Your manager will tell you to leave work early. �We�re so dead,� she�ll say. �Might as well go home.� Respond tactfully, politely. Ask, �Do my closing duties, then I�m off?� �Do your closing duties then you�re off.� When you get off work, take your apron off and tie the strings in a bow around the folded cloth. It�ll remind you of a present. This will make you feel a sense of guilt for how little you�ve been giving and receiving the last few Christmases. Some co-workers who have been sitting at the bar drinking will scramble these thoughts by calling you over. Go over and talk to them. You�re at work. You�re allowed to talk to them. Say awkward things. Try to make them laugh. After a string of awkward silence, grunts, and sighs, you�ll remember that they know an awful lot more about cars and drugs than you do and an awful lot less about Henry James than you do. Tell yourself that this is okay; that this is part of tolerance. Talk to them about Kwanzaa. Say, �It�s Kwanzaa.� You feel topical. Tell them about the seven principles and how today is the day of Umajaa, the day of Cooperative Economics. They will look blankly at you. Make a stereotypical joke about black people. Everyone will laugh and you can go home hating yourself later. They will ask you, either out of pity or novelty, to come hang out with them and their friends this evening. Decline. Tell yourself that these people, these co-workers are alright in moderation, but if they were to get their friends involved, it�d be disaster for you and everyone else. Awkward silences would abound. Instead of thinking about the awkward silences, concentrate on these friends you haven�t met. To yourself, inaudibly, call them names. Call them status-quo. Hate them for being so normal and predictable. Then tell yourself, �It�s not that I think I�m better than them, it�s just�� Don�t finish this sentence. There is no real finish to the sentence. The truth is, you just think you�re better than them. And, in some ways, you are. But it�s not entirely true because you�ve never even met these people. Rationalize that a lot of them just come from normal, predictable upbringings. Blame your parents for your fear of normalcy. And blame society for churning out just banal triteness. Try to think of all the synonyms for boring. You already got banal, trite, and predictable. Tedious, Uninspiring, Hackneyed. Forget these thoughts about people you�ve never met. Think, they�re all really nice people, I�m sure. Then say it out loud. �They�re all really nice people, I�m sure.� Notice that it sounded more robotic and mean-spirited when said aloud. Tell the bar tender to get you a coke. Say, �I�ve got to drive.� Don�t tell anyone at the bar that the real reason is because you�re too scared to drink at all; too scared to become one of them. Shift in your seat uneasily as you try to figure out a way to tell everyone that you just want to go home and read a book. �I�m tired� is a good excuse. You�ve used it before. You�ll use it again. �I�m feeling sort of sick� is a good one, too. It�s also not entirely a lie. You�ve been feeling worse and worse lately. Something�s been going around. Take a sip from your coke. Don�t tell the bar-tender that it tastes a little flat�he won�t care anyway. He�s a nasty callous old fart, but he�s been working there way too long and has way too many regular customers for the manager to just let him go on the grounds that he intimidates his off-duty co-workers. Get that nervous feeling of flight inside you before you jump abruptly from your chair and say, �Well I think I�m going to go�� Trail off. �Home?� One of the co-workers will say. �Yeah.� No one will seem to care. A few might just say, �well goodbye� while others will give only the slightest nod in your direction. Then they�ll go back to their stories about debauchery and indecency. They�ll say things like, �nuh uh!� and �oh wow!� and �holyshitwhatdyoudo!?� as if it were all one word. Stand clumsily by your chair as if waiting for someone to say something else to you before you leave for the night. Wait for some sort of aphoristic revelation. You will get none. One of your co-workers, however, will feel how uncomfortable you are standing there and hug you good-bye. �You work tomorrow?� She�ll ask. Tell her yes. �During the day?� She�ll persist. Tell her yes. �I�ll see you then, then.� Wonder if she said the word �then� twice on purpose, to be cute, or if it was just another product of the awkward encounter. Tell her good-bye while you take your keys out of your jacket pocket. �The coke�s on me!� the bartender will yell from across the room. This is a joke, though not even a mildly amusing one, because you get cokes for free. Walk outside, feeling the sting of cold hit your face. Think to yourself that getting a hug from your co-worker has been the closest to human contact you�ve had all day. Get in your car and start the engine. Be glad you�re not status quo or banal or trite or predictable. Drive by the bar, shining your headlights into the window, and notice the faces inside, laughing, drinking, enjoying life. Say to yourself, �they�re so status-quo,� before driving down the long, desolate road with a fuzzy AM station playing on the radio and the smell of wet pine and wet asphalt entering through the ventilators. |