I don't know if I had a breakdown, or a breakthrough yesterday. It was a chain of events that started when I heard I had lost my trivia game. This was through no fault of my own, my boss explained to me. Although I had been doing a good job, and had built quite a good rapport with the customers, the bar owner, who had met me for just 5 minutes the previous Wednesday before leaving for my entire show, had called up our company and emphatically insisted that we were losing him money. How? By not sending him a woman to host his trivia.
So I lost my trivia game. Being the good guy he is, my boss immediately decided to replace the game, which is good, because I need the income. But there were no trivia games available, so he sets me up with the only thing he does have. Bingo. This isn't a big deal, I tell myself: it's the same amount of pay, same hours, and I'll actually get home earlier (not to mention, I won't reek of cigarette smoke). And it's easy money. Pull out ball. Read letter and number. Wait for someone to win. But I can't shake the image of it in my head. Me. Master's degree in education, rolling that stupid little cage around like an organ-grinder monkey to entertain a bar full of elderly people and drunks. And it bothers me. I'm not beneath working- I'm not beneath doing what I need to do for my family. But you have to admit, it's a bit humiliating. And I can't stop thinking about it.
Eventually I start thinking about why it is I DO have to go do this. 1. Because I live in a world where this chauvinist asshole has power over my boss, and therefore over me. This is bad enough, but if that's what he wants, I can't really compete with boobs. I decided to be mad at him for a while, but tried to tell myself, at least I got a replacement. This is America, and misguided or not, he can run his shitty little bar however he wants. But there is a bigger point, and that is 2. Because money rules everything and I don't have enough of it. I can barely cover my monthly expenses, despite the fact that I have what should be a decent-paying job, and the aforementioned Master's degree. My debts outweigh all my assets. I was desperate yesterday to make some progress, and I considered selling my car to pay off some credit card or student loan debts. I could take the bus, or we could carpool, my wife and I. I could do it, I told myself. So I got on the internet, and as it turns out, my car is only worth about what I still owe on the loan that I used to pay for it, plus maybe another $1000, if I'm lucky. I thought about hocking the TV. $300 used, at the most. And it occurred to me: I don't have anything that's of enough value to even make a dent. How could I have made it this far in life, and have nothing but debt to show for it? With no other choice but to grind: to chip away at it, every day, little by little for the next God-knows-how-many years; continually denying myself anything that I might want, including kids, because I can't afford it?
And that's what really got me. That asshole bartender? We're in the same boat. He's just trying to make a profit with his business, just like me, spinning my stupid little monkey bingo cage. Just like all the teachers you know. It got to me: this wasn't the life I signed up for. When I made my decisions, wrong or right, I was told certain things. For instance, that education opened doors for you. All my education has done for me was get me a $3000/year raise at work. That, and a mountain of student loan debt. I haven't seen a single door open for me because I have a Master's degree. We, all of us, were told that the harder you work, the more it will pay off. Bullshit. It's a lie in this world. Work as hard as you can, if you're playing by the rules, you will not get ahead. The way you get ahead is by either giving up and bucking the system (have another kid and keep the welfare rolling in), or by being greedy. THAT is what gets you ahead, and I'm just not greedy enough. So if I'm not greedy enough, then I guess I get doomed to an entire lifetime of getting taken advantage of by bigger fish? I never agreed to that. I made my decisions under false conditions- the rules are set by the wealthy- the people with enough influence to set the rules. And I don't know how to live in their world.
I pictured myself spinning my little bingo cage. I-19! N-38! And I created, involuntarily, this fantasy, where this drunk stands up and starts giving me shit. I started imagining, again, all completely involuntarily, what I'd say to him. "Have you ever tasted desperate? Would you have the courage to come out here and do what needed to be done for your family? What do you do that is so great for the good of humanity? Oh you work in advertising? So you just make money for someone else so you can sit here and drink beer and judge others! I teach your retarded kids! You don't get to judge me..." and on and on, and about the point in this mental projection that I'm shoving ball I-19 down this imaginary person's throat, I realize how angry I actually am: how much living like this has twisted me up inside to where I'm angry at everything and everyone. Myself, the bar manager, this imaginary guy I'm so threatened by in my own head- the rule makers have pitted us against each other so that we'll stay fighting one another instead of noticing what's really going on.
And I am angry. I'm angry at myself for falling for the lies and playing their game. Maybe they weren't lies outright, but that world I was told about, where education opens doors and hard work pays off? That's my father's world, and I don't think it exists any more. I'm angry at my friends, to whom I for some reason feel the constant need to explain myself: why I can't seem to stop being bitter, and why I'm losing my sense of humor and drinking too much. I'm angry at all the people around me with disposable income for figuring out how to do it, despite the fact that they are constantly being preyed upon by the ambitious. I'm mad at them because they are content watching TV on Zoloft while the rule-makers wreck our educational system, deplete our economy, and trade altruism for cash at every turn. Why can't I be content with it, too? I'm too busy, switching off the air conditioner and coasting to every stoplight because I don't get paid until tomorrow, and the gas has to last to work in the morning. And what do I do with my anger? Where do I direct it? I get up out of bed where this is just bouncing off the inside of my skull, and I go for a walk. I hide from the kids playing in the front parking lot, out of fear that one of two things will happen. First, that I'll just start ranting and yelling at them to never go to college, and that I'm sorry my generation has already failed you so badly; the second, that they might actually cheer me up.
Our value system is fucked up, and it has nothing to do with morality. It has everything to do with where we are going as a species. I don't want to be rich. I just want to have joy back in my life again. Now, the best I can manage is to settle for a few minutes of peace, watching eight birds land in a tree on a Spring day. And I don't propose socialism as an answer. I guess the buzzword of the day is "sustainability". Human sustainability.
Until we get that figured out; until I get me figured out, I guess I'll be rolling my little cage calling Bingo numbers. They say humility builds character. I guess we'll see if that was a lie too. Just don't get drunk and start giving me shit up there.
