Delicious Tacos - The Pussy

Eventually I go in the stall. I don’t want people to think I shit at work, but it’s the lesser evil.

Back to my cubicle. It looks like a cartoon of an office. Like an office from Staples commercials where it’s clear no one involved has had a real job. The walls are beige and the guy next to me has a poster that explains ATTITUDE. Black phone, black computer. With these tools I create Data Driven Solutions for Market Leading Brands. On Halloween, fake police tape proclaims my space a “Zombie Zone.” I am drug tested. I’m too uncool to do drugs so I pass. A portion of my check is withheld into a retirement account. This helps avoid taxes. By consenting to this I am consenting to a slow subtle scam to eliminate social programs. Turn the country into Ayn Rand anarcho-capitalism. When enough people have 401(k)’s they’ll take back old people’s government money because if I don’t need it fuck you. I am contributing to evil. But I want to avoid taxes.

These activities, and my commute, take up 12 of my 16 waking hours.

I don’t have a dating friendly lifestyle, is what I’m saying. No one who works does. First dates are OK. Maybe a new person will fuck you. A relationship is OK. Come over at 9:30, eat, watch a movie, fuck, pass out. Wake up at 6:45. I want those things. But to get from one to the other there’s the crucial burden of getting to know you. I have no energy for this. You don’t either. We’ll meet. I’ll pour cheap wine down your gullet and you’ll fuck me or you won’t. Next day, the better looking one won’t return the other’s text. We’re doomed to do this dance until we get so old we’re too ugly. At which point– what? What happens? I don’t know, but I bet it’s terrifying. In my leisure time I enjoy hiking.

Let’s assume I never get laid again as long as I live. What happens. I have no children. Fine. I die alone. Fine. Age slowly, rot; disease, brain turned to mush. I forget who or what I am. Trapped in a state nursing home. Surly orderlies snap my arthritic fingers to get my rings. Shitting myself, fed from a tube jammed in my throat, no one to hold my hand as the pain takes forever to kill me. Each instant containing lifetimes. OK– this exercise was supposed to end in “that doesn’t sound so bad.” Fuck.

Try to hang myself but my bony arthritic hands can’t tie a knot. Wallowing in weeping sores in a hospital bed; I roll out and try to aim my head at the floor but it only breaks my face, my pelvis, thick needles ripping out of my arms…. you lose your ability to move but not your ability to feel… Jesus Christ. A friend from the past shows up; I mutely plead to be smothered with a pillow. He just kicks me in the nuts.

Only way to avoid this is to have kids. Only way to make kids is to get some ass. Right back where we started.

Last night I met a girl at a party. Got her phone number. This is a big step. I’m shy since I quit drinking. My sponsor tells me: Tinder girls are maladjusted cretins. That I’ll meet my future wife in the real world. He’s right about the first part, so I’m trusting him. I met a girl in life. I texted and asked her on a date. She has not responded. If she wanted the dick I’d have heard back by now. Sorry, not the dick– if she wanted to settle down in a nice suburban home. I’ll die alone.

Fuck these girls anyway. I know what I want. I just keep not finding it. A girl who’s all right looking and kind of cool. That’s it. All right looking means under a certain age and not chromosome damaged. Or any Asian. Kind of cool means she likes good books, she’s a poet, something. They’re not out there. Every woman I meet knows nothing and cares about nothing.

But I’m thinking the wrong way. Focus on what you can give to someone, my sponsor tells me. Well: I hate myself. I hate my face. Giant nose cracked in half, huge uneven nostrils flapping open; impossibly long white nose hairs. You trim but always miss a couple. They snake out when you’re going in for a kiss like blind sea worms grasping for her eyes. I hate my body. Starvation level body fat but still, folds when I bend over. I work out like a convict but only look good lit from the side, flexing so hard I grind my molars out of whack. I have no job no money no possessions and my house is full of cat hair and centipedes. I’ll never have the kind of life your modern woman requires. My beard is patchy. I have too many moles.

I hate myself and how could anyone ever love me. If I could write something good I’d love myself. But you get a good story about three times a year. It comes in the shower on a day you have time. Couple hours to crank out, couple more to edit and there you have it. But you aren’t responsible. It’s from some antenna you put out and it happens to pick up a signal. Ideas sit for years before the way to crack them hits you. You can’t force it. All you can do is try not to fuck it up. Stay out of its way. Don’t slack off and erase your mind reading about rape on Twitter.

What are you gonna do. Fucking relax. It’s a beautiful day and you’re at the duck pond. You’ve seen a ring-necked duck and 2 kinds of egret. Cormorants, male and female; one of them carried nesting material. Rough day overall but on the waterfowl front it’s a winner. So there’s that.

Look at you, they tell me. Look at you getting your shit together. Doesn’t it feel good.

Doesn’t it feel good to pay your bills. Finally open the overstuffed mailbox that has stood so long for your irresponsibility. Take out 11 pounds of flyers for the Mexican meat market. CMYK newsprint pictures of a flayed sheep’s head. 69 cents a pound. Fair price but the place smells like a mass grave; there are flies. Leaf through each page of sheep’s heads and weird spiky fruits and economy pack off brand diapers in case a warrant for your death got trapped in there, a letter from your dying father, your car registration, the bill for the overdue registration from your old car with a threatening letter saying the state will garnish your wages. Thing’s been in a junkyard for 3 years. Doesn’t it feel good to do that. To clip your toenails regularly. Wash your dishes clean the fish tank have a stilted 15 minute call with your mother, your father, your uncle. How’s the job going, they ask. How’s the job, the bills, the money, the job the job the job. Doesn’t it feel good to show up to work, to be of service. To make financial amends with your credit card company. With the hospital that charged 28 grand to lance a boil. To track down your creditors, call them, to sit on hold with the DMV, with traffic court. Call between the hours of 8:30 and 11:30 Monday through Wednesday. If you call at 8:29 please call back during telephone hours. If you call at 8:30:005 I’m sorry there are too many people in the queue please try back at a later time. If you manage to dial the last digit at 8:29:57 and have the phone company route your call in exactly three seconds, not 3.001, not 2.999– it took eight days of trying for that to happen. Just to get in the hold queue. Just to be on hold for 41 minutes and then get told they can’t handle this kind of issue on the phone sir, sir, at this time, sir, I do apologize at this moment I am unable to help with your query, sir, I do apologize the system won’t allow it, you need to mail the proof of ownership to blah blah blah. You don’t have the proof of ownership. You will just have to pay to register this old car forever. Fine. Doesn’t it feel good to have shit handled – no. If I’ve paid a bill I have the shit handled once. Before I didn’t have it handled at all. In both cases I still have to handle it constantly, forever, until I die. Nothing has changed.

Doesn’t it feel good to seek healthy human connections. You used to use people compulsively. Got 23 year old girls on OKCupid, they liked you and you fucked them and you never called them again. Now, now you can meet quality women in real life. Girls on the street look at you like you’re a worm.