Just Plain Crazy.

Hell, even i'm being to think i'm nuts. Five to four and we're all sitting in our cubicles watching the clock. Tick tock tick tock. Does time slow down when you watch a clock, it does where i work, im sure management have some sort of gizmo they use to make us suffer just a little bit longer.

Tock. At last that little hand reaches the zenith of it's journey. And we're off, like rats fleeing a sinking ship. First there's the mums and dads racing off to pick up the kid's, then the booze rats heading down to the local for a quiet one. Hah, as if there's such a thing. Then there's the dawdlers, always leaving something behind, something so important that they absolutely have to go back and get it. Like it cant wait until tomorrow right! Last but by no means least are the sucks, just lingering long enough for the boss to notice that they are the last to leave. Give me a break, as if he really gives a s***.

Me. I'm one of the booze rats, not for the company mind you, or for the booze. Well okay, maybe just a little bit for the booze. Mostly just because i have nothing better to do. I'm single, i live on my own, i don't have any family here, they're about sixteen hundred kilometres away. Perhaps its just the noise, or the jazz band that usually fires up about six, just in time to drown out the half cut ramblings of my fellow workers, who have mysteriously evolved from semi decent human beings into psychotic sex starved aliens. Anyway the barman knows my name, he starts pouring my next beer before i even reach the bar. The waitresse's are nice sort's and even pretend to enjoy my lame attempts at flirting. It beats sitting at home in the dark watching Desperate Housewives.

About six thirty the first of the guy's and gal's from my department start heading for the door, loose ties, shirt tails hanging out, skirts tucked in to the back of panties, stumbling along in high heels. I usually wave off offers of a lift, personally i prefer my life, such as it is, to a twenty minute crosstown dash with a drunken wannabe Fangio. Once they've all left i'll move up to the end of the bar where i can get a better view of the band, a never ending bowl of beer nuts and a quicker refill of my beer. I'll share a joke or two with Mick the barman, flirt badly with a couple of the girls, stumble to the toilet half a dozen times and fall off my bar stool at least once, all before nine o'clock.

"Taxi". The first two never stop, usually the third or the fourth will be game enough to pick up a maggotted white guy with his fly undone, half a pint glass in his hand and toilet paper stuck to his shoe. By the time i manage to unlock the door to my flat i've probably woken up at least half the people living within a two hundred metre radius, cursed every locksmith from here to China and bruised my knuckles after knocking loudly on my door. Yes i know i said i live alone, I do. I just forget sometimes thats all.

Next, television on, microwave dinner, bourbon and coke. Not always in that order. Feet up, remote in hand. Generally my next recollection will be the sun coming up through blood shot eyes. Now i know what Mental as Anything were singing about. A quick shower, a litre of coffee, clean shirt and pants and bolt to the bus stop at the end of the street. Nine times out of ten i miss the bus and have to catch a cab, this time nearly always the first or the second one, what is it with these people!

By the time i get to work, the sucks have already been looking busy for the boss for at least half an hour, the mums and dads are worrying wether the kids remembered their lunches, the dawdlers have had to race home to get some important paperwork that would have still been here if they hadn't come back to get it yesterday and the booze rats aren't looking at all healthy. Yours truly included. Another cup of coffee is needed before i can sit in front of a computer screen for the next eight hours. Most of the rats are standing around regaling each other with stories of conquests, fights, imaginary sexual exploits and the theft of every street sign between here and Enfield. About now the boss will make his entrance from his office and the cattle will disperse to their corrals.

Me. I'm sitting at my desk watching the clock. Twenty past eight. Tick tock tick tock. This is JUST PLAIN F#$%@N CRAZY.

Cheers
M4S



(not true of my life now, but definately a part of those early years. Now im one of the dads racing home and dare i say it, a boss! and you know what, none of the sucks ever got promoted. Lifes pretty cool like that.)