thanksgivings of the new millenium

I drove by the local bowling alley on my way home from work the other day. The marquee alerted all passersby of the annual ‘bowl a turkey, win a turkey’ promotion that this particular establishment conducted each year. Their little way of encouraging holiday cheer in the bowling enthusiasts that frequented the lanes. Three strikes, and Thanksgiving dinner was assured.

As I continued on my way past, I realized that this Thursday would mark my seventh job in the past seven Thanksgivings. That’s a different job for each year since the new millennium began.

My friend Gwen called later that evening and I mentioned this revelation to her.

“You know,” she told me, “that’s going to look real bad to employers. You better hold onto this job for awhile.”

“I can’t help it if I have commitment issues when it comes to employment.”

“I think that it’s less a ‘commitment’ issue and more of an ‘employment’ issue,” she said.

And she may be right. I need to keep this job for next several Thanksgivings. If, for no other reason, to keep my resume under ten pages long.

cloudy with a chance of strain

I needed to be in the office by 6:30 on Monday morning…a cruel way to start the week.

I finally dragged myself out of bed at 5:56…after several half-asleep snooze button stabs…and groggily made my way into the shower. Before six in the morning, no amount of hot water is going wake me up, and this morning proved to be no different.

I stumbled from the shower and popped open the lid to my contact case. Once both were firmly inserted into each corresponding eyeball, I briefly considered shaving but felt that it was much too early to trust myself with something as sharp as a razor blade. Clients be damned, I was going to be stubbled.

I began to slowly realize that nothing was coming into focus quite the way it should…as if the whole world had been covered with a thin layer of Vaseline. Normally I would have noticed this much quicker than I did, but my brain was still operating on a five second delay.

A few blinks later and the problem continued to persist. The need for coffee overcame my need for crisp sight, however, so I threw on some clothes, grabbed my keys and headed off. Surely, I felt, when my ocular system was ready to accept that no more sleep was forthcoming, it would readjust on its own.

Yet, it refused to give in. The whole ride to work was accomplished with great strain. My eyes refused to work properly. Tail-lights remained fuzzy. Oncoming headlights were all decorated with halos. And a large headache ensued.

By the time I arrived at work, I wasn’t in the best of spirits…clearly in need of an extension to the weekend. The coffee had begun to kick in and my brain had begun to thaw out, though, and this is when it occurred to me that I had stuck the contact from the little ‘L’ compartment of my contact case into my right eye, and vice versa.

Because, while both of my eyes are extremely bad, my left eye is even more extremely bad than my right. Meaning that while a person standing three feet away from me will look like a large beige-ish blob if viewed from my right eye, from my left they will be an even blobbier version in the same beige-ish color.

A quick trip to the men’s room and a quick contact switch later, the world was once again restored to its proper perspective. The cloudy vision was gone.

The headache, however, lasted the rest of the day.