Things Should Start to Get Interesting Right About Now

With the Boss out another day and rumors (which I honestly consider unfounded) circulating that he is drinking himself to death, the subject of in-warehouse conversation today centered around addiction.

As you may remember, the owner of a major contractor went into work drunk and fired all his employees. Here's the update: he is now living in a garage while his wife tries to salvage the business. None of the suppliers are offering him credit. Some of his employees have returned.

At the front desk, we are the great hub of contractor gossip, since it's the one place where any given tinknocker might find any other tinknocker on a Wednesday morning.

They drive up to the docks, park, and come inside for conversation and coffee, and to place orders.

And this is not only why I know about all these rumors, but why the rumors spread widely in a short time.

While I pulled orders, I overhead Eddie talking about his old drinking days: how many cases he would drink in a week. He mentioned that, at his worst, he stood drunk on a balcony and flipped the bird to passing cars.

Who hasn't done this? I wondered. Or at least come close.

But then, almost in an aside, he mentioned that this lead to him losing his home, wife, and family.

*

I know quite a few of my co-workers are turning to drink. On the level of sheer numbers, this doesn't make sense: if you have less money, why spend it on booze? But there are other forms of capital, friend!

It isn't only me who is coming closer to Bartleby the Scrivener.

As people's stress levels rise, as families collapse, as work gets harder and less reward, as we kill the celebrations that subtly but effectively kept open the possibility for regeneration (Christmas parties, New Years) there doesn't seem much to offset the grind. And since the grind is so unappealing, so numbing, why not simply say:

That's okay. Today I'll stay in bed.

Knowing well enough that it'll be weeks before the bulldozers arrive.

And maybe by then at least you can drink some choice spiced rum and gotten a full night's sleep.

I speak here on the level of emotions: for men (and I really am speaking only of men, although I'm sure this holds for women and boys as well) who shut down in the face of despair. I have come to understand that there are people who will never quite understand this. I don't know why, but those people exist and there's a gulf here. So, if you're one of them, so be it.

We can no longer take to the sea, or disappear to Florida and join the circus. There are fewer escape routes, and ultimately there will be none.

Good for justice, no? Bad for the psyche and us too fragile humans, who sometimes must do the wrong thing a few times to get any understanding on matters. And sometimes more than a few.