27 August 2002 - 3:56 p.m. Monday. OK this is the thing: when you wake up naked and tired, and the alarm-clock is flashing 12:00, you know the day's gonna suck. First comes the dehydration headache, like someone pushed two long thin needles through your temples, piercing your eyeballs and fixing them to the inside of your eye sockets. Gotta find a towel, gotta find some pants, gotta find out what time it is. Where the hell are my pants? No towel. Gotta run down the stairs naked, my dick alternatingly slapping against my thighs and my belly. Run past the open window, trying to cover up my obsceneness. Hey kids look at me! Oh yeah, don't slip on the cat vomit. Bleagghhh! The clock says 8:27. I'm screwed. A two minute shower. That's right, a two minute shower. I forgot to wash my left arm. Five minutes later I'm screwing down the highway, when I remember that my boss told me to call if I'm going to be more than 15 minutes late. I am going to be more than 15 minutes late. I stop at a gas station. I use the payphone and my calling card. "We're sorry, you're card is empty. Have a nice day, asshole." I try to buy a new phone card at the counter. The guy says, "what you want buy?" I say, "a phone card?" He says, "no, what you want buy? See, want buy?" I say, more slowly this time, "a phone card." He's becoming annoyed and says, "no, see, what you want buy? See, want buy? Here." I think maybe he means how much do I need on a phone card, so I say, "five dollars?" H's really irritated now and yells, "No! OK, see what you want buy? What? See? OK?" I stand still and stare at him for exactly 6 seconds. I turn around. I get in my car and careen out of the lot, my tires spinning and smoking. At this point, banging my head on the steering wheel seems like the best idea I've ever had. I calm myself down, think for a few moments and scream, loud I get to another gas station. I *successfully* purchase a five dollar phone card. Wow. Somebody kill me. I get to the payphone, which is practically on the highway. I turn the volume way up. I dial. I hear, "Thank you for calling. . . mumble mumble, murmur mururm." Bang! The phone reciever hurtles down toward the cradle, again and again and again. I have less hair now. I drive to another payphone. My car has new dents. I tell my boss I'm going to be late. The phone card recording tells me that I have $2.17 left on my five dollar phone card. I call the 1-800 number. They say, "Oh, there's a surcharge of $1.00 for using a payphone." I say, "uh, OK. Um, uh, WHAT THE HELL IS THIS CARD FOR, YOU FRIGGING MORONS?!!?! WHY THE HELL WOULD I BUY A GODDAMN PHONE CARD THAT I'M NOT GONNA USE ON A PAYPHONE?!!?!? Aghhh! Aghhh! Aaaaaaaggghhhhhh!" The operator says, "You have 16 cents left on you card. Have a nice day." *Click* Nice day. NICE DAY!? NICE DAY??!?!?!?? I am now convulsing like a break dancer--shaking like an epileptic hypothermia victim--flailing like a chihuaua on heroine, on the verge of a primeordeal scream, when all I really want to do is stand ankle deep in seawater, hold the sun with both hands and press it into my face until my arms burn away. But, instead I am doing THIS, with an expired inspection sticker, dangerously underinflated tires, and a freaky vein-thing going on on my forehead. I get to work, and my boss says, I swear to god she says, "Where the fuck have you been?" Tick. . . tick. . . My heart clamps down like a fist, forcing all the blood from my marrow into my face. I become burning floor beams, creaking under the pressure of charcoal and old, dry wood. I get so close to her that you could not fit a dime between our noses, and I tell her about the dehydration headache, and the two minute shower, and the first phone card, and the guy at the counter who couldn't understand me, and the second phone card, and the payphone I couldn't hear, and the 16 cents, and the payphone surcharges, and the squealing tires, and the sun, and the expired inspection sticker, and how the woman I work for is a fucking cunt, and that I'm not in the mood for this shit, and that my HEART HASN'T BEATEN IN ABOUT 28 SECONDS, and I say, "THAT'S WHERE THE FUCK I WAS." And they fired ME?!?!?!?!!?!?! So??!!??! So. So I went outside. I sat on a hill, and I watched the sun set--from the first hint of pink in the clouds, to the orange bands across the horizon, to the swelling of the sun--from the oil-painting beauty of the sky, to the last peak of bright light just before the sun disappears behind the arc of the world--for the very first time. (0) Comments?