by Melody Bowen
Ahhh... Horsesh*t!
Marilyn was actually my roommate a few years ago, and I remember one of the funniest things about getting to know her was watching her come out of that "girly" skin once in a while. For instance, the first time I saw her lose her temper, I nearly wet my pants laughing. She was on the telephone with someone (I can't remember if it was a company giving her less than stellar customer service or if it was a ill-behaved boyfriend), and I remember her beginning to raise her voice. I was in my bedroom, she was in the living room, and I remember peeking out the door just as the conversation headed into a rapid crescendo. Suddenly, I heard her yell, "Ahhh... horsesh*t!!!!", and then the telephone whizzed across my field of vision into the kitchen, hit the fridge & shattered. I tiptoed into the living room, raised one eyebrow at her as she sat completely still, a long cigarette held daintily between two of her perfectly manicured fingers, and we both laughed until we ached. Somehow in the years that have passed, that phrase -- "Ahhh... Horsesh*t! -- has become the catch-phrase we both use when we're really ticked off and want to end up laughing instead of wallowing in our anger anymore.
The last few days have certainly been "Ahhh... Horsesh*t!" kind of days. As I mentioned in my last entry, last week's pseudo-snooping landed me with info I didn't need to know about stuff that's not really my business. (But it hurt anyway!). Shortly thereafter, I found out a dear friend of mine was laid off, not because of poor performance, but because his company had made some serious errors in upper management that cost them about 25% of their workforce. (Awful, awful, awful!) Next, another friend failed to negotiate a curb with one of her cute little pumps and landed herself out of work for a few days as she hobbles around on crutches. (Sucks, sucks, sucks!)
Then came today -- Monday morning. Today started as one of those typical Mondays when I awoke to an alarm clock that had been blaring for well over an hour. As usual, I bolted out of bed and ran through the shower like a jackrabbit on speed, and I was still half an hour late for work. As is typical on busy, I'm-already-horrendously-late kind of Mondays, my boss asked me to sit in on a meeting about a topic for which I had little to contribute (the kind that make me contemplate gnawing off my own foot to escape). After one hour and six minutes in that room, I wasn't just ready for lunch -- I was ready for a martini (but settled for a chicken fried steak and a Sprite).
The day continued to disintegrate before me as everything I touched at the office turned to absolute crap. Without writing all the details, I'll simply say that every effort to do anything right or well or at an efficient pace yielded me little other than frustration and futility and the paralysis that comes with a workload so daunting that it seems insurmountable.
Then, the final straw. This afternoon, around the time I was still wincing from a bum-chewing from a self-important coworker, my cell phone rang. It was Marilyn. My good friend Marilyn had been fired. F-I-R-E-D, here's-your-hat-what's-your-hurry-now-get-the-H-E-double-hockey-sticks-outta-here fired. The worst part was that Marilyn had battled serious illness in the last few months -- actually went on short-term disability for a while -- and was just beginning to get back on her feet. Her boss decided he'd had enough of her absenteeism and let her go. Despite her loyalty to the company. Despite her managing to do more work in less time than many of her peers. Despite the fact that she was incredibly overqualified for the work she did. The proof that she's the epitome of a lady: She offered to stay on staff until they found a replacement, which is something I can't imagine offering to do in her situation. Luckily, she came to her senses a few minutes later, phoned up her boss and told him very politely (no surprise there -- she's always polite), "I'm leaving today.". ("I'm leaving today" translates more directly as "Ahhh... horsesh*t!")
I'm saddened tonight as I think about Marilyn because sometimes it seems she can never get a break. She's battled serious illness and cheated death more than once in her young life. She's taken care of family members through life-threatening illnesses and legal battles and everything else horrible one can imagine. She's even taken care of me when I was down and out more than once (once buying me soft new sheets and downy pillows to try and help me sleep when insomnia was driving me to the brink of true madness). She's a finer person than most of us will ever know, and today I'm sad for how she got screwed.
So, in Marilyn's honor, I've said it already at least 100 times today, and I may say it a few more tonight: "Ahhh... horsesh*t!" On her behalf, I'd like to offer that up as my philosophical statement on a lousy day. Please join me as again I say, "Ahhh... horsesh*t!!!!!" (Now watch out for flying telephones!)