There Was A Wreck In The Yard Last Night
I'm starting to think though no one got hurt it had a deep and lasting impact on me.
There was a wreck in the yard last night. That phrase keeps replaying over and over in my head. There was a wreck in the yard last night. It kept me from going to bed early last night. Well, relatively early for me as in around three or four am. There was a wreck in the yard last night. So I can't sleep and I didn't want to really to begin with. Now I don't want to lay in bed any longer with these words going through my head. There was a wreck in the yard last night.
I know. I get it. I saw it. I understand. So why did it spook me so much? Because where I work a great many people have died. A couple have had heart attacks, one guy was shot on the side of the road by a state trooper when he was trying to kill himself with a bowie knife. Another was found dead in his bed, no cause ever released by the coroner. Yet another guy I saw every day for five years grew brain tumors very similar to how my father died and was gone within six months of arrogantly announcing to me that he was grateful I paid my taxes because he was making 8K a month off his government military retirement, teamsters retirement, social security, and that's all before he got paid for his full time lucrative job. Gone. Dead. Last night I started counting up the bodies. There's been a lot of them. I do not know if its because its the age of the people I work with - normally most of them are in their late fifties or early sixties - or if its because I've just been out in life a while.
I was cleaning the lovebirds, feeding them, earlier in the day and I moved a box in my art studio looking for where I stashed a second bag of seed when I bumped a box in the closet and dislodged it from the shelf. It fell to the ground and out spilled a picture of a guy I used to table top with. His name was Joey and he'd had a really rough life. His father suicided in front of him and his brother. HIs mother left. He was raised by his grandmother that was often overbearing. Later, when she grew ill and couldn't care for him, he moved in with friends and got his emancipation. He pretended to get over it. All of it. He seemed happy, but he was never really truly happy. Joey was a little guy. You guys all know these types. 5'3, perhaps 90 lbs soaking wet, could eat an entire market hog daily and never gain an ounce of fat... He always played the huge warrior types, big brutes who were well into their six or seven foot range. He was everyone's champion in the game. He used to snicker like the cartoon sidekick dog Muggly? from Hanna Barbara's The Great Race.
When he eventually moved out and away from my friends to go to school, he reverted back into a deep depression. He'd come see us on gaming nights or weekends and we'd all have fun, then he'd reluctantly leave again. No one asked him to move out. He just always thought he needed too. Then one day he came to a gaming session all sunshine and light and bearing gifts for everyone. He thanked us all each in his own way about what sort of role we'd played on his life. Then when it was time to go after that ten hour session of gaming, he hugged us all fiercely and disappeared into the night. Three days later someone found him sitting in his car, still having never gotten out if it, parked at his apartment near the college with a gunshot through his head. He came to game with us that night to say goodbye.
So yesterday I held up that picture of Joey and it spooked me a bit. I was only twenty two, fresh out of college, and living the dream in my first professional Wildlife Career when that happened. It was my first face to face on how woefully unhappy people can be and how no matter how bad things are, fantasy and reality never quite meet in the middle anywhere.
There was a wreck in the yard last night. No one died. But somehow death was in the air. Joey's picture had primed me for a most unhappy day. I knew it. And I felt like in his own gentle way - for he had been a gentle soul with not even the capacity to hurt himself one would have thought - he was saying 'be ware' its going to be a rough one. So I took warning, kicked back, and began cycling through vblogs. I mostly enjoy watching them or rather listening to them. I usually do so when I'm working on the HD tickets I almost always handle first thing in the morning.
One set in particular just upset me though. It wasn't just one thing about them, it was several aspects. I won't go into vast detail here, but I told the person it had upset me and their response was the typical "I'm kidding. I was joking." Yes. Of course. How silly of me. Because that makes it all better automatically. That infuses me with understanding and light and makes you well in the right. That forces me to accept you trying to explain to me how my sex acts and what makes a realistic females in literature and what doesn't when played by other... other being, of course, male. There was a wreck in the yard last night. Joey, you tried to warn me how awful the day would be. I should have listened and called in sick. I should have never turned on the computer. I didn't want to be reminded that I'm a bad friend because I don't promote my friends to others.
I've often had vast and lengthy relationships with people on Mizahar. You always feel slightly flattered and special when say a DS calls you ten times a week just to shoot the breeze or calls you when they are bored during long car drives. Several used to do that with me. But you know, I slowly came to see they were calling for their own vanity, not because I was anything special to them. I was a symbol of something, and I knew that was true because as soon as I shut them down and stopped accepting the calls that were basic cries for me to sooth their egos and tell them everything was fine, their attention diverted immediately to another of equal rank who would flatter them like I was unable too any longer. Pretentiousness calls to pretentiousness. I am not that person. I am who I am. And I've slowly put a stop to it. Why? Net people can be neurotic. You find one or two of them you just adore and stick with them. That's kinda been my life lesson in 2012. The older you get the less friends you need and the ones you do retain are so thoroughly awesome its never quantity over quality its quality quality quality. There was a wreck in the yard last night. Death may steal some of the better ones, but in the end if there's a connection death can only separate people so far.
So my very bad day continued when my boss called me into the office for a meeting five minutes before he left. He' knows I'm a resource in the yard and that everyone who is everyone stops by what we jokingly call "Checkpoint Charlie" to catch up on what the latest word in the yard is - the place I work. I'm a resource for about thirty drivers and that job often entails simply hearing them out when they need to vent, changing out a headlight in their semi trucks because sometimes they just need someone to do something for them for a change, and a whole host of assorted other things. I hear about wives, girlfriends, their kids causing problems, and they are all like a huge family to me. When someone looks about to break, I try my best to ease their day in any way I can, and I often bring treats just for one or two of them when I think they need something extra or a thank you. I don't think people I know at work are 'work acquaintances'. We can't be that in my industry. We are a team and we work as one. And in finding my leadership niche over the last five years, I've come to realize that there are a whole bunch of aspects to leadership and finding that balance between getting people to do what needs to be done and getting people to do it happily is an artform. I also act as a liaison between our company and the drivers, keeping me the channel of communication between two different resources. And as such I can get things done or ask for special favors when the drivers need it because someone screwed up a schedule and a trailer really should be loaded say two hours earlier than it was scheduled to be because otherwise a driver has to sit in the yard burning his logbook down not getting paid. I bust my ass for people at work. I really do.
So Ive talked to everyone there day in and day out. And my boss periodically calls me into the office to get a feel for what's going on in the company. Today was no different. And I sort of lost it on him, not in a bad way, but in a way that made me think of Joeys picture lying there accidentally spilled from that box. Our company is not hiring. Yet our drivers are stretched so thin that they are required to work six days a week often fourteen hour days. There was a tangle, a falling out in the office, and the office manager got busted back to a truck and a yard hostler who was in charge on day shift was invited in to take his place. My boss wanted to know what the mood in the yard was on that. And I laughed and told him no one cared. No one cared at all. They wanted their five days a week back like he'd promised them. It was fifteen days past the deadline or so and still with everything being dead, we were working six days a week and not hiring. He was shocked. I could tell it bothered him. There was a wreck in the yard last night. This was the ill wind before it, the precuser to the absolute shit day that was coming.
He went on to explain that the reason he was calling me in was that someone was stealing pens from his desk and that he wanted to ask me if I knew who. This was not an accusation towards me. Everyone knows I'm girly as hell and a pen snob to boot so I carry around my own brand and purposely pick them up in bright pink as to guarantee the fact that a borrowed pen is returned immediately lest someone be accused of a sexual orientation other than straight. Don't look so shocked. It's the industry. It's very manly. He also explained that the next person who was caught stealing a pen would be fired. On the spot, no questions asked, and he told me if I caught anyone doing it to tell them to clean out their truck. Yes' sir. Because after all your job is worth a .39 cent Bic. No thanks. Count me out. Then he told me to spread the word. Which wasn't going to be hard. But I did suggest to him that in doing so, someone was going to have a hellishly fun laugh that he was so upset about the thievery (scissors also got pilfered... .these wondrous .69 cent back to school blunt nosed ugly army green things that I suspect someone just mercifully dumped in the garbage and didn't covet enough to ensconce into their own personal office supply arsenal - but you never know) and that perhaps on the morrow his entire office supply drawer would be empty.
This did not help things, this suggestion of tom foolery and mirth, this hint that perhaps these highly intelligent drivers had a wicked sense of humor too boot. Oh well. I had my dignity and stood up for them, rather than join the soul and body killing machine that was this company. Fired. On the spot. Over a bic. Got it. There was a wreck in the yard last night. Looking back, I see that it was already reflected in my boss' eyes and spirit.
So, one driver was told, then another, and then finally all twenty something's that work on my shift had sought me out to hear first hand the tales of thievery and leadership displeasure. This worked well for me because I was trying to track everyone down to re-tag their security badges for a new system. It's far easier if gossip spreads and they seek me out rather than me having to drive around and watch the gate or the turn-style or the parking lot for signs of whichever souls's tags I still had in the palm of my hand. It's not because I'm inherently lazy. It's just that I'm not a people watcher, and watching so many locations equates to being just that. So the word was spread, security clearances upgraded, and finally, around six pm, the wreck finally happened.
No one was hurt except some freight that has little or no meaning to anyone in the face of human lives. An '84 KW will be out of commission for a while until a decent body shop can do some wielding on its frame. And I was able to salvage the trailer and get it re-powered and the load delivered at the expense of a very tired driver generously not saying no when asked to pick up the slack. It was almost anticlimactic. But it still happened. It was still human error. And it was still hugely costly. And it still took my stress level through the roof. I wonder, if looking back, had it not meant to be something even worse than it was. I wonder if the events leading up to it adverted disaster. Someone parking a truck two feet away, being out on the ground which is common when the accident happened and having the potential to be crushed. All that could have easily been the scenario last night. It wasn't though. We took care of it. Everyone is fine.
Though it felt like it never stopped happening. It felt like it was ongoing constantly evolving and in many ways it did. Things kept happening, like the pressure waves from an explosion expanding outward. I didn't feel like talking to anyone. I didn't want anyone to talk to me. I tried, but it was half hearted, and though there are people who are good friends of mine both irl and on the net that love me, I didn't want to reach out to them either. The world just felt bad yesterday, rotten to the core, and the more thoughtless people were the more it made me think about life and how we are all barreling towards the end, whenever that comes.
There are people on this site that constantly preach and praise positivity, but the truth is in scraps, we should be writing about the hard things, the negative things, the raw pain and sorrow of day to day. We should be embracing anger and talking about wrecks and being real people. When people write poetry for example, the best poems aren't about flowers and sunshine and daisies springing from people's asses. They are about the path not taken, raging against the dying of the light, and pain, anger, futility, love, basically the whole human condition. I do not want to foster a community here of plastics, people who are more fake than real because they don't want to face the fact that they are just can be just as ugly as the rest of us inside despite going to great pains on the outside. But it IS evident. The situation at work last night was a wake up call to me about it. One player, for example, is all smiles and giggles and grins in chat and in their scrap lately, but if you read back through their collective work, its all venom and judgement and their status' on AIM reinforce that even to this day. Something happens on Miza? The snark hits the status on their AIM. I see their own wreck happening, the wreck in their mind, and it makes me shake my head. I didn't want to acknowledge it but a good friend last night told me they finally just had enough and blocked them off AIM - pointing out all their personal failings in the eyes of the other player. I could not disagree. Sad. But hypocrisy is a human invention. That's why I like the animal kingdom better. The harder us humans pretend to be someone else, the more fake we present ourselves to the outside world. And sorry folks. People aren't as stupid as you give them credit for. Just talk to them. Just listen. They don't need you telling them what they can read in the lore, or suming up concepts and ideas that are not your own. That thing on their shoulders, that thing that smiles and blinks and talks? That's a head. It's full of a brain. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. If you live long enough and get out and about enough, you'll eventually see it... probably first hand along with death to then validate the claim its real.
It is very real. People are a lot smarter than YOU give them credit for.
It made me take a look at my own AIM list, going back to that whole topic of passive aggressive AIM status' and people putting on the Mizahar masks. AIM is somewhat a record of other people's wrecks. One storyteller on here I had eight accounts listed. I deleted them all. I deleted practically everyone I didn't recognize as a day to day person I speak with routinely. I even deleted that guy whose call's I stopped accepting on their long drives and who turned to someone else to BFF up too in order to feel validated and important. Turns out they found someone who 'never lets anyone do that but him'. Really? You know he only turned to you because I finally said no to their BS? How special do you feel now? You shouldn't. Once you get tired of it, he'll go find someone else too. And that person will give him what he needs until they too are drained and say enough. The cycle continues. It always has. Why do you think so many people change sites so often? There was a wreck in the yard last night.
I've had the same AIM for like years. MY ICQ is even older. How hard is this people? Do you make and wreck friendships so often that you need to hide behind various AIM accounts? Do you fake real life personae and need to change? I don't get it. Hacked? Never have been. What have you been doing that you have been? I don't get it. Your AIM is something of a Wreck if you have shattered accounts laying here and there and need to get new ones periodically. Think about it.
I deleted my first real Storyteller off my AIM - a guy named Wretched who I hadn't talked to in years but whom I missed because he'd taught me how to be a Mud God and gave me a chance to play in his kingdom. With much satisfaction I also deleted an ex-admin, two mudserver admins, and purged part of that life too. Juan, sorry you didn't make the cut either, though you've tried to AIM me multiple times in the last three years. All the rest of your dreaded site folks are gone too. Some of whom I talked to off and on. There was no need to now. We have nothing in common. There was a wreck in the yard last night. My AIM reflects that now. Its cleaner, like the shattered glass and plastic I swept up into a dust pan last night that was causing those glittering shards to catch light and gleam like a second sky full of stars trapped on the floor of the world.
See? I can write poetry.
Then finally someone said good night to me last night. They changed my name. I don't know if they were trying to be cute or if they were just trying to tease me or what. They changed to to reflect a name I disliked enormously, whom I think is pretentious beyond belief, and absolutely absurd. It was like pouring salt into the wreck situation and opening it wide up and it brought up all the other things last night. I don't know why they did it. But I can tell you it was like the night as a whole giving me the bird.
So we had vblogs that were rude, uncalled for but 'just kidding'. We had situation after situation that pointed to a day that was going to be challenging. We have nefarious bic criminals who will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. We have overworked drivers making dumb mistakes that are costing them their livelihood. We have AIM idiots and pretentious people. So yea... There was a wreck in the yard last night. I felt like it was in my heart. I can't shut that voice up. |
by Balderdash on January 19th, 2013, 7:26 am 
