Tuesday, 02 September, 1997 10:47
The last few weeks this journal has been the epitome of pedestrian on-line journals. All I have done, with few exceptions, is bitch about how hard I have to work and how tired I am.
The reason for this is, of course, that I'm really tired from having to work so hard.
I shouldn't use that for an excuse, however. But it's the best I can do, and I have been trying to think of a better excuse for a couple of weeks.
Surprise, surprise! The guy who was driving Princess Di's car was drunk.
I have actually had time tonight to smoke several cigarettes without being paged. Wait, wait, this does lead into something interesting...
I reflected upon this situation while smoking another cigarette, and I felt an amazing sense of size and power. To these poor hapless flies, I was a mile-high being with awesome power and tremendous malevolence. They were struck down as if by lightning, with the accompanying clap (or snap!) of thunder. They could find no means of escape, and died in droves. There were no survivors left to tell the tale to the next generation.
By the time I got another break, the population of flies had regenerated, unaware of the history of the slaughtering-ground, innocently walking around the bits and pieces of their predecessors. They, too, felt the sting of my venom; the great rubber snake reaped countless more thousands.
Well, that is a bit of exaggeration there; it was probably only a hundred or so.
And it's a thankless, endless job, being the decimator of a flock of flies, especially when one eschews the use of chemicals. On the other hand, it provides amusement for lengthy periods of time.
The one worry that I have: many tormentors of small animals grow up to be mass murderers. I'm not really sure if flies count as small animals, but I am sure that I have no feelings of remorse. Does that make me potential front-page news? Most mass murderers get to be on the front page...
More than a few of my co-workers (or rather, co-smokers) have taken to calling me "Dead-eye Doug" or even "Dead-fly Doug" due to my extreme accuracy and anal-retentive persistence in this sport. There were a few that didn't actually think of me as odd before now...
Things sailed along pretty well at work until... about 03:45 the lady who normally comes in at 04:00 called in. She works in the file room, and is depended upon heavily to get the day started right vis-a-vis the paperwork.
At 05:00 a tech calls in sick; she is supposed to be there at 07:00.
At 05:45 another tech calls in sick; she is supposed to be in at 07:30.
There are only five techs total, and with only three techs and a full schedule, they were in trouble. So I volunteered to stay over. I worked my ass off for the next three hours, and was about to collapse when I decided to leave at 10:00. Since I don't have to work tonight, Tyler and I will go fishing in the morning. I called him about 07:30 to let him know of the change in plans, so he immediately went to bed.
Which is what I'm going to do now. I'll be back tomorrow....
I was sitting in the break area being pestered by flies. I remembered that I had a rubber tourniquet in my pocket, so I got it out and wreaked havoc on the little winged creatures. Within the space of fifteen minutes, there was not a live fly in the area.