I’m made of sterner stuff than common sense, I’ll have you know.

I used to get frustrated when I’d be cast in a play, an old one written back, say, in the 1920s, a la Glaspell or O’Neill, and halfway through the play I’d come to one of my lines:

“Egads, Helen! Don’t do that with your teeth! The zipper’s fine.”

Or…

“Eureka! Eureka! I’ve unlocked the secret code. Now, the children may eat.”

I'll be mad if all he's got is corn.

I hated that type of diction. It was always difficult for me to comprehend who in the world would ever actually say these things. Even harder still when one of the words had a repeat. I had no idea how to even say these words.

That is…until today.

Today I caught myself in the hall precariously torn between the constant hum of the Men’s bathroom vent and the lure of the weather just on the other side of the double-doors. I was heading to the theatre, to unlock it when it happened: my Ah Ha moment – the expression, not the band – and it had little to do with my predicament. It was a random thought that, I guess, had been running around in the back of my mind all morning with a pair of pinking shears. (Like all thoughts do).

I suppose it tripped and poked through.

I said, a tad out loud, “Eureka! I know now why I’m so grateful to have a job.”

Consequently, I discovered how an actor goes about learning the best way to deliver such Bathtub Gin-era dialogue. You have to stumble upon it. You have to “happen into” it. Then, you lead it back into the nether regions of your mind, and leave it there…with a new pair of pinking shears, of course.

Anyway, my Ah Ha moment: I’m grateful to have  a job because now I can retire.

I love knowing this. I’ve been sitting on a thimble of anticipation all afternoon planning my Life After Work, what I’ll do with all my that free time, that Me time. I’ve been more absorbed in my job today than ever because I know that this will all be over soon.

I mean, these next thirty or so years are just going to fly right by me.

It’s nothing against my job, no, no. It’s more about the fact that my job’s so time-consuming. Work really cuts into my social life. It prevents me from having one, mostly.  Well, I should say, work tries very hard to prevent me from having one.

But, I’m made of sterner stuff than common sense, I’ll have you know. 

Oh, Work, thou art a Meanie.

First, I’m forced to go to bed each week night at a certain hour that I thought was created only for teething babies. So, I’m restricted from activities that I’d much, much rather be doing. Then, I’m practically driven by guilt to and from a stupid office (but it’s a nice, big one – though I can’t see out of the windows). Then, I, like, have stuff to do that involves my signature and monies that I never actually see, so I’m not sure the budget even exists…you get the picture.

It’s dull and boring and there are a thousand-million other things I could be doing, like, for instance, Nothing.

So, I think it’s quasi-judicially clear, that this ability of Work to prevent me from doing What I Want, is in effect, a crime. Work forces me, by luring me in with the promise of a paycheck, to do…you know, work. Work that I would not have done had I been left alone, to my own devices. To add insult to potential injury, if I don’t do the work, guess what?, they’ll ask me to leave.

Consider the language here: luring, forces, punished. Read between the lines, people. This is a generic definition of entrapment.

And entrapment is illegal.

Everybody knows this, and if they don’t…well, here, you do now. This is what it says in Webster’s about entrapment; of course, this is the second offered definition, but that doesn’t matter. Numbering isn’t important in the dictionary:

2 : the action of luring an individual into committing a crime in order to prosecute the person for it

Hello! Thank you! Please! It’s so obvious, right?

I’ve obviously made my case. And it would, more than likely, hold up in a court of law. Actually, change that: I don’t think I’d really need a judge or a court of law. The declaration I’ve made on this blog should be sufficient. And, next on my agenda is a new law to be made that states “what a blog says, goes.”

Today might grant a brief reprieve, because I do truly count my blessings for today’s revelation: I’m like every other working man on the planet that lives in a country built on the concept of free enterprise and who’s not a) a political prisoner denied amnesty, b) living in abject poverty in a Third World country, or c) a White Male Republican Southern Baptist minister. 

Excuse me. I’m probably wrong about b). I’m sure they work as hard as the rest of us…they just have nothing to show for it.

And, today, in essence, I can join their ranks. Not in the working hard department, but rather in the ranks of those who come each day to their 9 to 5, or their 12-hour shift, or the drive-thru lane for that unfortunate FT’er: we salute proudly the very tangible fact that come one day, we will retire.

Not quit, not get fired…retire.

Which means, if we’re smart or very lucky, we’ll have money to spend, receive some sort of a pension check in lieu of social security, perhaps, and have days and days full of nothing to do but Nothing.

I mean, come on…there’s no other word that works, so just say it already: Eureka!

Heckfire, it makes me want to French my vacuum.

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