9:54 p.m. | 2003-09-12 In My Spare Time, I Volunteer To Be Burned At The Stake. As I�ve mentioned, about a thousand times, we�re in our busy-busy season. When we get to that point, work just goes on and on. Endlessly. Anyway, having no spouse or children, I found myself recklessly volunteering for crap duty this evening. Here�s that. (Colleague:) I�m worried. They still haven�t discussed my file and it�s very near the end of the day. Do you want me to stay? (Boss:) Well, there�s no telling when they�ll discuss that file, so you should go home. You can�t do anything until Monday anyway. (Colleague:) But, I�ll worry. (CI:) (In a moment of insanity.) I�ll watch it. At home, I mean. I�m not gonna stay here, but I�ll watch it at home until they�re done. (Boss:) See, no problem. Cruel-Irony says she�ll go home and watch TV. (Colleague:) Great! However, I don�t get to watch TV per se, I just get to watch one particular channel on TV. That�s not watching TV; that�s called �working from home�. See, at work, we have five �special� channels. At home, I just have one �special� channel. And, by the way, none of those channels broadcast things like Law & Order, Trading Spaces or Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. I�m now at the mercy of my TV. So far tonight, I�ve seen proceedings, listened to oh-so-very-mellow music and watched a history film from the �70s. I�ve seen this film before, several times. I�m sure the actual film has been replaced with a different medium, but I could still hear the hum of the projector and the clicking at the end, you know, in my head. Oddly, I was glued to the screen. Bad �70s fashion notwithstanding. Back to the point though. Why do I sacrifice myself like this? Easy answer. Knee-jerk reaction. I�ve been working for more than 21 years now, and during all that time, I�ve never been married or had children. Hence, I have no life. I do, you know, but logic and semantics suggests that I don�t. Since the beginning, my place in the workforce has been clear. My job is to fill in on holidays and whatnot for the folks that actually have a family. Albeit, I�ve also been held back because I�m female and therefore, I might want to bear a child at some point � notwithstanding my declarations otherwise � so I�m not reliable as an employee. Yet, I�m there when no one else is. Bitter much? Yeah. I�m as bitter as a green lemon when it comes to that particular thing. I�d probably be less bitter if I had received at least one �thank you� over all these years. But, nada. Instead, these folks hit me up for money constantly for their kids� school things. (Might as well throw that in there too.) Uh, sorry. Frolic and detour there. What�s ironic is that, under normal circumstances, this broadcast is cut at 8:30pm or 9:00pm. That�s what I was thinking about when I volunteered. However, upon further reflection, I realized that it�s our busy-busy season and this could go on ALL NIGHT LONG. Fuckin� fuck fuck. What was I thinking? On a lighter note, Boss walked me most of the way home tonight. She has to walk in the same direction to get to her parking lot and we were discussing something interesting. However, the conversation took a turn at some point. Here�s that. (CI:) See, this is my �commute�. Pretty nice, huh? I used to commute like you (40 miles), but I�m just not a commuter. At all. (Boss:) Oh, I hated it at first. Now, though, when traffic is flowing, it�s kinda nice. (CI:) Yeah. It�s like a transition period. I always liked that part. (Boss:) It sucks though when traffic is bad. (CI:) Well, this is like the best of both worlds for me. I have so few brain cells left that a mere two-block walk is enough of a transition. By the time I get home, I have no memory of what I did during the day. Except for days like this, of course. Right now, it�s fucking being drummed into my head. By my TV. I had to hide my remote. I�m just saying. your thoughts? seed flower