The Nature of Me

For whatever reason, the topic of my eternal disgruntlement is one that makes the regular rounds at work. When we aren't talking about what everyone else is eating, another extremely popular topic, we are trying to dissect and locate the source of my dis-ease.

When I say 'we', I mean 'them', because for the most part, I really couldn't give a fuck. There are people who make me happy, and it is not a staggering coincidence that I do not work with any of them.

I was sitting around the ole lunch room the other day, working my way through my patented 'Bucket o' Meat' (the previous evening's leftovers, which habitually consists of nothing but meat, carnivore that I am), with this kind of puckered scowl on my face. I am currently practicing the whole 'if you can't say anything nice' crap-ola in an effort to keep from carving my initials in everyone's forehead with a dull awl. The Boss' Son sees the look of 'leave me the fuck alone' and decides to ask me what's wrong.

Nothing, I say. I'm in the middle of a midlife crisis. (let's not belabor the point that I am immortal, and only thirty-ish to boot. I can have a fucking midlife crisis when-the-fuck-ever I want.)

He asks me what about?

I look at him and say, "Shit, man, if I knew what the crisis was, it wouldn't be a crisis, would it?" That shuts him down but now Smurfette and Mollymaid decide they want a piece of the action. I should mention that there is a new game at work, and it's called 'Let's Try and Get One Up On Evilmister'. So far, the only one who can trick me or trap me or otherwise get a chuckle at my expense is the Boss, who is old and has been around the block a few times. Honestly, it's like those little feeder fish that swim around sharks getting tiny little morsels of flesh trying to suddenly take a bite out of the shark. It's just plain old foolish.

Smurfette: I don't believe that you are angry all the time.

Me: Actually, I am.

Mollymaid: Noooo, I don't believe it. No one's angry all the time.

Me: (inside my head, counting down a la Electric Avenue from Sesame Street ... one two three four five, six seven eight nine TEN, eleven twelve) No really, I am pretty much always irritated by something. (LIKE YOU, with your weird obsession with trying to finish everyone's sentence before they do, it sounds like you're some kind of creepy broken down reverb machine!!)

Smurfette: Well, like what?

Me: I am so easily irritated that even asking me that question has raised the level of my irritation by a factor of three.

Mollymaid: You just need to relax.

Me: Ah. Yes. Thank you for pointing that out. Relaxation is like kryptonite; very hard to come by and most certainly lethal. If I were to actually relax, something nice might happen, and then there's the whole George Costanza Domino effect that'll go down, and no one wants to see that.

Smurfette: Are you sure people bother you this much?

Me: No, no, of course not. People don't bother me at all. Or ... no ... wait. They do. When you are an egomaniacal, arrogant, moderately self-obsessed superiority complex-having bastard who thinks you're better than everyone except for a few peers, everyone else pisses you off. If I didn't have an overwhelming dislike of the penal system, you'd all be dead by now and I'd probably be wearing your face as a junk hammock. Please, it's not your fault. It's all mine. When you've spent as much time as I have watching people, and paying attention to how people react, you just get to know how they will react, how they will behave. When you get to the point where everyone you work with seems like a series of if/then statements, you just get depressed. I'm truly sorry, but that's the way it is.

Mollymaid: Are you like this with the women you date?

Smurfette: Yeah, are you?

Me: Well, not to start off, no. I've been told that I'm actually kind of nice and decent. It wasn't until very recently that I began to suspect that it was more of a Vulcan mind meld, Obi Wan Kenobi 'I am a nice person' thing happening in my relationships, but whatever.

Smurfette: No wonder you don't have a girlfriend right now. Your expectations are too high.

Me: Oh! Oh my. I certainly never thought of that, either. Again, I must point out that I have had this conversation with you in my head more than once, and it is sadly coming out exactly the way I figured. Again, the fact that if we were playing chess, and chess was life, I'd have finished your life off twenty minutes ago shouldn't deter you or Mollymaid pointing out that I drink too much caffeine, which is probably why I'm so aggressive and irritable.

Mollymaid: You drink ... er ... Your next girlfriend is going to have be perfect, isn't she?

Me: Perfect? Perfect doesn't cut it, because I'd get bored then, too. But ladies, we're off topic here, aren't we?

Smurfette: I'm going out for a smoke.

Mollymaid's husband is laughing his ass off. Fuckem, he says, fuckem all.

Mollymaid: No!

Me: Hell yes. Fuck them all.

That conversation really and truly happened in almost exactly that way. Having two people try and dissect you emotionally so they can find your problems out is amazing fun. Especially when one of them, Smurfette, helped out troubled teens and is using hackneyed phrases and double-blind psychological jibjab that an Internet-trained four year old could backhand across the table.

Sometimes I enjoy myself so much at work it should be fucking illegal.