To anyone who was worried about me last night....

May 03, 2004 12:26


Its no big secret that I hate my job. My parents won't let me quit, and no matter how bad of an employee I become, it seems my managers just refuse to fire me, probably because despite my bad days (on which I'm usually one of their worst employees), I'm often one of their best employees.

Yesterday when it was time to go to work, I was tired, apathetic, already in a bad mood, and really didn't feel like dealing with McDonald's. So I didn't.

Now to put things in perspective a little:
-Employees playing hookie at my McDonald's is as frequent an occurence as people playing hookie at my high school last year and likely more so
-Its hardly unusual for high school and college students to play hookie occasionally
-I never skipped class without good reason and parental permission in high school
-My job is far less important to me than school ever was, which is to say, I couldn't care less about it. I half hope I get fired half of the time.

So when I decided to be irresponsible about my job that everyone knows I don't give a shit about, my paranoid parents freaked out and decided that I was "missing". First of all, my brother was on the internet doing research and was likely to be doing so all night; he said it himself. Therefore, McDonald's wouldn't be able to reach the house when I didn't show up and theoretically my parents would never have known I skipped work in the first place. How did they find out? Not by my managers calling. My parents thought I was "acting strange" before I left and so my dad drove to the store TWICE to make sure I went to work. If my parents hadn't been "spying" on me, there wouldn't have been anyone worrying about me at all. The way I see it, I was just being your typical irresponsible college student, and that's only relative because I am usually more on the responsible side than that, but my parents had to go and blow everything out of proportion.

So now that I've (somewhat) justified myself...where did I actually go?

First I DID go to McDonald's, I just never got out of my car. I sat in the parking lot for about fifteen minutes trying to find some motivation to go in and work. Finding none, I got back on Lynnhaven and drove all the way out to Virginia Beach Blvd and then on to the church. I spent quite some time sitting under the giant crucifix in the gardenish area in front. That's where I always go when I need a peaceful place for some reflection time; either to sit in the gardenish area or sometimes the Antioch room or worship center or chapel if the building isn't locked. When the sun had been down for a while a turned on the car radio, hoping the DJ would announce the time at some point. I wanted to make sure I didn't go home until sometime between 11:30 and midnight because that's when my parents were expecting me to come home and they would just send me back to work if I came home early in all likelyhood and the whole idea was avoiding going to work.

So anyhow, while I was listening to the radio, "Born to Run" by Bruce Springsteen came on. Now "Born to Run" is one of those songs that does things to me. Even when I was a toddler, my favorite song was the Sesame Street adaptation of it, "Born to Add" and though its not neccessarily my absolute favorite song now, I still love it. Therefore, when it came on the radio, and I'm sitting there in my car, how could I resist the urge to cruise around for a while with the windows down, the radio up, and the wind in my hair? I couldn't resist, and so I did just that. For the rest of the time my shift was supposed to last in fact. I had a great time and felt a whole lot better by the time McDonald's finally closed for the night. I felt I had put my time to much better use than my managers would have. Then I got home...

...and discovered that my parents had "spied" on me to make sure I had gone to work, then when they found that I hadn't, called everyone in the area I know who's phone number they could find, told them I was missing and asked if they knew where I was. Lovely way to cause a big panic over nothing. Now I know how Big Bird must have felt in "Christmas Eve on Sesame Street" when everyone's worried because they can't find him and think he had run off somewhere when really he had just been on the roof waiting for Santa to come the whole time. Seriously though, I certainly had no intention of worrying anyone and apologize to anyone who was worried. The emo entry I wrote yesterday afternoon probably didn't help any (though that was about something completely different from and largely unrelated to my skipping work last night). I feel like such an asshole now. Well, and I'm fairly pissed at my parents. If they hadn't been literally looking for trouble in the first place, there wouldn't have been any negative consequences of last night except possibly job-related ones which, as I've already pointed out, I don't care about anyhow. Sorry I was so much trouble for everyone; it was quite unintentional.

So anyhow, now my friends and family all think there's something wrong with me and that I need counciling or something. My parents said that its not normal to just not show up for work. Refer to the bulleted list in the beginning of this entry for my opinions on the abnormality of a college kid playing hookie. What's really abnormal is for parents to follow and spy on their kids to make sure they went to work. I'm fine. Really. Sheesh.

"Hey what else can we do now
Except roll down the window
And let the wind blow back your hair
Well the nights busting open
These two lanes will take us anywhere"
-Bruce Springsteen, Thunder Road

Honor,
-Bobby
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