I feel like Andy Dufresne.
Oh, what’s that? Don’t know who Andy Dufresne is? Well shame
on you. Stop whatever you’re wasting your time on and go watch “The Shawshank
Redemption”. I don’t care if it’s a 12-page research paper, a business
proposal, or a make out session with a poster of Fred Savage. Stop reading this
post immediately and go watch 2 hours and 22 minutes of one of the greatest
cinematic masterpieces to have ever been created.
And then you’ll know what I mean when I say I feel like Andy
Dufresne.
By the way his last name doesn’t sound how it looks. It’s
actually pronounced “Du-Frain”. Not, “Du-Frez-Nee”. If you tried to pronounce
it incorrectly well, go back to third period French.
For full effect, download “Positively 4th Street”
by Bob Dylan and play at maximum volume throughout the duration of this post.
You know those days when ignorant people challenge your
intelligence, bombard you with menial tasks, and then blame you for the mistakes
they have made, meanwhile taking credit for accomplishments they had no part in
whatsoever? You know when you have days where you want to pull your hair from
its roots, scream curse words at a ginger and then throw a microwave at a
kitten?
This has been one of those days.
And one of those weeks.
Heck, this has been one of those summers.
By the way, this isn’t the part where you pause your
reading, reach into your pocket and pull out your phone to send me some kind of
feel good text message that involves a motivational poem on a sunset
background. Seriously, put your phone
back in your pocket and stop treating me like a woman going through post-partum
depression. God gave me a high enough self-esteem that I don’t need your
sympathy.
My life is so curse-wording awesome that I have engineers in
Reno who name their body parts after me, so put your motherly instincts back in
your pocket and keep reading my rant.
I just need to vent for a minute. And my keyboard is the
best listener I can find. Me typing an entertaining blogpost for you to share
on Facebook is my therapy for being shoved around like the middle man all day
long. Or being reminded that I am the lowest possible segment on the totem pole
of my career. I am not the eagle. Or the Bear. Or the wolf. Or the beaver. Or
the squirrel. Or the Fish. Or the Fish’s poo.
I am the garbage that turns into poo. I am the crap on the
bottom of the lake that gets turned into watery excrement. And thank you kind
sir with an Ed.D whose dissertation that I practically wrote, I appreciate your
insistent reminder of seniority and power reducing me to a level of a
peon. Your kind, condescending attitude
draped in a plaid tie are what make me want to go buy a Mazda Miata and prepare
to embrace my inevitable mid-life crisis.
Are these the kinds of feelings that every man my age is
supposed to be feeling when they know there is more to life than just a
nine-to-five production line? Is there something more out there that I should
be accomplishing? And yes, those last few sentences may sound like I have a
yearning to become enrolled in a get-rich-quick, multi-level pyramid formation
and refute any ounce of education I have achieved thus far. But no, I don’t see
that happening anytime at all.
All I’m saying is that days like these are when I walk in my
front door, drop my bag on the floor, let out a long, disgusted exhale, massage
back the migraine beginning to form behind my temples, and just collapse on to
my dirty staircase in defeat. Days like these are when I want to embezzle
$370,000 of the warden’s hard stolen cash and hop on a bus to the Mexican
coast. Days like these are when Andy Dufresne starts peeking over my shoulder
and wonders why everyone around him is being so obtuse.
Days like this make me wonder, is this what prison is supposed
to feel like?
I have no idea. But seriously,
put your phone back in your pocket and go feel sympathetic for someone else who
needs it.
As for me, I’m making waffles.
As for me, I’m making waffles.
