Asleep at the Wheel 2

If you look (really look) into people's faces, you will wonder how they can keep going. There is so much sadness in everyone's face that I think I can feel it myself sometimes. The funny thing is that a lot of people don't even know just how sad they are themselves. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think so. I think a lot of people have this built-in evolutionary defense mechanism called optimism that let's them keep going. If we were all realists we'd just curl up into a little ball or jump off a cliff. Lemmings are nature's realists.

Given enough time, everyone becomes a realist. If you have to die for that to happen then so be it. You got there in the end.

Darla describes herself as an optimist. I describe her as a red-headed soul-sucking vampire bitch. Not to her face, mind you. Maybe one day I will when I get the guts to do away with the illusion of friendship.

I should probably point out that I'm 35. Darla is 10 years younger than me. I met her when I was 30 and she was 20. We both worked at the same office. She was paying her way through JuCo and I was just hating my life. We were the only two people in the office who smoked. Darla hated being along for any length of time so every time she wanted to go smoke, she'd come up to me ask me if I "wanted to go smoke a cigawette." That's how she said it, "cigawette." I hate baby talk. The people who use it think it's cute or sexy or something. It makes me very uncomfortable. It was just part of Darla's bag of tricks, her modus operandi.

Darla hadn't seen her own father for about three years at that time and in the years I've known her, she's talked to him on the phone about a half dozen times and seen him once. She said he works for an oil company and has to travel a lot. If I had to take a guess, I'd bet he doesn't exist in any meaningful sense. If Darla knows her father at all, he is probably just some guy who knocked up her mother. Darla's all about drama. If no one is paying attention to her, she can change that easy enough.

Darla came into the office one morning scared that she had suddenly gone deaf in her left ear. She was fine when she woke up then she took a shower and after that she just couldn't hear very well out of her left ear. She told everyone at work with this kind of barely muted panic all over her face. Calm brings no attention and total panic ends the scenario too soon when your boss calls an ambulance and paramedics have to sedate you. She probably just had a big chunk of wax stuck in her ear. It happens. Wiggle your little finger around, squirt some water in there, grow the fuck up. But why take care of yourself when you can make an entire office full of people focus on you. And anyone who doesn't respond just right, well, they're being mean. You can talk about how they didn't get all worked up about your pending deafness for weeks after the doctor pronounces you "just dirty," sticks a water pick in your ear and flushes out 20 years of amber gunk.

I woke up once with dog's tongue in my ear and a mean chubber. Sure, I was ashamed, but what are you gonna do?