Pre-Medication

Oh Internet.

I wish I had more for you these days. I really do.

Pretty much everything is the same here.

Children who need ANSWERS about EVERYTHING. Mother who needs medicating. Father busily juggling.

But school is starting in just 7 more days...not that I'm counting. Medicating will begin soon. Father will continue to juggle and hopefully the Mother Medicating will make it matter a little less.

There's not much happening here. Other than continued neurosis on my part. Same old, same old.

Other than that though, I've decided the only thing I can do, as a job, is write. It's the only thing I can do relatively well and that I also enjoy doing and I don't see anyway around it.

I have to make writing my 'job' because every other job I can come up with has the same appeal as, say, eating lunch with Dr. Phil every day for the rest of my life, getting meaningless advice in the form of nonsensical catchphrases.

Me: "I don't know Dr Phil. I'm just struggling through everyday and this job isn't going that great so I'm going to need a new job and it's all really overwhelming."

Phil: "You don't need anyone or anything to poop on a cracker."

Me: "What?"

Phil: "You don't need a spice rack to dare to be stupid."

Me: "What!?"

Phil: "You don't need to send out a press release to eat a bug."

Me: "Look, this bullshit might work on Oprah, but not me."

When I look back over the jobs in my past, I realize I sucked at every single one of them, except the Life Drawing job since all I had to do was sit there.

There was the summer I worked as a bank teller. I never once balanced my drawer at the end of the day. It was never a significant amount, but enough that my line at the bank was always the longest. I thought it was my cleavage, but then I remembered I don't have any. Probably people were lining up to visit my teller window since I was giving away extra $20 bills with each transaction....because I'm too stupid to be a bank teller.

There was the job at the service desk of a large discount store where I worked for exactly 2 hours before I excused myself for a bathroom break and ran screaming from the premises. I'm not kidding, I actually just left without saying a word.

Even at Crate and Barrel I was mainly good at meeting future spouses. On the other hand, I was really quite bad at cleaning merchandise displays. In fact, once while cleaning a display of handblown beer mugs, I pulled out one particular beer mug which had a pivotal role in the complicated display.

By 'pivotal' I mean that one beer mug was holding up the other 199 beer mugs in the display and when I pulled out that 1 beer mug...all the others (and about 6 bottles of sam adams beer) came crashing to the ground. Loudly, as you might imagine because glass breaking on a wooden floor in the middle of a store is typically kind of loud.

That's $1,781.05 in merchandise for those of you playing along at home.

Etc etc....office jobs were less dramatically horrid, retail jobs were varying degrees of hell. Now I'm 'working' as a stay at home mother and we've established how Awesome! I am at this particular job.

By 'Awesome!' I mean 'Really Bad', only I can't quit.

I can't excuse myself to go to the restroom and then slip out the side door. I can't break $1,781.05 in merchandise and get sent home for the day (but I've tried, oh, I've tried.) No one lets me leave.

Unless I get a job. But I can't think of a job I want because there isn't a job I've ever had I really liked.

Can we add this to the 'Great Big List Of Things That Keep Melissa Awake At Night' please?

Another thing to add to the 'Great Big List Of Things That Keep Melissa Awake At Night' (Read the post, then read the comments....). I thought my weekend was pretty fucking fun, but now my weekend seems downright provincial.

Comments

[jenB]

I wish I could be your Calgon and take you away. Even just for a little while...

[jilbur]

There is some grandeur in having wrought so much destruction in a Crate and Barrel. There is some distinction in it.

You look at it as: I will write, because I can't do anything else.

I (dare I say, we) look at it as: You should write, because the universe decrees that it is so.

But this should all be visited when the meds--the Swiffer of the mind--deftly remove all the lint and cat hair from your perspective.

[pinky]

I think the $1,781.05 was worth it. I would have really enjoyed seeing that. And I, too have slipped out the side door of a job, feeling that vast sense of relief.

I especially like jobs that make you wear an apron. Now that's dignity.

[Mir]

yeah, I'm still trying to find that SAHM/writer job that pays gobs and gobs of money, but so far I'm still vastly underpaid. And really, it takes so much talent to park my children in front of Noggin while I share my most insipid thoughts with the world... it's truly perplexing that I'm not at the top of the pay scale.

[Sarcomical]

I for one ABsolutely think you could make a living at this writing thing. The sucky part is how damned hard it is to find something like that, and I sincerely hope you can find that thing for you soon.

Oh, P.S. - You have just described the exact reason I have been terrified to ever work at a bank! That is SO me!

And also, P.P.S. - Dr. Phil might possibly say to that: "You can't count on the pony to lay your crap in the right sock drawer." Or some other such nonsense. You nailed it! He is WE-eird.

[Lil' Sis]

The Dr. Phil-erator just told me that "You don't need five bucks to rock me like a hurricane." It's so true.

[Melissa]

Dr Phil is full of insight. Down home folksy and nonsensical insight.

I see a tattoo in your future.

[fresh]

Why not pour your heart into this blog and give others a taste of daily suburbanbliss.com. I see google ad words in your future as well as a full line of cafe press t-shirts and coffee mugs...

[Sarcastic Journalist]

I do like to send out a press release when I take a dump, though.

I think it would be cool if people like us could band together and start some type of company for people who need people who are funny, creative and can write.

I'm so in the same boat as you.

[Jennifer]

Dr. Phil hasn't a clue, you know? If it weren't for all of the Oprah cult members out there, he would be nothing, nothing I tell you! I know how you feel though. I feel like there should be all of these jobs that are perfect for me and I don't know where to begin or how to do it all. It scares the shit out of me.

[grace]

You've got it going with the writing thing. My only goes to first grade tomorrow and I'm left totally evaluating my self-worth. I can't write. I can document, but I can't write. I can mix a drink and I know how to vacuum a pool, but really... where's that gonna get me in Michigan outside three months?

[Sanorah]

OMG will you girls listen to yourselves! The answer is right in front of you... there are what, 10 comments, with 3-4 of them who like to write and would love to make some money at it... Start a Humor based Infertility Magazine! Could it really be that hard? (Ok.. I’m not stupid, I know it would be hard, but the idea popped into my head and I just have to say it!)
I'd subscribe!

~Sanorah

[AGK]

When no other job fits and you like to write, it means you're a writer. :D Of course, writing won't have you collecting a weekly paycheck right away, which is why I will be found at registers 1, 2, 3...34, 35 starting this weekend. And yes, there have been days (this is my third return, but who's counting?) when I would walk in and have to fight myself not to pull a u-turn and run back out, screaming.

[Melissa]

AGK- That makes me feel like dying. I'm a huge baby. A spoiled little baby.

Plus, I did have a job as a cashier....and guess what? I never balanced that drawer either!

[Diana]

Omg... I, too, could have written this post. Is there some club we could join? Start? Online writing group? Anything?

[Stacey]

I know one thing, I would buy a book that you wrote any day of the week. You are a great writer and a journal of your day to day life as a book would be so entertaining. Who knows, maybe someday you could be the book of the month on Oprah.

I have been reading your blog now for a few months, and as a SAHM of a 19 month old it is one of those indulgences that I look forward to. Does that say a lot about my life or what?!

[Stacey]

I know one thing, I would buy a book that you wrote any day of the week. You are a great writer and a journal of your day to day life as a book would be so entertaining. Who knows, maybe someday you could be the book of the month on Oprah.

I have been reading your blog now for a few months, and as a SAHM of a 19 month old it is one of those indulgences that I look forward to. Does that say a lot about my life or what?!

[WindyLou]

You can have my jobs. Law firm secretary by day, Sonic carhop by night. You don't have to balance your money at Sonic so much. They just take your tips if it doesn't come out right. Over the amount - they keep it; money comes up short - you pay them. The good thing about Sonic is that even if you cuss out your boss and call him ugly names you can still get hired back!

[Tex]

I love the idea of selling T-shirts and mugs! Just think of the money you could make with pictures from "Drunken Galivanting" on the front of a T-shirt!

[Texas T-bone]

My writing job makes me pretty happy – at least the writing part does. The rest that goes with it just keeps me biz-e.

Reason to move to Texas No. 234: if you and your family lived in Texas, your kids would have been in school for about four weeks now. The district here started on Aug. 3. Tons of writing jobs and things to break down here, too.

[Jenn]

Yeah, Melissa, come to Texas and get all these writing jobs available down here.

Wait...I live in the same area as T-Bone. How come I can't find a writing job?!! He must have them all! ;-)

But come down and live in our writer's commune anyway. Helga the wet nurse will be taking care of our kids 24/7 so we can write and enjoy our drunken galavanting.

[Melissa]

T-Bone: Don't rub it in about the school thing...okay? Next thing you'll be telling me Texas is a 'Mandatory Boarding School State'

[Rona23]

I am new to your blog and you startled me! I thought I was reading something I wrote, only I haven't written anything save my name on a check in a long time. My nightmare/free money from me! job was as a cashier at a gas station. I lasted two months and never balanced once! I get chills just thinking about it. Obviously you have an audience, so keep up the good work while I catch up on your archives.