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A Perfect Day
How have I been lately? Let me tell you about my day, and just remember – you asked. There I was after work, listening to some tunes, piddling around on the computer. You know, playing computer games, checking out pirated software, that sort of thing. Everybody does it, but nobody admits it for some reason. I guess they think the copyright-and-smut police are gonna bust down the door and arrest you like it's an episode of "Cops" or something. Anyway, I was…what was it I was doing? Oh yeah, I was playing a game for the hundredth time and I lost for some bullshit reason only the programmer would understand. To think I actually paid good money for that thing. I hadn't been feeling so hot lately, what with the whole winter cabin-fever and financial crisis-of-the-week thing. Not to mention that every night the woman next door makes the same dinner and stinks up the whole building with burnt fried potatoes. It's enough to turn even an iron stomach, let me tell you. To make it even better, I got a speeding ticket earlier in the day. Coasting slow down a hill, clutch in, brakes on, and the pig gets me anyway – guess he decided to be anal about the school zone thing even though school had been out for hours. Too early in the month for quota time, so he must have just wanted to be a dick. God help you if you drive a beat-up old Buick. Just once I'd like to see a Beamer, Benz or Jag pulled over, but cops don't fuck with those people since they can afford (or are) lawyers. I was starting to get pretty sick of the computer and I didn't have any weed or even a cheap beer to make the damn thing seem more interesting. I shut all the programs down and just got up and wandered around my place for a while, bugged the cat, looked in my empty fridge like something had magically appeared there in the last five minutes – you know, the bored bachelor routine. I finally got back to the computer because there really wasn't anything else to do since I hocked the TV a few months ago. No great loss, there was never anything on anyway. I started to be responsible and do a budget but you know how interesting that is, especially when you don't have enough money for anything on it. Then I loaded up the word processor, thinking that maybe I'd write The Great American Novel. No matter that I didn't have the first idea what I was going to write about. Mystery? Nah, I'd have the whole thing done and then realize I'd left out something important so the reader could accuse me of making it impossible to solve. No thanks. Besides, the only mystery in my life at the moment is Where The Money Comes From. Maybe a horror story – nah, I can't even read those things, much less write them. Never have cared for them. Sci-Fi? Now that was something to think about for a while, but I finally decided against it since I didn't want to invent an entire future civilization only to have it picked apart by some techno-dweebs with nothing better to do than sit in their moms' houses in Star Trek tee shirts and chat online with their buddies right next door. And I thought I needed to get a life. Now I was getting irritated. I knew I could write, and write well (I used to ace all my Lit classes without even trying), but I just couldn't get started. Writer's Block my ass, this was Writer's Barricade with armed guards checking ID's at the gate. So there I sat, wishing that whatever it was would just come pouring out of my fingers like that automatic writing thing those bogus fortune-tellers do. Then I thought, "Wouldn't it be cool if I could rewrite my life any way I wanted?" You know, kind of a what-if fantasy autobiography. Not exactly reading for the masses, but at least it'd be a way to kill some time. So I did a little self-indulgent fantasizing. After a couple hours of writing complete and utter nonsense, I shoved the keyboard away and got up in disgust. This wasn't cutting it. I was still bored as hell, still poor as hell, and I had just proved that I couldn't think of anything to write. Then, as if to underline what a rotten day it was (like I didn't know already), the power went out. Great. The damn breaker flipped again. Whoever wired this building must have been on more and better drugs than I've ever had. I mean, who ever heard of three apartments on one circuit? The old hooker downstairs (I'm pretty sure she works the truck stop up north) probably turned on that one lightbulb more than the thing could handle, and bang there it went. Not that she could have possibly needed any more light, I don't think she ever turns anything off. I guess you'll have that when power is included in the rent. After tripping over the cat who had decided to get right in the way, I got a candle lit so at least I could see. Now I had to try to find a flashlight and hope the batteries were made in this decade. No way will I take an open flame anywhere near that 300 year old furnace. I can just see the headline – "East Side Slum Explodes." Amazingly, the flashlight put out a pathetic little beam so at least I could see to go down to the basement and flip the switch. For some reason, no one else in the building is capable of doing it. They'd rather call the slumlord from the pay phone down the block, bitch at his machine and wait for him to show up in a day or so to turn the power back on. Lazy bastards. The basement is definitely an experience. The staircase is a rickety stone-age deal that's so steep it's more like a ladder, and once you're down there you smell the designer fragrances Mold and Dust. After shoving aside a curtain of cobwebs right off a vampire movie set, you can just make out the breaker box on the far wall (you have to watch your head, those beams are lower than they look). Once you make sure there aren't any bums or crackheads squatting down there, you have to squish across the concrete that for some reason never dries and pry the box cover open with a screwdriver. I ignored the roaches, reached in and found the problem switch. Flipping it back turned the basement light on. Incredible. They must have finally fixed the stupid thing. At least they fixed something around here. I had to take off my shoes before I went back in my apartment because of the gray-brown-black slime I had collected from the basement floor – I don't want to know what it was. The lights were back on, and Windows was taking a month to boot up, complaining about not being shut down properly. Like I had anything to do with it. Just to be contrary, I turned the thing off the wrong way on purpose; I don't need an uppity computer giving me a hard time. Tossing my shoes in the tub to be rinsed off later, I grabbed an old catalog, flopped down on the couch and thumbed through it looking at stuff I couldn't afford. Just when I had gotten comfortable, that old whore started with the stereo – Johnny Cash and Elvis at about a seven on the Richter Scale. Bitching at her doesn't do any good, so I try and tune it out no matter how loud it is. I swear, though, if I hear Elvis singing "Teddy Bear" one more time I'm gonna go postal. Around 11:15, she finally turned the stereo off – must have been time to "go to work." Right on cue, the other apartment downstairs started the weekly Domestic Violence call. This one was a real winner – he was tripping on acid so she pulled a gun and actually shot at him out in the yard. Not that she could hit the broad side of a barn as much Jack as she drinks, but I don't need random gunfire coming through my floor. Shots fired, dialed 911 three times and where the hell were the cops? Probably a block away defending the free world from a steak hoagie. More than likely the same creep that ticketed me, too. About an hour or so later once everything had quieted down, sure enough a cruiser drives up, stops for a minute then takes off again. Thanks for your help, buddy. Don't know what we'd do without you boys in blue. By this time, I was worn out and needed to get to bed so I could get to work on time in the morning. One more shift dealing with nasty customers that don't tip and complain about the prices, like I'm the one who sets them. At least I get to smell like grease and onions. So you tell me, how have I been? Like Scarlett said, After all, tomorrow is another day. End. |