Re: (g)Urgent

Got a memo in my inbox this morning from HR at work. The subject line said "RE: Urgent" so I grabbed my emergency survival kit that I'm required to keep at my desk as a part of organizational policy and moved on to the e-mail. I bend the rules on this a little since one day I ate my rations to see what they tasted like and then refilled the kit with Glenfiddich scotch and a pack of Parliament recessed filter cigarettes. Both will act like currency when the grid goes down and buy me three times as many rations as the original kit held.

So, there I am clutching my survival kit and reading the attached memo. It was titled...I've got to fudge this a little bit or I could probably get in toruble. Basically, it was my organization's policy for returning to work if returning from a trip to Mexico. Here are the highlights.

"For seven consecutive days after returning home, take your temperature each morning before going to work." You are allowed to come to work if your temperature is below 100 degrees and do not have a runny nose, sore throat, nasal congestion or cough.

Umm. Sounds like allergies combined with a hangover so far.

Now, for the if you do portion. It says you should contact your doctor. That's super brilliant. Oh, and you should tell your doctor that you just got back from Mexico. Just for fun, tell him it was via Thailand and you got into some weird shit over there with ping pong balls and three trannies and a scooter.

Now, if after seven days, your temperature is good, you can stop taking your temperature.

Wait, not done yet. Say this next part in a Jeff Foxworthy voice. If you have not been to Mexico recently, but have been in contact with someone who has? You just might have swine flu.

So, all of this is all fine and dandy, but they added one stipulation to the e-mail they sent out the memo with. It said this applies to all faculty and staff except for one group. Of course, the group is the portion that is primarily hispanic. Love it. The one group that probably has the highest chance of visiting Mexico is not part of this policy.

In the meantime, all hypochondriacs driven by fear, raise a glass and let's toast to the new disease to fear while we ponder waiting in line under a makeshift tent at the nearest hospital.

And We're Back

Wishful conversation at work:

(Real part) Douchebag: "It smells like tobacco Hugh must be at his desk."

Wishful reply: "That's funny. I thought it smelled like assholes and thought that you must be near my desk."

So, stuff should be getting exciting again. I've been pretty much dead man walking at work which has caused an "unsettled" mental meteorological mood. The dead giveaway was a request from my boss to put together a document of all my job duties with examples and time commitments of each. That means a raise justification unless you've just gone through a round of layoffs. In that situation it's a deathblow.

Work stress has become nearly debilitating at times and makes me just want to sleep all the time. I applied for a new job and that was going extremely well, but unraveled last Friday. I retired to my man-cave with a sense of defeat, but was lured out for a Friday night late birthday dinner. Dinner was delicious. The resulting cop beatdown was an epiphany.

So, there have been some cosmic coincidences lately that were ignited by the beatdown. For the record, I was wasted, but being responsible and walking to a couch to crash on. I'd say that they were justified for a drunk in public, but there wasn't even any public around. I was walking down a suburban street minding my own business. When one cop's knee pushed my face into the pavement by way of his knee to the back of my neck I realized I needed to make some life changes. Had I not asked him to pull out my wallet and check my ID and look up the same name with a ",SR" on the end of it, it could have ended quite badly. No cop wants to beat up a cop's son. They got me a cab and for the bargain price of $30 I averted a complete disaster.

The next morning I decided to try and put things into the proper place and put a toe in the alcohol abstinence pool. I figured if I eliminated that chaos variable that the resulting chaos would be much more imaginable. It feels like a false promise, but it's something I need to do while I'm trying to figure out what's next. It's an awesome super power to be able to destroy anything and create complete havoc while drinking, but x-ray vision would be way cooler as a super power. Even my super power of being able to look at kids on swings or bikes and make them stack is a better super power.

The morning turned to evening and I noticed three kids sneaking around my front patio like squirrels orchestrating a bird seed heist from a bird feeder. I thought they were friends with my neighbor's kids and just dismissed it when I saw one of them dart past my sliding glass door. When they appeared a second time I thought I would ask them what they were doing. One of them replied "Nothing." I in turn said back, "Sure, dude." I had just officially became a "get off my fuckin' lawn you kids" adult.

I let my neighbor know that there was some Tom Fuckery going on on his porch and then about an hour later he knocked on my door to tell me that someone took his cooler. The same cooler that he always stocks with cold beers for his neighbors. One neighbor who had cried at me at 8:30 that morning while he drank a vodka gimlet and told me that he had called in sick to work with the excuse that he was picking up his son from jail. Helluva an excuse. I'd go swine flu before I used that. So, anyway, I see the cooler theft as a sign that maybe some dudes need to cool their drinking jets. Last night he confided in me that he's begun going to AA classes, which is not a bad idea. So, that was cosmic coincidence two. I'm expecting some other type of Budweiser recall to be cosmic coincidence three.

So, anyway, I'm going to try to quit booze and see how this fucked up freak flag is going to unfurl. My best chance of winning is to have full control of all my wits, but it's really hard to motivate in a situation like this. Even then, being well fed and well rested is the name of the game, so eating and sleeping are the first step towards getting through it. It's scary is all.

Sadly, this horrible memory of my mom standing above me while I was a sad seven year old and singing "Every party needs a pooper that's why we invited you..." and then calling me "Eeyore" because I was a bummed out little kid all the time is on repeat in my head. Just goes back to the plain fact that I'm a giant manbaby. Thank god, it'll all work out based on the one fact that it has to.