Preface
People in Maryland are, in my experience, wimps about weather and driving. Or, at least, they are lazy and eager for an excuse to stay home. Can we really blame them for taking a chance to stay home? No. Or course not. Hunter is in the midst of convincing me to play hooky one day this week himself. Hunter is one of the hardest workers I've ever witnessed.
Can we blame them for thinking a bit of slush, or, heavens-to-betsy, 1/4 inch of snow is quite enough to keep us all at home for the sake of children's safety?
um. Well. We can judge them harshly.
Chapter 1.
My parking lot at work is probably typical. Exactly 10 more spots than there are workers who can potentially park on a given day to work in out building. They fill up closest to the door first. By 7:15 am the rock star spots are gone. I can only imagine these are held in high regard by those who park there.
If you troll in around 10 am, you're off in the spots cordoned off for piles of salt meant to save the Winter Wimps.
Chapter 2.
I park just beyond the crazy ambitious. I gauge myself to have above average ambition. I will probably end up just above average in money-raking and recognition. I drive in rain, shine, slush, ice, hurricane, crazy beautiful hula-hooping sun, flu, tension head ache, terrible hang-over.
Chapter 3.
I work for 11 hours. This is almost impressive. However, my hero, the CEO works for 12. No matter how many things I do, she does more.
There are, of course, reasons for this. She has been doing this since she was my age, and she's the age of my mother.
Chapter 4.
When I finally leave, there is much left undone, and I think "Fuck damn, I'll just have to finish that tomorrow." I put my laptop into its big, padded case. Coil it's power cord up and shove it down the sleeve adjacent. "shit burn, there's that whole project for IT I promised." I pick up a black leather folio full of my drafts and drafts and drafts of my To Do lists. "Yep. All I need's some beer to help me do that!"
Chapter 5.
Zipped, tripped down the stairs (four flights), and out five sets of doors. The salt they put down is not even scattered. It's in weird, congealed piles of half-melted white. Sparks of magenta or blue make me remember just how artificial they are. Just before I look up and resent the empty spaces that represent people already at home, I wonder just what idiots dropped slop bowls of fake salt-substance on my ground. My heels grind in the white as the spread of cars come into focus.
A few of the front-liners are still here (CEO's Subaru included). A fewer number are in the big dumping areas off in the deer-ridden distance.
The majority are in that no-man's land of average. However, there aren't many. Not even average has much of bell-curve.
Epilogue.
I drink three bottles of beer, fold two loads of laundry and eat only one side of fish. I save the other side for Hunter, who doesn't come, and put it in a box to take to work at 6:30 am tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment