Poverty of Respect.

I hadn’t been clocked in for ten minutes when it happened. While in the midst of changing trash in the back, I heard my name and poked my head around the corner. It was the assistant and store managers calling for me to come up front.

“Mr. Peepee is here,” the store manager tells me, “if you want to kick him out.”

She meant Mr. Water. The self-proclaimed Guardian of Souls. And this? This was like an early Christmas gift.

“Oh, I’ll kick him out.”

I see him at the far end of the dining room, sitting at one of the small tables. He had ordered no food or drink, of course, but as he unpacked his new cell phone, he was nonetheless making a mess on the table that was spilling to the ground.

“You’ve got to leave,” I told him, but not in an overtly aggressive manner. I try and use the Mitch Approach, which I inherited from a manager I formerly worked with who is now high up in the company. You remain as calm and polite as you can and as they inevitably grow increasingly more aggressive, just maintain your calm, polite approach.

Not only will it keep you out of trouble, but it really, really pisses them off.

He’s talking in that angry, fast-paced, mumbly, verbal-Scrabble kind of way that he does whenever we kick him out, but I managed to make out something he said about him having just bought a 20$ gift card to our fast food joint.

He also used the word “slander” in a way that implied to me that he didn’t really know what the word meant. So I elected to ask him politely if he knew what that word meant and in response, he angrily rattled off an incorrect definition as his eyeballs seemed to bulge out of their sockets. I kindly suggested that when he got his phone up and running he should access an online dictionary. He rattled off his incorrect definition again and kept up his fast-paced, angry, mumble-speak. I just kept telling him to have a nice day until he was out the door.

So that’s how my shift began.

I should just come out and say that I do indeed realize I’m being an asshole here. Relevant to this interpretation of my behavior includes the fact that he has a mental illness and drug problems, as is the case with many wandering the streets in this town, and on top of that I believe he’s currently homeless, and its bitter fucking cold out there today.

But he’s also such a self-entitled, narcissistic jackass. I can’t ignore that, either.

Despite the services available to him — free money sent to him every month, therapy, access to affordable housing — he’s always asking for cigarettes and food, constantly loiters here and presumably in other restaraunts in town, leaves behind a mess (and at least once, a puddle of urine on the floor of the restroom) and keeps getting kicked out of apartments he’s lived in for reasons I’m uncertain of but can easily imagine.

I’m not going to judge him for being insane (after all, I may qualify myself), or for being poor (I’m not homeless, but I only have a paycheck as a cushion between paychecks if I’m careful), or even for drug use (I heart Mary Jane, I think my on-off relationship with booze may qualify as abuse, and I’ve experimented, though mainly with psychedelics and careful attention to set and setting). I will judge him on the basis of his character, however. I will judge him for a total lack of empathy, attempts at malicious manipulation, and how he treats others in general.

And he’s a dick.

So while it hurts me hurting his feelings, I’m willing to take that psychological pain-echo because I realize its entirely justified. And a dark, aggressive part of me does enjoy kicking him out, there’s no fucking denying it.

Don’t bite the hand that feeds. Don’t extend your poverty to the realm of respect. Don’t take advantage in the negative sense of the word. Don’t take things for granted. If he didn’t act this way, there’d be little issue with him hanging in the restaurant. He would still have a place to live, too. He’d have shelter and warmth.

And me? I wouldn’t be cradling these internal contradictory emotionally-laden perceptions in which I feel guilty yet justified in being the guardian of my loathesome workplace with respect to him.

Ray of Sunshine.

Imagine a short guy in his mid-50s with long, Crypt Keeper hair. Its a party in the back, but once he takes off his fast food hat its plain to see that any business that once occupied his scalp pulled up follicles and left long ago. Long, sparse strands plastered to his head in serpentine patterns by means of sweat and cooking oil are all that remain.

I keep telling him he should shave it down to peach fuzz like I do, but he keeps telling me he’s just going to get a haircut soon.

Its been half a decade, bear minimum, that he’s been saying that.

Despite the fact that he’s lived in Ohio for roughly three decades, he’s somehow managed to retain his Texan accent.

This is Gus. He’s worked here for longer than myself and it shows.

He has his admirable qualities — he’s fairly intelligent, he’s good at math, he has an astounding memory. And we talk fairly regularly. Often he’ll tell me about something he watched on television or an article he read. Often the article in question involves physics or cosmology, as he knows I have great interest there, or it’s political, as he knows my concern over where we’re going as a species as well as to what awesome degrees I detest Trump. He almost fetishizes money and has some minimal interest in sports, however, whereas I have below zero interest in either, but unlike others, he typically knows to dodge talk about stocks or corporations or dumbass sports shit when it comes to me.

Its nice to have people like him around that keep up on shit like that, who I can talk to about it. He’s not the only one, but he is part of a small minority of such people in my life — especially my work life.

Though he’s never exactly been a ray of fucking sunshine, to make a mole hill out of a mountain, he’s become an increasingly angry, aging man. He used to at least joke around, and yes, sometimes to the point that it got bloody annoying, but I’d much prefer that to this.

He doesnt really have good moods anymore, he’s just occasionally more enraged than his typical, baseline anger. Like today. I’m sure the booze I could still smell on him despite that distinct, overpowering odor of someone who almost never bathes had something to do with it. He is undoubtedly an alcoholic.

Sober or otherwise, trying to talk him down gets more difficult, and dealing with him bitching about the exact same shit about the restaurant day in and day out with with no detectable reduction in anger, as you might expect from someone who engages in continuous verbal catharsis, has gotten more irritating than his goofing around ever was. He bitches about the dishes despite the fact that its the same dishes every day and he voluntarily made himself the dish guy, he bitches when we don’t have people, he bitches when we do have people but they’re dumbasses, he bitches when he doesn’t get a break despite the fact that he always works on break anyway, he bitches at me when I point out he’s always bitching.

And I can’t help but be painfully aware of the fact that his bitching is infectuous, as often enough I find myself bitching about his bitching to others, who waste no time joining in on the bitchfest.

Eventually I can get him talking. I help him put away some of the dishes or cover for him at the end of the night when he’s alone in kitchen and wants to dip out for a cigarette, and I can bring him down a little. I don’t dislike the guy, as easy as that should conceivably be, and some of his complaints do indeed have merit. Its just that after all this time, he still always seems surprised.

And like a lot of people, he doesn’t always seem to see himself so clearly and how he contributes to many of the things he’s bitching about. We’re all flawed mammals here, and recognizing your own shortcomings, if nothing else, can bring you down off your high horse and stimulate some empathy and reason. I get caught there, too, but I manage to bring myself down. Gus, though, always seems to need the help.

He helps me too, I should add, and in multiple ways. On days like this, for instance, just being in his presence reminds me how much more bitter, angry, depressed and cynical I could be.

Next to him, I look down right optimistic. Next to this heavy stormcloud, I’m that ray of fucking sunshine. And while that’s kind of nice, it certainly doesn’t ease my worry for the guy. Not in the least.

I, Extractor of the Guardian of Souls.

Generally-speaking, I hate having to kick people out of the restaurant. This usually happens at the end of the night, and in these cases specifically, I dread most of all having to kick out this sweet elderly couple that comes in rather late, maybe an hour before we close, and this despite the fact that when I do they’re entirely kind, understanding, and rather comedic about it.

There are those occasions, or should I say those individuals, who I go out of my way to kick out, however. Customers who always stay to the end, bitch up an indignant storm when I politely ask them to exit, and always, always leave a mess.

They’re looking for conflict. They’re after a fight. They’re eager to be assholes.

And kids who come in earlier in the shift: ankle-biting loiterers who buy next to nothing but nonetheless manage to make an epic mess and are a nuisance just because it makes them look cool in the eyes of their herd.

And then there are other dribbling douchbags.

This is where we once again come to Mr. Aqua, the self-professed Guardian of Souls.

There was one day last week when he basically hung out at the restaurant for the length of my shift. He would sit down on the concrete patio outside, beneath a window, lingering somewhere between sleeping and waking, but in any case light years beyond sober. Heroine, maybe? Who the fuck knows.

Usually I would be understanding, but my empathy, over the years, its learned to set certain boundaries. Limitations.

Whenever I went out for a smoke in my car I would see him there, occasionally making some strange noise. When he came back inside, he would sit at the first booth by the front door, slouching down and staring at the wall in a drug-induced stupor.

At one point, and this was later in the night, I was up front with the assistant manager and we both watched as he suddenly lifted up his arms and hands, palms upward, as his face, fixed eyes, and posture remained unchanged. And he paused there for over a minute.

“What the fuck is he doing?” I asked her, breaking the perplexed silence between us. “Summoning a god?”

That same night, one of the kids came out of the restroom and announced to me that while they were in the stall Mr. Aqua had come in and — how should I say this? — blessed the floor tiles with his holy fucking urine, straight from the tap. It was clear he wasn’t even aiming for the urinal, he said.

After mopping it up, I concur.

Hearing this, the assistant manager said the words that my ears had been dying for years to hear:

“He’s kicked out. He’s banned from the store.”

Halle-fuckin’-lujah.

I even got permission from her to kick him out should I see him in here again. I suddenly had something to look forward to. A goal. A reason to live.

Its the little things, you know?

A day or two ago he walked inside and I followed soon thereafter, eager to kick him out. Unfortunately, by the time I got in he was already exiting out the door on the other side of the dining room. It felt like such a tease.

Then there was today: The Day.

While I was on break, I thought I saw the back of him as he went in through the door, but I wasn’t entirely certain. After I clocked back in from break, having gotten slightly stoned with a manager, I proceeded to do my usual and began changing trash, starting up at front counter. As I was changing the first can, I look up to my right and there he was, waiting impatiently.

The pissing aquafiliac. The fast-food-frequenting, god-summoning Guardian of Souls.

It was like a shaft of light shone down upon this epic piece of human excrement from the starry heavens above. My atheist equivalent of prayers had been answered, the godless sign delivered. Now was my chance, and I felt too high, to anxious, too awkward.

Just do it. Push passed it. Just play it cool, I told myself.

“She kicked you out,” I reminded him in a polite sort of exasperation. “You’re not allowed in here any more.”

He knew this. He was waiting for me to say it.

“I just need a refill on my coffee,” he said frustratingly, pointing to the stained, battered cup with a smashed sippy-top lid, both of which were clearly acquired from the trash cans outside or the all-too-frequent litter in the parking lot.

“Dude, you should have never gotten the coffee in the first place,” I told him, again reminding him that “you aren’t allowed in the building.”

Then he asks why. Playing dumb again, but this time with building rage. I remained surprisingly calm. A stoned, goddamned Zen Master.

“Well, for once thing, you pissed all over the restroom floor the other day.”

Anticipation verified: he denied it. Then he began getting all red in the face, pointing at me, and saying a lot of ragey things I couldn’t make out, though they were threats and things that made it clear he wanted to be seen as a victim who had finally had enough. Though as he did all this, he was backing up towards the door. Incongruence at its finest.

“Thank you. Have a nice day,” I said to him as he continued jab-jab-jabbering his dumb ass out the door.

Please, please don’t come again.

I watch as he bitched about us, maybe myself specifically, to some poor soul outside, now trapped in his tractor beam.

I wasn’t at first aware, but it turns out I had a small audience of my fellow employees watching in wonder.

“That was interesting,” one of them said.

Stop the Beeping.

Clearly, I’m hypersensitive across the board. So when the fryers are beeping, the oven is beeping, the microwave is beeping, the grills are beeping, when every goddamn thing under the sun and within the confines of the fast food circus I seem destined to die in is beeping, it makes sense to me that it would irritate me more than others.

And this despite the fact that I’ve probably worked over two and a half decades in fast food altogether and fifteen years in this particular oil-infused food distribution center.

It truly amazes me. It makes no sense. None at all. I can sit in my apartment before my laptop typing away until my fingers bleed as I chain-smoke cigarettes and not smell it at all — until I leave to do some grocery shopping and return, of course, when the wall of nicotine-laden smoke becomes very evident — but over two decades of this orchestra of incessant beeping and I’m not desensitized to it at all. Not in the least. I still can’t fucking tune it out.

No sensory adaptation for this.

Still, as I said, I’m full-spectrum hypersensitive, so it makes some sense that it would irritate me like mad, but what compounds this irritation is that no one else seems to be bothered by the beeping at. Fucking. All.

I’m ready to claw my ears out and scream bloody murder after fifteen minutes and not a single soul in the store is so much as phased, so I have to keep running around everywhere, pushing buttons to stop the beeping, ease my ears and sustain whatever vague semblance of sanity I’ve managed to hang onto.

I’m getting so tired of this. So tired, so irritated. Downright enraged. How can you not be bothered by this at all? How can I be the only one driven mad by the beep-beep-beep…?

Sensory overload? It sucks donkey balls.

By far the absolute worst is an older guy who recently began working with us. His name is Darren — with a capital DUH. While we have kind-enough exchanges when we pass by one another during the work hours, I’m so perplexed and angry with him I feel like I’m holding back my urge to go ape shit every time I catch sight of him. Shortly after he started, when everyone was telling me what a pain in the ass he was and I was still in my usual phase of giving a person I don’t know very well a chance, the ol’ benefit of the doubt, there was an incident that took place. An incident that took a serrated knife to the jugular of the benefit of the doubt I had afforded him.

It was a Wednesday. I pull out the two grills in the kitchen on Wednesdays. He was trying to change the settings on the grill I was about to pull out when I kindly told him to just use the other grill, as I was about to pull it out. I even gave him the reason, for fuck’s sake. Even so, he stayed where he was, crouched down, trying to change the settings. Like I didn’t exist. Like I was a ghost. Like he didn’t give the vaguest semblance of a damn. Though I’m sure he heard me, I told him again, in the same polite manner, the same empathy-fueled tone, to just use the other grill.

He kept at it.

I could feel the empathy drain from my body and all the pleasantries bolt out the proverbial window.

“STOP,” I said firmly, loudly, pointing my finger in front of his face to the other grill. “THAT ONE.”

I didn’t want to be a dick, DUH-arren. Why did you leave that as my only option?

When he finally, finally leaves the kitchen to stroll into the walk-in cooler in the back for something, I couldn’t contain myself. I turned to the guy who had been training him, and in the same barking voice, which I’m not going to type in caps again because I find it fucking annoying, I asked him, “The guy’s clearly not deaf. He’s not stupid. So what’s his fucking problem?”

I hate being told what to do. I get that. Really. You have no, no bloody idea. But when you’re new at a job, a new job you need to pay bills and survive, you need to learn the ropes. You need to learn the ropes from those who have been doing the job for far longer than you, and you shouldn’t feel so bold as to be such a stubborn asshole at the very least until you’ve familiarized yourself with the place, learned proper procedures and established yourself by learning the ways of the workplace natives and sufficiently bonding with them. Being a stubborn douche-bag right out of the gate is never a promising approach, especially when it’s utterly unnecessary.

Now, I could have let him put the appropriate settings on the grill — an activity he was clearly struggling with and felt determined to accomplish (respect, at the very least, for that) — and then rendered what I presume would be his eventual accomplishment utterly useless as I turned off that very grill and pulled it out anyway, leaving him to endure that same process with the other grill. But no, I tried to stop him short. Tried to help him. Didn’t want him to waste time and energy on what was destined to be an ultimately useless, fruitless endeavor. I did what I thought and felt to be the right thing. And in return, he fucking pretended like I didn’t exist.

Fuck you. We’re all in this together, shit-bag. Don’t make it any more difficult than it has to be.

Well, this is not the full extent of Darren With a Capital DUH’s irritating tendencies, as I soon learned through observation. My usual people-watching. My compulsory research and study of the individual. On countless occasions since I have heard the fryers in the back beeping and, irritated as hell, have stepped into the kitchen to press the single button one needs to press in order to banish that infernal noise, and what do I find? I find Duh-duh-Darren, staring at the fryer, upon which “duty” is blink-blink-blinking on the digital display (for whatever reason) as it continues to beep relentlessly, and he just stares at it. Gazing like a goon. And he stares at it for too long — right before just casually walking away.

It’s been at least a month, I’d surmise, but to date, I’ve never seen him press the button.

Just press the button, DUHarren. Extend a digit, make contact with the button just below the display, and apply pressure. That’s all. This isn’t rocket science. You don’t need a degree.

Once you know what you’re doing in general in this job, the only issues you really have to worry about are boredom and frustration. If you can’t handle properly executing a job as simple as this, you should probably jump into a pit of lava, take a long walk off a short version of the mythical pirate’s plank, or commit yourself to an asylum (unless, of course, you’ve mistakenly — and understandably — mistaken the town this fast food fuck-feast is embedded within as one), because you’re not going to be able to handle anything greater.

You’re in an ass-end position in a bottom-of-the-barrel job, Derpy Darren, so do as Morty said and get your shit in order. Take it to a Shit Museum and so on and then find a place among the rest of us low-tier turds in this shit job in this toilet bowl of a society and learn to float along.

I’m still convinced the Day of Flushing is near. Be patient.

And he did the same bullshit today. Heard the beeping, stared, walked away. He was the worst, of course, but everyone else collectively earned the runner-up. As I was struggling to get my own shit done, I had to constantly stop what I was doing to press buttons. To stop the onslaught of cacophonous beeps. At one point, I couldn’t contain myself. I screamed:

“JUST PRESS THE FUCKING BUTTON!”

And in the end, it was I who had to do it. Always me. Answering the summoning of the beeping machines that plague my day.

To hell with people. Fuck machines.

If I had to be stuck at a job at 41, I wish it would have been a library.

Laptops, Weed & Other Things.

When I first met Elizabeth, she had just moved nearby the restaurant and began working the night shift with me. Slowly I learned about this wonderfully weird girl, who had had a lot of strange and potentially paranormal things happen to her throughout her life. She also had remarkably vivid dreams and impressive fucking dream recall. We bonded a lot over that. She also had a growing fascination with drugs, and I had her come over to my apartment to be her sitter during at least two psychedelic experiments of hers. Despite her interest in marijuana and the fact that I was smoking it myself by that time, I wasn’t comfortable popping her cannabis cherry. It’s difficult to explain, but something didn’t feel right about it.

A year or two later, she was smoking the green regularly and I was buying pot from her.

For a short period of time, I think I could have had a relationship with her, but I was too ambivalent about it, which is nearly always the case. Everyone joked about her being my girlfriend, but I didn’t seem to budge from my realm of perpetual uncertainty, which has sadly been my thing since as long as I can remember. There was this one kid we worked with, Jered, who was a guy about as short as her that seemed like a nice enough guy. He asked her to smoke pot with him out in his car in the parking lot at work once or twice, and we all began wondering. I finally just up and asked her, and she shook her head emphatically. He was too much like her former boyfriend, she told me.

A short time later, they were dating.

The hugs had to stop, which sucked, but was understandable. What sucked the most was that our chances to have deep conversations about The Weirdness, or to have enduring conversations one-on-one at all, kind of began to decline as well. I have to admit, that kind of killed, maybe minus the kinda. Then she got a new job, a better job, and I was happy for her — but now those conversations I once enjoyed so much were as dead, dead, dead as dead could be, which I suppose is also understandable, kind of, sort of, not really, but in any case it sucked donkey dick to the nth degree.

It is what it is, though, and all that rot.

Don’t get me wrong, either; I do indeed like Jered. It’s just that for the most part, I don’t share his interests, beyond cannabis and a taste for scientific concepts. They still came over to my apartment, the three of us would shoot the shit and smoke weed, and they even provided me with my first half-tab of LSD and tripped along with me one evening. I still bought pot from them and, once they introduced me to it, the vape pens, and I would see them on a fairly frequent basis despite the fact that they were both now in another, better job.

Then there was the incident with the laptop.

For years, we had company picnics. I’ve been working there for close to sixteen years, and I think I’ve been to two. They have a raffle at these picnics, however, and evidently you don’t have to be present in order to win something. One year, I actually won something: a laptop. A Chrome, though a newer one than the laptop I already owned. I plugged it into a socket in my bedroom, thinking to myself: I always have shit luck with computers. Technology in general fucking hates my guts, I’ve determined; if the AI apocolypse every unfolds, I’ll be the first to go. So my plan was to keep using the laptop I already had. Once it inevitably went to shit, I had a backup. One I didn’t even have to pay for. T’was perfect. Anyway, as my luck went, my laptop would go to shit any day now anyway and I’d be using that one.

It must’ve remained plugged into my charger for at least two years.

Then one day Jered asked to use it. I trust the guy, so I was entirely fine with him borrowing it. Some time later, he calls me. He left his car doors unlocked and someone stole it. It will take him awhile to save up the money, he openly confesses, but he was going to buy me a new one. I tried to comfort him over the phone, to let him know it was okay. It was clear he felt incredibly guilty.

It wasn’t his fault and yet he was taking responsibility. I respect that in a person. As a matter of fact, the whole incident and how he handled it so maturely and responsibly made me respect him all the more. It took some time, reasonable time, but he lived up to his promise, too.

One day, he came over — alone, for the first and so far only time — to give me the laptop, share some damned good weed, and help me set it up. We only got into the set up to a limited degree till I told him I’d just do it later, and then we judt bullshitted for awhile.

After he left, I let it keep charging and put off completing the setup for maybe a week before I decided I was going to stop being a lazy peice of shit and just do it. My computer had been acting funky, it was so old it wouldn’t accept updates anymore (three cheers for planned obsolecence) and I was going to start transferring shit to the new laptop immediately, unlike the one that was stolen, which I had let charge for years.

The new laptop? It wouldn’t start. I got nothing. Not a whir or a hum or a beep. Not a goddamned noise at all.

Part of me immediately feared what a fucking mess this would become. I knew the next time that I saw them he would ask me how I liked the laptop. What the fuck was I going to say? He dud his best and I didn’t want to make the guy feel bad.

Here’s the thing: everyone lies. If someone claims they never lie, news flash: they’re lying. Having said that, though, I go out of my way not to lie. So my plan was to avoid them for a short time until I got the sucker fixed.

After doing some online resesrch, I learned that this was not at all an atypical issue when it came to these particular laptops. I found at least two methods that would allegedly fix the issue online, tried them both, and it made no difference. I planned on asking my sister, the middle child, if she still knew the guy that had fixed my computer ages ago. Weeks later, I finally asked her, and she said she didnt, but that her boyfriend would take a look at it. He had no luck. Now my parents want to take it to another guy. That’s where I’m currently at.

At around the same time, this girl starts working who was selling vape cartridges cheaper than Elizabeth and Jared had been selling them. Given that convenience and my desire to avoid uncomfortable circumstances with my two friends, I began buying from her.

Recently, she left for another job, and I was considering texting her, but reconsidered. As my own birthday present to myself, I took a hundred dollar bill I had stashed in my apartment for some time and decided to buy some reasonably good stuff in bulk, so I wouldn’t have to worry about buying for awhile. I really wanted to buy the shit from Elizabeth, who likely needed the money and who, by this time, I missed dearly.

It took me one or two weeks, but I finally messaged her. It was Thursday, the day after my birthday. Maybe it would just be her and we could really talk, I naively thought. It would be nice to have a discussion with her like we used to.

She seemed reasonably happy online when I messaged her, and I felt slightly better. Due to the laptop thing and the fact that is kind of stopped talking with them for awhile, I had feared seeing them might be awkward. Turns out it kind of was.

They park beside me as I’m on my break, and I get in the back seat and we exchange. It immediately felt awkward. A cold silence dominated the car. I felt this low energy. A passionless, dead feeling.

Was she depressed? Were they both depressed? Had they already written me off entirely?

Was this empathy on my part or psychological projection of my fears and guilt in order to make sense out of ambiguous experiential data?

Ragú? Meet X-Files.

Strange it is, how utterly real that some dreams can seem. So too how the mood some dreams are infused with can follow you out of bed and haunt the remainder of your day.

At work, you’re speaking with coworkers, cutting box-tops, chiseling human feces turned to brown concrete off the inside of a porcelain bowl, and the dream, the mood, still lingers, poking and prodding you from the background.

In between breaks, as you smoke your cigarette from inside your car or out by the dumpsters, you Google search on your phone, trying to understand why recurring dreams happen, what the variations on the recurring theme that’s followed your dream life for three decades might mean. When you can manage some time alone, you chew on it. Beating your head against a wall.

No answers, only questions. And the most frustrating part is that some part of you has all the answers.

Your mind? The Truth is in There: Ragú meets The X-Files.

Even so, that deeper part of you isn’t letting up, isn’t letting you in, filling you in, shedding any further light on it. You’ve left yourself in the dark. Is there an impenetrable wall between you both during mundane, waking consciousness, you wonder, or is that other part of you deliberately hiding the answers for some reason?

These dreams don’t bother you, not in and of themselves, and you don’t necessarily want them to stop. That’s not it. It’s just not knowing what’s behind them, why they’ve recurred so long, what it is that they’re attempting to convey with such persistence.

Rumsfeld, that political demon, once spoke about categories of knowledge, ignorance, and awareness:

“… there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.”

Given the existence of compartmentalized information in governments and corporations (I mean, there is a distinction there, right?), it’s clear as day to you that he missed a category. There are certainly known-knowns, known-unknowns, and unknown-unknowns. They’re all frightening, and the last would certainly be the most frightening of the three, but not nearly as horrifying as the fourth that he failed to mention: unknown-knowns. Things you know but don’t know you know.

For instance: allegedly, 9/11 occurred because the various factions of the US government didn’t share their intelligence and resources. They couldn’t put the puzzle pieces together and see the tragedy that was brewing because no single faction had all the puzzle pieces and there was no picture on the box to guide the sorry bastards. The issue was that collectively, the government didn’t know what they knew.

Unknown-knowns are about as frightening as unknown-unknowns, Mr. Rumsfeld, you have found yourself saying in the past. Don’t dodge the responsibility the government has for its own self-imposed ignorance.

Yet: as above, so below. As it is without and around, so it is within and inside oneself.

You? Well, you certainly suffer from your own unknown-knowns. How on earth can you rectify this circumstance? Meditate on that question. Test whatever answers come forth.

You don’t “want to believe.” You need to fucking know.

Assessment at the 41-Year Mark.

Any way you slice it, the odds are that I’m more than halfway through my life at 41 years of age, so it’s a good time to access the mess that’s thus far stretched from the womb until now as I pave my way (with an ever-uncertain expiration date) towards the inevitable tomb. I have yet to give this list any lengthy consideration at all, however: it’s more of a spur-of-the-moment, off-the-top-of-my-head, because this-would-be-fitting-for-my-birthday-that-ended-an-hour-ago kind of thing.

Despite all that, I feel that there is actually quite a bit I’m thankful for (because I had nothing to do with it) and proud of (because I at least had something to do with it, for fuck’s sake), and here is my list, off the top of my head, and in no particular order.

I’m thankful that I had descent parents that stuck around and did their very best, which is sadly an evidently rare fucking thing nowadays. I’m thankful they helped me out throughout countless tough patches. To extend this even further, I’m thankful that I have an awesome family, which is also evidently quite rare. They are all people I value and admire.

I’m proud that I made it this long, given that for at least a few years I was reasonably certain I’d be dead by age 23. I’m proud that I held down a job for fifteen years, even if its a shit job, and that I presently work with a diverse group of interesting people, even if the turnover rate is bloody insane. I’m proud that I went to college, despite the fact that I dropped out due to my social anxiety and have defaulted on the loans, which I am reasonably certain I will never be able to pay back. I’m proud that I live alone in a one-bedroom apartment in a quiet town. I’m proud that, despite my isolationist tendencies, I’ve managed to keep the friends that I have — though this may actually belong in the “thankful” category.

There are also my shortcomings, of which I am (to say the least) not very proud, as well as my grievances, of which I am (again, to put the matter at the mildest) not exactly thankful for, however.

I drink too much, in my estimation. I watch too much porn, at least when engaging in the aforementioned drinking, and usually when that drinking is coupled with getting high on marijuana. I am a bit too distant and untrusting of people, unwilling or unable to truly nurture the relationships that mean the most to me. I lack sufficient motivation and ambition. I don’t produce enough art. I still work in fast food, despite the fact that the job only offers boredom, frustration, and depression.

Though my anxiety has diminished (knock-knock on fucking wood), it still remains, and I tend to gravitate towards habitual patterns of avoidance. My rage still tends to blind me, at least in the passion of the moment.I wish I didn’t crave sex so much. I wish my craving for sex would either go away or lead me to getting laid, as “taking matters into my own hands” has gotten increasingly extreme and undeniably shameful.

I have yet to move closer to my family, closer to nature, and find a suitable job, despite “planning” on doing that for years. I have yet to try to make money off of my art, writing, or any creative endeavor of mine.

I live in a world that seems to have a depleting value in the freedom of expression and individual liberty in general. I live in a world where climate change is “a debate.” Where people chronically fail to think for themselves, but rather associate with and lose themselves in group identity, ideology, political factions. I live in a world in denial over its drive towards what could only constitute suicide.

To move back a pace, or rather a paragraph, here’s another shortcoming: I tend to be too cynical, hopeless, pessimistic.

I should work on that, too.

Pleas Amidst a Snowhioian Solar Return.

An infestation of frosty clumps of wretched death raining down upon us from the heavens, a blessing of blinding flakes obstructing my vision and feeding the increasingly slushy roads that threaten to send me Slip N’ Sliding as I drove home in the evening, serving to exacerbate my omnipresent anxiety while behind the wheel in the process.

Thanks. For reals.

The first major display of sky dandruff to sprinkle madly upon this state of Snowhio this doomed-to-be-frigid-as-fuck season, and it has to come the day before my fucking birthday. An hour away now. Or almost seven hours, technically. In any case: this? This is what Old Man Winter of the Ohio chapter has elected to gift me on my 41st revolution around the sun in this awkward host body, this bony receiver-transmitter, this corporeal containment unit for consciousness?

I mean, fuck. I’m an old man now, too. We share that aging quality, elder fuckface. So what gives, Geezer Winternity? Why hath thou forsaken me?

A second summer or an extended autumn would have been appreciated. Not this fluffy crap. What must I do upon your birthday on December 21st to ensure this bullshit never happens again? What sacrifice would be acceptable?

Just DM me with the relevant info, you frigid douche.

Planned Obsolescence & a Trust Refresher.

At work, we have two sets of fryers: the vats in the back, where we fry the fish and chicken, and the vats up front, where we fry the fries. As the detail maintenance man, I filter the oil in all the vats five days out of the week and test the oil on a daily basis to see if it needs changed — which is to say: if the oil is dirty and I need to put in new oil. Then I change the fryer or fryers in question if need be. All the fryers in the back needed to be changed today. This is never a problem if the automated system that runs these so called “smart-machines” is operating properly. Unfortunately, they are not often operating properly.

Today, Sunday, the first day of my work-week — typically never a good day to begin with, to put the matter at the mildest — the fryers were not operating properly.

For some reason, it would drop the oil into the removable “pot” (a metallic box at the base of the fryer containing the disposable filter) but not automatically run the oil through the pot-filter and recycle the now-filtered oil back into the vat as it was supposed to. I had learned this on Thursday, which is my last day of the work week. What I was uncertain of, however, is whether or not it would automatically drop the oil into the pot and dispose of it automatically.

If it did not, I’d have the take the pot into the stock room and dump the oil into the receptacle that was used to dump the oil traps from the grills into every day. This would be a longer ordeal and inevitably messy, as one inevitably drips oil between the area of the fryers and the aforementioned receptacle in the break room. This would, as a consequence, mean a lot of mopping.

So I did an experiment: I dropped the oil from one fryer vat into the pot to see if it would dispose of the oil. At the very worst, I’d have to take it back to the stockroom manually the dump it, which I’d have to do anyway. So I pressed the dispose button, all the other required buttons, and walked away to do something else. After awhile, I checked the pot to ensure it was empty. To my utter amazement and glee, it was. It worked. So I did another fryer and checked. It worked again. Confident, I tried another fryer, and didn’t check this time.

So, as you can probably guess, it didn’t work.

The automated fryer system suddenly decided: no, fuck you, I’m not disposing of the oil. Sadly, I didn’t know it didn’t work, for as I said, I was confident in its capabilities by this time and failed to check it. So the pot was already filled with oil to maximum capacity when I then mindlessly dropped all the oil from the following vat into that already-full pot.

Pot runneth over. All over the floor. I just watched the dirty yellow fluid bleed out from the top of the pot onto the floor in a swifty-expanding pool.

Normally, I would have totally lost my shit at this point. Cursed all machines, the living manufacturers, the earth and all else. Cussed and screamed and been in a shit mood for the remainder of the evening. However, when I had taken out the trash earlier, a fellow coworker had offered me a hit from his bowl.

I smoke cannabis on a daily basis, but rarely much. I’ll take a few, maybe several hits at home, as that will make me sufficiently high and not serve to exacerbate my social anxiety, as I live alone, which I should add is wonderful. When at work, however, if I’m offered any by anyone, I take what I’ve often referred to as a “baby hit” or “pussy hit.” I’m hypersensitive toward damn near everything, so such a small dose certainly affects me, but just enough to where I’m comfortable and can focus on the calm, relaxing, often joyous sensation it offers me. And I can still be productive at work.

And so that’s the state I was in when this happened. I was baby-hit high on weed.

Not one to toot my own horn, either, but due to the pot, I’d handled the circumstance remarkably maturely. I got the shop vacuum from the back, sucked up as much of the oil that I could, dumped the remainder of the pot in the aforementioned receptacle in the stock room, and mopped the area of the kitchen that the oil had coated.

Psychological Chernobyl dodged thanks to the Devil’s Lettuce.

It got me thinking, however. That at the end of the day — which is now, I might add — there are, I believe, two takeaways from this incident with the fryers.

First: it’s high time we, as a global culture, stop with the policy of planned and perceived obsolescence. Cease the creation of products built to fail. No more artificially-limited lifetimes for manufactured products for the purposes of significantly reducing the replacement time and producing “jobs” through artificially-required specialized maintenance personnel and expensive parts-replacement in the interim because it creates jobs.

“Why is the shake machine always broken?”

Planned obsolescence, bitches. We didn’t do it.

The disposal society idiocy has gotten out of control. Now more than ever, with climate change (news flash: IT’S REAL) especially, we need to make shit that’s built to last.

The longest running car runs about eight years. The longest running Mars Rover? It lasted about fifteen — almost double. And without constant maintenance, mind you, even ignoring functionally-irrelevant cosmetic concerns. Without tire rotations, tire changes, oil changes, topping off other fluids, tune-ups, and so on, this shit lasted way longer.

Let’s start building earth-bound shit with that interplanetary mentality.

Second is a reinforcement of my former beliefs: don’t let your guard down by means of trusting too much. Of placing yourself anywhere in the proximity of blind faith with respect to anyone or anything. It’s just a set up for a let down. I learned this in a short, intense, sexually-charged relationship with a gal from Barstow, California, oh-so-many years ago, and it’s a lesson I thought I learned.

And then dumb, trusting, naive me mindlessly assumed the fryers would continue working as I believed they had proven they would and so didn’t check the pot to ensure it was emptied of oil before dumping the oil from the following fryer.

Always and forever: beware of dogma.

I thought I knew this. Evidently I needed a reminder. I suppose I should be thankful it didn’t manifest as something more serious.