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Scott Charlotte · (05-28-2013)

Tuesday, May 18, 2013

They say everything happens for a reason. One door closes and another one opens. A logic that tells us, what we do each and every day, sets an invisible course within our lives, the same way you set in the navigation codes for a ship. Your actions and your decisions, chart the course and map the route you will inevitably take in life. All to get you where you're supposed to be.

Where you're supposed to be?

That's seems like such a backward concept. It held as much gravity or seriousness, as a joke. To convince yourself that everything in your life happened because it was supposed to happen that way, seems like a cowards way out. Something to help you go to sleep at night. To scare away the nightmares and chase away the bad feelings. The truth is, sometimes shit happens and there's no rhyme or reason why. It wasn't mapped out, it wasn't destiny and it wasn't fate taking control. Not everything had to mean something and not everything does.

At least that's what I used to believe. That is until the night of Tuesday, May 28, 2013. The night I began to wonder if everything I did, really did in fact lead up to where I am now? Looking back on things it really makes me wonder, how different my life would have been, if I had just called in sick to work. Would nothing happen the way it did? Perhaps in order for me to assess this properly I need to go over what happened from the beginning.

The day started off like any other day. Waking up promptly at 6AM and discovering that once again, someone had stolen the paper. A lovely reminder that my neighbors are assholes and that I would have nothing to read with my morning coffee. Which also meant I would have to face morning chatter, with my wife. Don't get me wrong, I love my wife...I adore her actually. Caring, funny, intelligent and still able to keep things lively in the bedroom, but I like it quiet in the mornings. I like a peaceful morning, with the paper and a cup of coffee. The paper is like my shield to the outside world and my sanctuary before I have to face another shitty day at work. Without the newspaper barricade this morning, I left myself an open target. An open target for morning chatter, that would not stop until I stepped my foot out the front door to go to work and that would start back up immediately, when I stepped that same foot in at night. What could I do though? There wasn't many options and it's not like I could hit my wife upside the head with a frying pan, thus knocking her out instantly, just so I could have my half hour of peace before my drive to work. So instead I bit the bullet and endured what the morning had in store for me.

Coffee, cereal and a long talk about window treatments. Seriously, it's like my wife turns into another person. How can anyone talk for half an hour, about window treatments? A better question is, who wants to do such a thing? It's really almost started me thinking that my wife couldn't process thought, unless it was also attached to a spoken word. That talking and thinking, were actually simpatico to one another and couldn't be completed successfully without the other one occurring. A hell of a way for a husband to view his wife, but I couldn't help it. Besides, she proved my theory so well. Still I nodded through it all and made it through breakfast without picking up the frying pan.

On the way to work, I discovered my normal route was thwarted due to the repaving of a street that had been repaved two months prior. There wasn't anything wrong with the first repaving, yet here they were repaving again. The street in front of my house, hasn't been repaved since I moved there. A whole five years of staying in the same condition and yet for some bizarre reason, the street I need access to in order to reach work, has to be repaved like repaving is going out of style. The worst part about it was; because of this, I would have to adjust my whole drive to work, which meant I would be late for work. Not by much in any normal sane person's standards, but my boss was not a sane man. Time was money and there was no time to waste money. Logic spewed out but an idiot, who never had to work a day in his life and was handed the company by his father. Still, he was the boss and that's what I had to deal with in order to make money to pay for the house that needed new window treatments.

I am an investment loans consultant at Sherman's First National Bank, I have been employed there longer than I have lived in my house. I work Monday through Friday, 7AM to 5PM. Adding to that, there are times I also work; nights, weekends and occasionally holidays that aren't considered to be holidays by the boss...like Thanksgiving. That's right, last year the boss had me come in and recoordinate all our investment files on Thanksgiving. I had a cold turkey sandwich and cranberry juice instead of eating a proper meal with my family. My wages are decent enough, but are definitely not what they should be. Then again, nothing about my job, is as it should be. Complaining isn't my strong suit, so instead I just learned to put up with this hell and acquired the ability to keep my mouth shut. Tactics that have kept me employed for years.

Pulling into the parking lot and gazing at the clock, I knew I was fucked. I was a whole fifteen minutes late and there was no way, I was walking in and flying under the radar. To make matters worse, that's the exact moment I also realized I had forgotten all the files on the Monroe case. Files that I had been pouring over the whole three day weekend and compiled together an entire earnings report on them. An earnings report, that I needed to present to the boss as soon as I walked in through the door. Things were not looking good for me. Fifteen minutes late and lacking what I needed! I might as well get my last will and testament in order, because I wasn't going to be alive by the end of the day! At least that's how I felt. Despite the increasingly large cloud of dread that hung over me, followed by massive amounts of anxiety, I still managed to exit my car and go to work.

The walk of shame to my desk was overwhelming. Mostly because of all the eyes burning holes into my back, as I passed them on my way to my desk. Eyes belonging to other employees. Employees that knew better than to allow themselves to be late and that were anticipating what was going to happen to me because I was late. I didn't even make it halfway to my desk, before I heard my name called. Every instinct in my body told me to run and dive out of the closest window. That the four story drop wasn't that bad. Instead, I turned and faced the music. I walked toward the sound of my boss calling my name and I entered his office, knowing full well I was about to be verbally decapitated. Which is exactly what happened once I shut the door and sat down. However, a tongue lashing wasn't the only thing that went down that morning. Something strange happened, somewhere around the point of being told, how worthless I was and how expendable I was. My mind seemed to have reached a point of snapping and I began to laugh. My boss stared at me like I lost my mind and you know what, I probably did. Then before I could clearly register what was happening, I was introducing my boss' head to the chair that I had just been sitting uncomfortably in. An introduction that repeated till the chair was in splinters.

Somewhere in the midst of the police being called, I realized I was out of a job. I had handed in my registration in the form of a beating and a twelve inch gash to my boss' forehead. Yet I didn't feel regret or remorse. I didn't feel like a man who lost his job, I felt like a man who was finally able to breathe. Even after I was tasered and handcuffed, I didn't let my actions plague me with guilt. When the cops ripped me from my boss' floor and he had the nerve to walk up to me, in order to stare me in the eyes like he had won something. I simply responded by headbutting him in the face and added a broken nose to the list of damages I had caused him that morning. This also caused the cops to give me another round of tasering, but it was totally worth it.

That feeling of renewed dignity as I was dragged out of the building, was something I'll never forget. It lasted all the way till I reached the station and then reality sunk in. I was unemployed....now what?

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