This all started last night. I was up so late looking at porn -- I finally found some scans of the best pictorials from Penthouse, from the halcyon days, around the turn of the millenium, the first issues where the magazine finally made the plunge into full-core hardcore, with blowjobs and actual fucking, and even peeshots -- that I got, like, less than four hours of sleep. I mentally made a note that because I will probably be out the door late, I'll just put on my zip sweater. I wasn't late -- thank Buddha I was up on time -- but I threw on that sweater like I intended.
As I was driving to work, I realized that I had screwed up my system. I have four college sweaters: hoodies from USC and St. Thomas, and regular sweaters from Minnesota and Georgetown. Because I have OCD, I made it a point that when I got back into the workforce, I would wear these four sweaters four of the five workdays, and one of the two zip sweaters I have the fifth.
The zip I was wearing I wore a few days ago. Then I remembered that I did not wear my U. sweater yet. And it bothered the living shit out of me. All morning I really, really was upset at myself for not remembering that I hadn't worn it today. I mean, it takes a tad longer to pull something over my head, but not that longer, and I wasn't late, so why not?
I tried to calm myself down. What are you gonna do, self, drive home and change? Waste gas as you pull away from your route on the way to your other job tonight? You know you're gonna forget come Monday, so get over yourself.
But I couldn't. This scenario slowly took over my mind. It's in the 40's and drizzling all day -- perfect weather for my bulky Minnesota sweater. When I go into my car to try and take a nap during breaks, I will pass out knowing that I'll be appropriately warm, not too cold. I won't be able to do this next week, when the forecast is sunny and temperatures in the 60's. I try taking a nap in my U. sweater and I'll sweat through my clothes. That means I'll have to drop wearing my college gear next week because it'll be too hot. Which made completing it this week a priority.
Alll of this thinking was driving me crazy. And I was mad at myself for not doing it. All morning, before lunch, all I could think about was figuring out if I had the time to take a quick short-cut to home to switch sweaters. At least I could keep up my weekly college sweater quota for my night job. And my U. sweater might be a little too geeky for the hot bitch sitting in the row in front of me.
We had lunch at high noon. I could feel the pull of having less than four hours of sleep weighing on my body clock. But I felt my chance to do something in my 30 minutes to myself -- and since we've been doing things late the past couple days, it's more like 35 minutes. Hmmm, I thought to myself, traffic isn't that bad in the morning, so it won't be even that bad at lunchtime. It was about 15 or 20 minutes getting here ... I could go home now and get the sweater. Let's do it! So despite not really needing to go home, despite driving an extra 16 miles, despite needing some shut-eye and despite giving into my disorder, I decided to start my car and bolt for home -- just so I can grab my sweater.
I felt a rush as I drove away from work. Can I do this? I thought. There was an incredible sense of freedom, an escape that I fundamentally need in my life, however unnecessary. But to assuage my logical side, I decided there some other things I could do to kind of justify this trip. I had a social security card I meant to take out of my wallet; don't want anybody stealing it. And I could check up on Grandmother, just in case. Plus, there is the matter of picking up new registers for my checkbook. I'm full up and I haven't balanced it yet this year because I ran out of space. If traffic falls right, I'll have time to stop by the bank, get those, and come back to work in time.
Well, as fast as I drove, I got home in about 17 minutes -- not a great pace. Grandmother wasn't home. Did drop off my SS card, though, and I did remember to grab the sweater. I'm bad at remembering to do the thing I go out of my way to do frequently. In the meantime I saw that these bastard gas stations jacked up the price of a gallon from $3.78 to $3.96 over the course of the morning. I thought the price of a barrel of crude oil has gone down!
Red lights scuttled my plan of going to the bank; have to get back to work. And I turned off my car, in the same parking spot as I had this morning, 32 minutes after I left. Since we always run late, it's good enough.
There were papers being handed out by the time I got back to my station, but it didn't look like the main supervisor had begun her "lesson," so I was good. Didn't accomplish much, but the fact that I could drive all the way home and make it back without getting in trouble was good enough for me. I have that fact I can store away in my mental databank.
So I look through these papers we're handed. All of a sudden I hear a phone ringing. Dude, turn off the phone! Everybody's looking at where it's coming from.
Then this fear slowly creeps over me: The ringing is coming from below me. No ... no. I recently changed my ringtone; that's why I felt that it was somebody else's. But it wasn't. I reach into my jacket pocket and take out my cell. Yep, that ringing was my phone. Me, the good ol' boy, the one who secretly prided himself on being the teacher's pet all through my years in elementary, junior high and high school, forgot to turn off his goddamn phone after turning it on to begin my lunch break.
Then the catcalls began. My immediate supervisor said, hopefully jokingly, I get one warning. The shit-talking fatboy behind me warned me, probably not jokingly, that next time I have to hand it over and pay five bucks to get it back because that's how it's done in high school these days. Thanks, you fucking asshole. We were one of the few young people here. I thought you'd be kind of cool. You turn out to be one of those bullies that won't stop talking or asking smartass questions because you want everybody in the room to know how bewildered you are about all this bullshit we're being paid to work on. Please shut your goddamn mouth from now on, or else I'll have to turn around and spit in your face. Oh, to have an excuse to finally do that to some prick.
I felt the good vibes that I felt I had the past couple days melt away. My supervisors seemed to like my production; now they think I'm a fuck-up. My face turned red when, immediately after I turned off my phone, the main supervisor got on her microphone to warn everybody to turn off their cellphones. I couldn't concentrate on the task in front of me; the ridicule suffocated me, the eyes from my judging co-workers shooting holes into my torso. My embarrassment turned to resentment, naturally -- What, you've never fucked up in your job? Go to hell, I hate you all!!! And goddamn you for putting me on probation, I just forgot to turn off my phone, OK? I had these visions of throwing things around the room as I leave for getting fired. Man, I'm paranoid.
Of course, all I have to blame for this is myself. If I didn't jet towards home for my fucking sweater, I would've been on my regular routine of turning on my phone, setting my alarm, closing my eyes, failing to nap, waking up to my alarm, turning off my alarm and phone, then heading back inside. I was in a rush getting back to my computer, and I forgot to turn off my phone. By the way, it was Mother calling me to make sure I was not coming home early tonight. I'm not; I'm out late to blog about this, actually.
The mature thing to do was to quickly apologize to both of my supervisors and vow that it would never happen again. Of course, I can't guarantee that because I'm human. I am now deathly afraid that I set my alarm for a future time before disabling it or shutting off my phone. It would then turn itself automatically on, unbeknownst to me, and I'd be terminated. I actually took the battery out of my phone in case I did that. And I might do that from now on. Fuck me.
For what it's worth, they both understood and didn't act like I owed them anything or was under their scrutiny. I told them I was expecting a call; the main reminded me messages can be taken from reception. I will take that under consideration, just in case.
Yet, I still feel under the gun. And still ashamed.
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