Monday

I woke up with a painful, throbbing headache this morning, so this old column by Bruce Cameron seems appropriate.

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BAD MONDAY

When the alarm clock sounds you realize you were born too long ago to get out of bed. You listen to the radio, hoping to hear that the universe came to an end last night and work is canceled. Someone has set the gravity in your bedroom to "overload." You do not feel like singing in the shower. Or soaping. The weary face staring back at you in the mirror looks familiar: it's Bob Dole.

You go to breakfast determined to eat a nutritious meal but find yourself wavering between cold pizza and chocolate cake. A note from your daughter contains a threat to sue you for back allowance. Your dog has chewed your dress shoes; you decide this doesn't really matter. The front door seems too far away to bother. You wonder if you can make your voice hoarse enough to call in sick. Your daughter shrieks that her parakeet has escaped again. This puts the cat in a festive mood.

The newspaper was apparently delivered by a confetti service, and you need a rake to gather it up. A cursory examination of today's headlines reveals that the world is still going to hell in a handbasket.

The reason you get up this early is to beat the rush hour. It looks as though everyone else in your city had the same idea. You sit in a sea of red tail lights while the morning DJ advises you that every highway is gridlocked and you'll have to wait until they build a road to your location to be evacuated. He sounds pretty cheerful, up in that helicopter, and you regret your lack of surface-to-air missiles.

You remember reading somewhere that the earth is pelted with over a thousand meteors a day. Once again, they've failed to hit your office building. Past or present employees of the month get to park in the covered lot. Everyone else in the company has won this award but you; this reminds you of the time you were the only person on the ballot and were still beaten by "undecided." The holes your dog left in your shoes allows the slush to wash in and bathe your toes.

The security guard doesn't recognize you and insists on doing a cavity search. The coffee tastes like they've found another application for petroleum by-products. There are free bagels this morning, but the only flavors left are "carp" and "oak."

Over the weekend they re-stacked the furniture to increase seating density. You now have a roommate in your cubicle. "Just call me Crazy Lou," he introduces himself. He apologizes for the way he smells. He confides that he is surprised that they gave him a roommate after what he "did to the last one." Later you watch him hold his fist to the side of his head, muttering, "Stop talking. Everyone stop TALKING."

Your phone rings and it's your boss, congratulating you on another anniversary with the company and would you come up to his office and oh, by the way, pack up all your things first. When you get there he explains that under the latest restructuring you'll be reporting to the third floor janitor. Your new job title is "Scum." You think it's about time you got promoted. Normally the boss would take you to lunch, but he says he can't stand to look at you. He gives you a free carp bagel and asks that you eat it outside.

You step outdoors to eat the bagel with the smokers, but they point to a sign that says, "no bottom-feeding fish within 500 yards of this facility." By the time you trudge the 500 yards you're up against another building with the same sign. Soon you're in the next county, where you throw the bagel into a dumpster. A man living in the dumpster throws it back.

Back at your office, you discover you've left your ID badge inside. The security guard refuses to acknowledge your presence, so after awhile you decide to give up and just go home.

Only four more days of this until the weekend!

[written by W. Bruce Cameron; please keep his name attached to this. Tiny edits and some abridging for my post done by Mark Raymond]

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WORD for YOUR WEEK: Let's do a corporate word this week. "Cingular" means something that encircles or surrounds. It's from the Latin "cingulum," which means "girdle." So the phone people are trying to tell you their service goes around the world, or maybe at least just around your personal world.

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