i called in drunk to my census job
told them i wasnt gonna make it in
that i had real life issues to deal with
i think ill stonewall them today if they are curious
there has been talk of writeups for calling out
o well
i called out the second week citing laundry concerns
i fluffed the story lateer to include getting my lothes out of storgae, but fuck them
as soon as they dont need me im gone
right now they think they need me
so i have the hand
if i can stay a little humble tonight and seem genuinely sorry to have missed work
ahhh yes
i'll cue up the "i cant afford to miss work" rant
juice up some details about expenses and add ssome fiction about utilities giving me shutoff notices and gambling losses
maybe il invent a shylock who is after me
i have a few hours to mull it over
nightshift is murder
1100-730 am
deathly queit save for the clicking of keystrokes and shuffling of papers
occaisional cursing
the fat guy makes little noises all night
hes either sucking snot back up his nose
or grunting as he readjusts his girth
sighs, gurlgles, hes a "dangers of transfat" posterboy
they should show filmss about him in health class
do they still have filmstrips in health class?

the bus to the tennis broke down
the rescue bus took to long
i was reccommending cancellation from the jump
the baseball team was on the bus too
loud crass types
their coach is the Athletic director
as soon as the bus died i was lobbying to cancel the games and head to a happy hour

we dropped in on my fave loud italian bartenderess
she was one hot sweaty mama as the air was broken
she had a glow
i started flirting full bore and she got into the game
soon she was talking about her salty nips and telling me "fuck you" whenever i told her how hot she was
she said fuck you again and this time i replied whatdo you want to do to me more than anything
her instant "fuck you" was one of many cherries on top of a fun filled evening
shes quickwitted loud and funny
you dont catch her often, so it was gold
after the fourth pint glass of icetea vodka mixed with lemonade too refreshing for words the census was looking doubtful
when we grabbed a cab back to our hood and dropped into the fabulous shamrock, the census was never gonna happen
it reminded me of another time i called in drunk
when i was bartendering for the multinational corporation and wore shirts whose pattern was repeated on the vinyl table cloths
we were on top of the ferris wheel when we should have been at the meeting place
wed gone to the beach for 2days, but had to be at work at 4
at i was spozed to meet up with my girlfriend and her roomate but me and gay jeff hickey were drunk and laughin on the ferris wheel
oops jeff said theatrically looking at his watch
this was before cell phones
at a time when i was still considered beautiful
when life throbbed and pulsed and forced you to embrace it
as a bartending god at that place i was pretty sure i could call in drunk one time and get away with it
im the asshole who worked his ass off most days
a corporate bar goon, quoting the handbook to managers who were just trying to end the madness of the sunday brunch rush, where i used to expedite orders for shits and giggles when we were shortstaffed and there was no one at the bar
"I cant sell these fries!"
"where's my golfball size sprig of parsley, i cant serve this without my sprig"
adding my madvoice to the chaos, embracing the stress, thrving on the adrenaline rush of being THAT asshole, master of the moment, king of the window
the corporate handbook was the word of god and i was a sweating sppitting pentcostal minister of mayhem on the sundays i would "help" out during brunch
my brian loves insane little factoids like the bit about the sprig of parsely or what constituted the difference between dead and dying food
id yell warnings to the grill man about how he better gat me that burger or hed be making three new chicken sandwiches...
and id live for the moments a harried floor manager would try to push me to the side to serve substandard food and id fix them with the ook and be horrified and throw may hands up and go back to the bar if they were serving food beneath my high corporate standards
yeah
THAT ASSHOLE
that was me
so i was pretty sure that i could finesse another day off there at the beach and the bartender claudia was still around and looking fuckable in her bikini and she would give us a ride home the next day so me and gay jeff hickey had to come up with a plan
and there it appeared
in the form of beach cops who we asked to write us a ticket for public drunkeness that we could sho the boss the next day so we could stay at the beach another night and all was beautiful
the cops were somehow cool with the idea and the beers never tasted better than they did that night as we smoked joints rolled from pages of the bible and laughed the night away