The Misbred Gray Executive

I work for the Rebbecca of Sunnybrook Farm News Agency. Actually, that's true only in a very broad sense of the word; strictly speaking, it's not technically accurate though it captures almost entirely what I do and, by extension, who I am. I've reconciled myself to being that guy for whatever's left of my life-I am in that new retirement plan, WUD, work until dead ,so most of my silver linings come with grey clouds. But I sound so sincere when I argue otherwise as well I should, because that's what I'm paid to do.

Mine is the voice of reason that explains intellectual affronts and assaults on decency with a winsome smile and a sincere look. You believe me because you want to and I let you. I've been telling people we can make jet fuel from peanut oil, for many years-many decades actually, if I were to be honest which, in the interests of my own mental hygiene, I avoid doing for as long as I can as often as I can. I didn't quite get there yesterday.

I was off yesterday because I needed to not be at work. That realization came to me last week as such a BGO, Blinding Glimpse of the Obvious, I was breathless with surprise. I'm the guy who's trudged off to work everyday of the week, and I mean everyday, for more years than I care to recount and hoped the people for whom I've worked would like me for so doing.

I secretly think I'm very good at what I do but fear no one else does and will somehow find out that I'm a phony and a fake and, worst of all, a hack. I've visited with people for years who've struggled to help me rearrange the furnishings in the loft above my eyebrows with little success. I keep bumping into my childhood and falling over the awful social interactions I had four decades ago wondering when the happy ending will get here and not willing to accept that no matter how fast I run I cannot relive yesterday. You can't either, but somehow that's of cold comfort to me.

The biggest reason I was terrified to have children was because I feared I would be a failure as a father, having been a colossal cock-up as a son and a brother. Luckily, the woman I married has enough strength to carry herself and her car crash of a husband just deeply enough into the dynamics of familial relationships that our children made it to adulthood in decent shape. I take perverse credit in that success-that is, I'm thrilled I didn't fug 'em both up so much that they ended up like me.

Anyway. I told the people I worked for a full week before I asked for time off that I was taking it and everyone seemed fine and then yesterday morning, prisoner of my own routine, I had to check my work email while home and discovered many of those with and for whom I work didn't realize I couldn't rescue at least three of their ill-fated projects as I do just about everyday at work because I wasn't at work.

That I'm viewed as a piece of furniture by these obliviots shouldn't have upset me as much as it did-I've always known it-and I'm more concerned about why I allowed it to bother me. Actually, "bother me" is a euphemism for going bat-shit. I peeled the paint off the walls in our nearly-an office room off the kitchen with my language and didn't so much drive to work as start and aim the car. Once there, it took me about an hour to rescue people who on most days normally recover from nearly-drowning by toweling themselves off and then rushing headlong down the strand back into the water, confident one of their proles will rescue them.

It can be hard to differentiate between those who are waving and those who are drowning. I'm starting to suspect the only clear way to tell them apart is wait about an hour after the bubbles stop. And after yesterday's fire drill, I find myself pondering, 'Beware of these, my gentle friends and all the skins you breed. They have a tasty habit-they eat the hands that bleed." A compelling argument for carrying napkins, even after realizing there's no second sitting for life's free lunch.
-bill kenny