Just Off Center

It’s been far too long, but I’m still here and still stomping ass in all directions. I’ve just been moving faster than a Klansman at the Million Man March. So rather than give a great long rundown of what’s kept me away I’ll just sum up and go right on to complaining about my spoiled life and poking fun at the less fortunate.

WORK – Straight, hardcore, unadulterated, full blown motherfucker. I haven’t busted ass like this since those two weeks I temped out to a stamping plant. Basically my company has sent me to a new company to implement our services in a short term contract with the hopes that perceived value of those services will be so clear and high that a new etended and expanded contract will be signed. So I’m trying my hardest to get this done by myself while ten to fifteen senior managers in both my company and their have fucking meeting to discuss the work that I do. Something’s backwards here.

MORE WORK – I finally put in my two weeks at the second job. Last Friday Nina and I met for drinks and when it was time for me to go to work, I was pretty buzzed. I walked in and took a minute of my manager’s time to tell him. No hard feelings. No burned bridges. He understood. So now I feel like shit because I just have this thought that I’m a quitter and that a strong man would just keep working without letting it get to him like this. But then I think of how tired I am all the time and how I will finally be able to have my evenings to do what I wish. I’m there.

HOME – Where? What’s that? Oh, that dark place where I keep my work clothes and shave my face three times a week. The house is fine. I took on a little painting project several weeks ago where I painted one of our closet shelves and added more shelves to make a perfume display area for Nina. That went well. Sam is still a fucking slob who lies and spends every off hour he can sleeping and just generally being disgusting. He’s working long hours now, lots of overtime. That means he’s making money. And THAT means his ass is about to be out the door.

So one interesting thing that took place the other week was I got to witness a crash scene being processed. I was driving up this long stretch of two-lane road that gets me to the Interstate, just like everyone else in the state. Well there had been another head-on collision toward the last few miles of the drive. When that happens, they close off the road and make everyone turn around and take an alternate route. The last time this happened it took me almost two hours to get to work. So when I saw all the cop cars coming behind me and the traffic backing up way before it should have been, I knew. But I figured if I could just wait it out, even if it took 45 minutes to reopen the road, I’d still get there sooner.

Everyone started turning around and headed back, and I just kept taking their spot. Until eventually the last car behind me turned around and I was all that was left, about 200 yards from the crash site. It was nasty too. Two pickups off the sides of the road and both looked like the driver’s side was smashed in. I pulled onto the shoulder and threw it in park. A Deputy walked around the wreck and motioned for me to turn around. I ignored him. I just sat there for several minutes while the fire truck and EMTs showed up.

After a few more minutes, one of the firemen motioned me to pull onto the grass and drive up. I thought “Sweet! That only took ten minutes”. Well it was only abot twenty feet closer I got when a Sheriff came up and started yelling at me. “Where do you think you’re going?! You’re not driving through our scene, are you crazy!?!”

“Yes, I’m crazy, not get back to your scene!” I shouted back. I don’t think he heard me. Besides, I was told to move up. What was his problem? Then when he went to the fireman to see why I was there, he came up to me and yelled “Pull over there! There’s a Med-evac on the way. You’ve really bought yourself into it now!”

I was feeling a bit isolated and outnumbered, but there was nothing more I could do. I was stuck. Fine. A few minutes later the helicopter showed up. It was so cool. The thing just flew right over me. Nobody was paying any attention to me. And when they rolled out the injured man, I had to look. He didn’t look so bad actually. He was banged up and in the full head support on. But he might have just been bruised up. Then the helicopter left. And it occurred to me. Two trucks. Two drivers. Only one person moved. Ewwww… somewhere up there were fucking parts for hauling off.

When the chopper left I was told to turn around. Fuck. After all that, I still had to turn around and it took me over two hours to get to work that day. When I got to work, my supervisor told me “You didn’t tell me you’d be late getting in this morning.” To this I replied “Neither did the poor fuck whose dead body got hauled off in pieces after he got in a head-on collision, closing up the only road to the I-60 and causing me to take 2:15 to get to work!” That shut that situation down pretty quick.

More to come. Lots fucking more.

# posted by Mike @ 7:26 AM