Worst Week Ever

This morning I woke feeling only marginally, if at all, better than yesterday. I groaned from beneath my mound of blankets and pillows until far later than strictly necessary, weighing the relative merits of using another nine hours of sick leave. In the end I let work itself be the deciding factor and checked my email. The crushing weight of what seemed like an endless stream of urgent requests for web-related intervention roused me into a sort of unwilling action as I tried to pull myself together to make the six-minute commute and avoid being buried from another day of stagnation, work-wise. I wasn’t feeling the whole thing to begin with, which made me quite crabby and I moodily sulked downstairs to my car.

You know the sinking, wash-of-cold sensation you get when you discover something extremely unpleasant has just occurred? It turns out when you couple that with an already miserably hot sensation of lingering illness, you get something that I imagine were possible to successfully bottle and load into a syringe would render all other methods of torture instantly obsolete. The pile of glass around the passenger side door of my car spoke a volume of what had taken place in the cold of the previous night. The seat that was now covered with bluish shards of shattered safety glass no longer held my nicest jacket; the floor before the seat that had only a few hours earlier been home to my gym bag was now also barren, save the irregular shapes of sharp edges, refracting the blazing morning light. My glove box also lie open, empty except for a single fast-food straw I keep in there, just in case.

I spent a good portion of the morning getting further behind in work as I waited in furious silence on hold with the insurance company, glass repair shop and police department. By the time I finally made it to work I was in what may best be described as the foulest mood of my entire life. As the day went on my mood got a little better as I managed to pull the perspective of the day’s events into their proper context. It did little to soften the wrenching annoyance of the whole process, but it did make me less apt to physically assault any co-workers who might have attempted an ill-advised joke at my expense.

My only response so far has been to craft the following post, which tomorrow morning I will affix to the mailboxes around our apartment complex in an attempt to take the proverbial wild shot in the dark. Plus I think putting my thoughts out there for all to see will give me a sense of extremely self-important and uncommonly smug satisfaction:

Are You the Irresponsible Baboon Who Broke into a Saturn Outside of Building 20 on Wednesday Night?

Then congratulations! You’re now in illicit possession of:

• My Gym bag containing an iPod shuffle, a pair of stinky gym shoes, a Master Lock, my gym shorts and T-shirt, a pair of sweaty socks, my favorite pair of earphones, a half-used container of raquetballs and a first aid kit.
• My jacket.
• The contents of my glove compartment.

I’m not sure what possible use the proof of insurance, registration and the car’s manual could be to you. I don’t know what you want with my rank gym gear nor why you needed a jacket so badly as to swipe mine. I really don’t care since your intelligence is not under question: I’m completely convinced of your status as a Class-A ignoramus.

If it was really worth the effort, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt as to what your motivation was, other than selfish mayhem. In any case, consider the iPod shuffle my gift to you. Consider it a reward, of sorts, for being a particularly primitive neanderthal.

What I really want is the bag, jacket, headphones and glove compartment contents returned. They have no obvious value to you, so returning them should be of no particular consequence, you soulless twit.

If you return these items to the office, you are free to keep the iPod shuffle, no questions asked, although I will wish that the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpit hair. Don’t take it personally, I wish that on anyone with loose enough morals to steal from others without regard for what, exactly, they may be depriving them of.

Should you muster a few spare brain cells with which to clumsily operate the iPod, also be my guest to listen to the included music, which is likely of far superior quality to your own inebriated musical taste. The ancillary benefit of decent tunes may be looked upon as a secondary reward for your oh-so-clever felonious actions.

May their dulcet tones lull you in to a pleasant slumber in which you dream of a world in which thievery is punishable by the sharp removal of a hand.

Sincerely,

Your friendly neighborhood Saturn owner

Anyway, I’m going to bed now. I’ve pretty much had it with this week. And the uncomfortable thing that keeps running through my head is that It’s only Thursday.

For the love of all that is pure and true, there’s still two more days of this. It’s a good day the waiting period for firearms is three days. That’s all I have to say about that.

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