock chasing after us, we take off. Throwing caution to the wind we dodge poison darts flying, jumping bottomless caverns, get chased by unruly natives with bad haircuts only to end up in a plane, sitting on a snake…there are motherf$%king snakes on the motherf$%king plane! But hey, you got out of there. Your prize? A stress-filled drive home that includes red lights at every traffic light, a bottle neck at another road repair site, and some guy on a Moped. Then you get stuck in a major traffic jam and that guy on the Moped goes tooting by with that annoying little motor like the turtle beating the hare.

Step 15: Home life. Finally you arrive home. Now what? Dinner. Maybe a little ranting to a loved one or loved ones, real or virtual (present company included). A hot shower to rid yourself of the filth that you accumulated on your body, mind, and soul over the course of the day. How ‘bout some mindless TV watching? Or a movie? Are you just wasting time until it is time to go off to dreamland? Are we all just working for the weekend? (you can never get enough ‘80s references) Well, it is now up to you to take this 15 step program and flip it on its end, heels over head, and shake things up because this daily minutia should always be avoided at all possible opportunities.