Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Bacon to the Rescue!

This weekend I felt like shit.

Nothing physically wrong, just the usual head problems, like normal.  It was Valentine's Day and that never goes well for anybody.

Everybody knows I hate Valentine's Day.  It's the sulfuric acid of holidays.  It stings, it hurts, it makes one cough and hack, the fumes hurt my lungs, and I can't drink it.

Valentine's Day is the day nobody is happy with anything.  The pretty girls don't get gifts from the right guy and instead get cheap gifts from beta males too terrified to ask them out.  It's the day men can't do anything right.  It's the day women are reduced to game animals.  It just doesn't work as a day of romance.

So, I was feeling shitty for a whole host of reasons.  I haven't been writing in months.  I haven't even tried to write.  Why bother?  It's all crap, right?

My employer announced they were shutting down our building by the end of February.  In truth, they have to be out of the building by then, so it's a mad rush to get everybody fired or set up to work from home.  Most of my friends have lost their jobs.

Worse, in just a few days, I'll start working from home.

We haven't even begun training for this.

We haven't gotten our computers, been told many of the details we need to know, nor have we sorted out the simple flow of information we'll need to do our jobs.  Instead of being able to ask the person across from you a question, we'll have to have a chat room going 24/7 because we rely so much upon a hive-mind approach.

No one person knows everything so we're constantly having to ask each other questions.  At least five or six times a day important questions come up and if I'm working from home, I'll need to be able to talk to somebody about it.  We haven't sorted that out yet, though.

We're the canary in the mine for our company.  Our whole industry is going to a work-from-home model and our company is testing software, management hierarchies, client relations and feedback, plus HR modes on us.  We're lab monkeys covered in mascara and lipstick in cages.

My life of poverty has been stressful enough.  Because of my financial parasites, it doesn't matter how much money I make, I will always be reduced to living hand-to-mouth.  Always.  It doesn't matter where I work or what job I have, I will always bring home about the same amount of money.

But because there aren't many jobs out there that will give full-time hours, or even hire somebody like me, I'm stuck.  I'm incredibly trapped working for a company that is little more than a human gristmill while financial parasites suck the life out of me.  And the only way a host gets rid of the stronger parasites is death.

So, to review, this weekend I was lonely, stressed, depressed, angry and anxious.  I was a bit of a wreck.

But something called to me from my fridge.  It was a siren's song.  It was the seductive voice of bacon telling me things are going to be okay.  Just eat some bacon, it said to me.  Just eat some bacon and the day will get better.

So I did.  And instantly my life got better.

Just the smell of that fatty, salty, greasy love lifted my spirits and made me feel okay about existing. The sound, the sizzle and crackle, the beautiful promise of pig candy.  Hell, I even fried some pancakes in the grease, because if you're going to binge you fucking do it right.  We don't fuck around here.  I've never wanted one of anything in my entire life and indulging on bacon and dough fried in bacon grease is simply the best way to express that.  Or at least the best way available.

The other day somebody gave me shit for eating bacon.  "Bacon is not healthy.  It clogs your arteries and is terrible for your heart."

"Bitch," I said.  "I don't have a reason to wake up tomorrow.  Why in the fuck would I want to live another twenty years?"

One of my favorite bands, Bloodhound Gang, had a motto:  No reason to live, but we like it that way.

The only thing keeping me attached to this planet are a handful of friends and morbid curiosity. What train wreck will I get to see today?   I'm stuck in mud, chained to boulders, while the rest of the planet moves forward with their lives.  I'm still in the same shitty rut I've always been in and I can't seem to break free of it.

But bacon fixes that.  Bacon sings to me and asks me how I could possibly live in a reality that didn't include it.

If I die of a stroke or a heart attack, I want the coroner to put "Death by Bacon" on my Death Certificate just to give credit where credit is due.  I was euthanized by bacon so at least my death was merciful.

I'm too broke for a headstone.  But if I could have one, I would want it to say, "Oh, Death!  Where is Thy Sting?"  And then I'd have an image of bacon carved into it.

May the Bacon be with you.


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