Monthly Archives: May 2019

I Pity the Miracles

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I actually feel a bit sorry for miracle babies.
Yeah yeah yeah, I get it, they’re called miracle babies in the first place because they are alive in spite of something that they shouldn’t have been able to overcome, doctors can’t explain it, minds are collectively blown. But once the miracle babies blow people’s minds, then there’s an added layer of expectancy about what the babies go on to do with their lives after they do the miraculous surviving, which is why I feel a bit sorry for them.
Still not following me? Let’s play this out.
Baby Suzie’s mom was told that Suzie would never survive outside the womb because she never developed a brain, but then BAM! Three days before her due date, Suzie’s brain develops at warp-speed, defying all medical odds, and she’s born normal and healthy and with a reasonably high IQ. The crowd goes wild. People wax philosophical about how meaningful Suzie’s existence must be for her to overcome so much. She lived because she hasn’t served her purpose yet, she is destined for so much more. She wasn’t meant to leave this earth yet because she has so much to accomplish, they will say to each other in slightly hushed tones, rubbing their arms as they get goosebumps thinking about how Suzie is going to make the world such a better place. Maybe she’ll cure cancer, or be the first woman president of the United States. Perhaps she’ll finally find a way to bridge all of the religious and cultural gaps that keep the world at war and we will finally all know peace on earth. Maybe she’ll crack the code and reveal to the world whether or not a hot dog is just a type of sandwich. The possibilities are endless! They don’t know what she’s going to do, but it’s going to be big.
Now, cut to Suzie’s mom rage-sobbing in her worn and stained recliner because forty-year-old Suzie is a Pizza Hut delivery driver who lives with her boyfriend Snake in his mom’s basement. Or, okay, maybe its not quite that bad, maybe Suzie lives in a small but tidy studio apartment with Snake and works a desk job and eats her lunch in the park nearby on nice days. But, Suzie sure as hell isn’t curing cancer. And nobody stops to ask her whether she’s happy, because she was supposed to be destined for so much more.
Suzie is just an ordinary person living an ordinary life, because smart capable people often grow up to live ordinary lives, no matter their origin story. Suzie’s last-minute, life-saving brain development may have been a miracle because it defied modern science, but ultimately it doesn’t obligate her to do more for the world than those of us who were just born, with no miracles or fanfare. But because she was a miracle baby, all sorts of people expect way more from Suzie than they otherwise would have.
On the other hand, people watched 16 and Pregnant and fully expected the girls on that show to be poor and live their whole lives in trailers or vans by the river, so if they manage to land a desk job or even a gig delivering pizzas, then the whole world cheers. So I guess there’s that.
 

Don't Be Gross at Work

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It is Monday.
It’s safe to say that my feelings about Mondays pretty closely mirror Garfield the cat’s, although, why does Garfield hate Mondays so much anyways? It’s not like Monday is different than any other day for him. He has no responsibilities and no place to be, he isn’t facing a long commute or a boss who wears wrinkled ties and smells like apple cider vinegar. As far as I can tell that damn cat just lays in his bed every morning until someone forces him to wake up long enough to shove breakfast in his food hole, which would be a nice change from MY cat Saturday who does not lie in his bed until I see good and fit to feed him but instead wakes me up by rubbing his cold wet nose onto my nose and then howling in my face with his tuna breath. At 5am. Even on weekends. I do not think Saturday dreads Mondays at all; in fact, I think he looks forward to them because he knows I have no choice but to get up early and he appreciates the prompt serving of his breakfast on weekday mornings.
And yes, my cat’s name is Saturday. Long story short, he came from a litter of seven so each kitten was named after a day of the week.
Like many people, for my day job I sit in a cubicle and do my work on a computer. Life in a cubicle is not exactly known for being a thrill-a-minute experience, which is evidenced by the variety of articles online about how to make working in a cubicle suck less. To be fair, I’ve had far less ideal work spaces, like when I worked 411 and had to change desks every time I came back from a break, or when I worked in an office that was trying out an “open concept” layout and instead of cubicles we all had desks in a big open space with no privacy whatsoever. It was loud and chaotic and I learned way more about my office mates than I ever desired to know, such as that the woman two desks over from me liked to kick her shoes off and walk around her work area barefoot (yuck) and was also prone to singing songs from The Greatest Showman not quietly. I will never see the Greatest Showman. I refuse. I will not watch it, no matter how much fresh buttery popcorn you promise to plow me with during the showing, because now all I associate it with is bare feet and not-great singing an inappropriate setting.
No one at work wants to hear you sing. Also, no one in public bathrooms wants to hear you sing either, but that’s a rant for another day. Sing in the privacy of your own shower or in your car like a normal person. What is wrong with these people?? Inappropriate singers are the worst. If you disagree with me you can feel free to not bother telling me and if you do I will use your comments for future mockery.
Ahem. Anyway….
After that experience, I was more than happy to return to a traditional cubicle with nice tall walls that I can hang things on and that afforded me privacy and sheltered me from the weirder habits of my coworkers. And as far as cubicles go, I’ve got a pretty decent setup. On the other side of the aisle from my cubicle are rows of shelves, not another cubicle, so there’s no one directly across from me. My coworkers that sit to the left and right of me are quiet and when they eat their lunches at their desks they do not chew loudly, which is very much appreciated because chewing loudly is something that will make me throw things at you and then we’re going to be in a fight when you slurp so loudly that they can hear you in China and then my paper clip lands in your bowl of soup after I sail it at your head and miss.
I’ve been fortunate enough to never really have to deal with loud chewers in the office, although I know others who have not been as lucky as I have. The only real problem child I’ve experienced was a man who sat on the next aisle from me, who shared one cubicle wall with me. I don’t actually know his real name but in my head it’s Phlegmy Fred, because that dude hacked and snuffled and shout-sneezed all day long. To be clear, shout-sneezing is different than regular sneezing; regular sneezing is just a sneeze and you say “excuse me” after you do it and you move on, but shout-sneezing is when you feel a sneeze coming on and you full-on scream “ACHOO!!” as you sneeze. It got so bad, two other people started complaining to me about the sounds Phlegmy Fred was making on multiple occasions. He was grossing everyone out. I am told it actually would get worse as the afternoon moved into evening, so people who worked later and were still in the office around 5:30 really got the final act in the Snuffle Symphony.
Self-awareness is important when you work in close proximity to other people, friends. I recognize that I am both impatient and ill-tempered, but even the kindest and sweetest of coworkers will get annoyed with you if they are trying to work but you are constantly making disgusting noises, or walking around in your gross bare feet on carpet that hasn’t been shampooed since the seventies, or singing songs out loud. Even if no one confronts you about doing these things, your peers are still annoyed with you and there is a good chance that one of them is snarky and will write about you in a blog post to entertain the Internets. You’ve been warned.