Tuesday, April 18, 2006

When Will It Stop?

Today I learned the value of going to work. Somewhat like fasting to appreciate food, or travelling to appreciate home, I am now appreciating the benefits of a workplace. Sure, I have to get up early and I have to put up with flaky air-conditioning and co-workers, but at least my brain isn't drilled into.

Let me explain.

Thinking that I'd be able to sleep in today, I stayed up till about 1am last night, playing on the good old Xbox. My partner in crime gets up at around 6am, so that means I temporarily wake up at the same time.

This is fine by me. I can handle it. What I can't handle is heavy knocking on the door about two hours later.

I'm not sure what happened. Someone banged on the door and woke me up, but before I got out of bed, they'd already closed the front gate. Across the road, I could see the perpetrator knocking on someone else's door. Unlike me, they answered, so I stuck my ear against the window and tried to listen in. From what I could tell, the door knocker was a gardening disposal person and was offering some kind of tree trunk destruction. I thought about it. Should I open the door, rush across the road and say, count me in?

No. I don't have any tree trunks.

I checked all around the house. Under the sink, in the fridge, under the bed. Nope. No tree trunks. No large pieces of wood. I knocked on my skull, just to see if that was made of wood. Maybe I could get them to shove my head into their Truck Of Mass Destruction. I mean, they're already figuratively destroying it. Why not go the whole hog and murder me in a bloody bath of gardening?

And it's still going. They've been mulching or shredding or whatever it is they do for the last three hours, non-stop. Add the usual Tuesday morning garbage pickup into the mix and my head is seriously sore.

Everything's quiet now. I think it just stopped. So this is what the life of a writer in the inner city is like.

Now, back to procrastinating.

6 comments:

Stephen Blackmoore said...

You're going about this all wrong, man.

Kill the gardeners, mulch them with the woodchipper into the neighbor's backyard, then charge the neighbor for fertilizing their hydrangeas. It shuts them up, it gets rid of the bodies and you can make a buck or two in the process. Hell, you're already awake, might as well make it a productive day.

Sandra Ruttan said...

Oh yeah, Stephen's just given you a beautiful premise, Daniel. Now get your butt in front of the computer and write it!

You know why you're going through this, right? No more excuses for not gettting it done and making it happen now.

Other than one. And once you realize that one excuse is irrelevant, you'll be fine.

Anonymous said...

"Is that your friend there in the chipper?"

I love that scene from Fargo.

M Waszyrowski said...

You'll be glad to know your desk is just as you left it...

Sandra Ruttan said...

tabasco enema

Love that name!

Daniel Hatadi said...

Sandra, don't encourage them. I used to work with these people, and I know they don't need much before they move into your house, breathe down your neck, insult your cats and your Campbells Country Ladle soup tins, and, well, fart a lot.