“When I was in high school, I was on the verge of living a pathetic life, but things turned out otherwise. Now I am a happy, contented person, and yet that pathetic guy is still in there, watching in amazement. There is a pathetic guy in all of us, but only a certain few are privileged enough to live the life.”
— Jim Moul
♦ ♦ ♦
Jennifer isn’t a thoroughly awful person, but awful is in her wheelhouse. She certainly can be awful. Usually, though, she just gnaws on my nerves, with minor annoyances that feel bigger because I have to work with her every day.
Today she brought nuts, three varieties in tin cans, to share with the office. Well, that's nice. She popped open the tin-can tops, and promptly put plastic lids over each can.
This is an extremely small thing to complain about, but it drove me, well, nuts. Nuts won't go stale over the course of a few hours. If they’re for sharing, wouldn’t you leave the lids off? Not Jenn. Every time anyone took a nut or a few, they first had to pry off the plastic lid, and then replace the plastic lid after. Anyone who didn’t re-seal the lid was chided by Jennifer.
Yeah, I know it’s nothing. It’s trivial. I should just say thanks for the nuts. Thank you, Jennifer. A little late, but there, I said it. My complaining probably says more about me than about her.
When I grow up, I'm going to be a cranky old man.
♦ ♦ ♦
At Market & Stockton at lunch, some blue-haired guy handed me a safe-sex pamphlet. Condoms get handed out around town, but this was my first pamphlet, and it’s crammed full of good advice: “Plan ahead. Carry latex wherever you have sex: bushes, bars, baths, bookstores, beds, bus stops, back alleys, BART…” Ah, I do love this town. Sex in bed? Bizarre.
♦ ♦ ♦
Well, I’m out of things to say about a basically boring day. Nibbling the nuts I brought home from work, and I’m strangely tired again. Got ten hours of sleep Sunday night, ten hours Monday, and now it’s 7:03 on Tuesday night and I’m yawning and ready to knock off already. Usually I sleep 5-6 hours nightly, so I ain’t complaining, not feeling sick or anything. If I’ve contracted some rare Nicaraguan Sleeping Disease, though, and one of these nights I never wake up, it’s been nice sharing my pathetic life with y’all.
From Pathetic Life #8
Tuesday, January 17, 1995
This is an entry retyped from an on-paper zine I wrote many years ago, called Pathetic Life. The opinions stated were my opinions then, but might not be my opinions now. Also, I said and did some disgusting things, so parental guidance is advised.
>Today she brought nuts, three varieties in tin cans, to share with the office.
ReplyDeleteCan you even imagine that, these days? Everyone in the office sticking their filthy booger-hooks into communal nuts?
Booger-hooks! Love it!
DeleteAt my current job, I always kept a candy dish at my desk, mostly to make up for my anti-social attitude. I posted a sign and closed the candy dish two weeks before the company closed the building and sent all of us home.
My co-workers, I think, miss the candy more than they miss me.