GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #919: FIRE ALARM ETIQUETTE

 All right, my mind is a lot calmer tonight, so we're going to cover a topic that won't enflame my head.

Two Saturdays ago we had a fire alarm at my office. It wasn't a drill because there aren't enough people working on a Saturday for a drill. It was for real. The fire department showed up and everything. Wouldn't let us back in until they knew there wasn't a fire there.

(I still wonder about that alarm. Who tripped it? I don't think it was anyone in my office because any time we're not on the phone is time that we're not earning money for ourselves, ie. commission. It had to be one of our neighbors, but who else was in the building that day?)

At any rate, due to these factors I knew the alarm was real-ish. The problem was, I was taking a shit in the bathroom when the alarm went off.

What, exactly, do you do in a situation like that? I wasn't in mid-log, but of course my mind asked me what I would have done in that case. Really, do you have the time to wipe? Should you skip washing your hands?

One thing I did know: we can't use the elevator to get downstairs in the event of a fire. With my bad leg in a brace, I knew it would take me forever to get out of there, anyway. Fuck it. I wiped my ass to completion (and not just, eh, good enough to save me from a fire), I stopped to wash my hands and then got out of there.

It turned out that it was a false alarm, but what if it wasn't? Should I have taken the time to wipe my ass and wash my hands? I'd ask my boss what her preference would be, but I somehow don't think that conversation would go well. So I throw it out to you, my loyal Fuckers, what would you have done in such a situation? And I mean if the fire is real, not just a false alarm.

This made me wonder about another thing: the two nuclear weapons we set off in Japan during WWII. We've all seen the destruction and the shadows burned into the ground that used to be people. But how many were taking a shit when that happened? How many met their horrific ends sitting on the toilet? I suppose you could apply the same question to places that get regularly bombed, like Gaza for example. That's got to be somehow worse than merely dying in a terrifying explosion.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #651: NOT AT WORK, I BEG OF YOU

 For the longest time I was the only one who came into the office on Saturdays. Everyone else works from home on that day, but not me. I don't really have somewhere at home I would be able to work, anyway, and I live in the same town I work in, so that's no big deal for me.

Recently, though, someone else started showing up to work on Saturdays, too. I guess I can't work naked anymore. But at least if something happens to me, I won't have to wait until Monday before I'm found.

I think about this all the time. I'm not afraid of death, but I really, really don't want to die at work on the off chance that there really is an afterlife and I get stuck haunting the office for the rest of my unlife. That would suck a great big dick.

I'm getting up there in age. I'm almost ten years away from the age Mom died at. I'm about fifteen years away from the age that Dad died at. The clock is probably ticking on me. I expect to die of a heart attack, but I hope it doesn't happen at work. Before, if I had a heart attack on a Saturday at the office, I would probably die. There wouldn't be anyone there to call 911. No one comes into the office on Sundays, so whoever is the first person to get in on Monday would find me dead.

And with my luck, I probably would have a heart attack on the toilet, so it'll probably be the first guy to go to the bathroom who finds me, and who knows when that would be? I'd already be a ghost haunting the stall I died in. I'd be able to watch the paramedics haul my corpse away while I have to live with the reek of shit and piss forever.

But not now. At least if I have a heart attack in the office on a Saturday, someone will hear me collapse. Someone will figure out that I need an ambulance. I might even survive. I have my doubts, but who knows? Just so long as I don't die in the office. On the road to the hospital? Sure. At the hospital? I'd rather not, but I prefer it to the office.

It occurs to me now that, unless you die in a very violent manner or go missing, someone is going to find your corpse. Even if you're on your deathbed, someone will eventually check on you and realize you're gone, whether it's a relative or a nurse. So I hope I die doing something weird. Give that person a story to tell for the rest of their life.

One can dream.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #575: DEAD FISH

 When I first started my current job there was a fish tank at work. There were only two fish in it. One of them died months ago, but the other, a suckerfish, remained. After a while they got some new fish. Tiny ones. Mostly danios. A couple of them died over the months, and on Friday the suckerfish joined his friend in that fish tank in the sky.

But it wasn't removed from the tank until this morning. It had been in there for the weekend, and I had to wonder what that must have been like for the other fish. "Holy shit! Mike's dead! And he's, uh, sticking around, I guess. Maybe let's not swim too close to him." By the time I saw the fish today it had started to rot. It reminded me of Earl.

Over the years I've tried to keep things alive at my desk. I had Sea Monkeys at Conference Plus for many years, but I went on vacation once. I figured putting the office vegan in charge of keeping them alive would do just the trick, but she overfed them and killed all but three of them. I nursed those three back to health, and soon I had a tank full of the li'l fellas again. Until I went on vacation again, and another coworker knocked the tank over, killing them all.

I also had a spider plant that went with me from Conference Plus into the Arkadin years and then I took it to Call One with me. When I left Call One and entered into the Year of Fucking Not Working it died.

And then there was Earl. He was a little blue beta fish I had when I first started at Conference Plus. My friend who had referred me for the job got Earl for me as a cube-warming gift. She gave me food and stuff to clean the bowl, etc. And she said that these things were supposed to live for a long time with minimal effort on my part.

I did everything I was supposed to. I followed her instructions to a T. And you've probably already guessed what happened.

That's right. Soon Earl started swimming on his side. I'd tap the glass, and he'd straighten out, but eventually the day came when he didn't. I saw that he'd died late on a Friday. However, I had to be somewhere by 6:30 that night. I got out at 5, and it took me about an hour to drive from Schaumburg to Elmhurst. So yeah, I was in a hurry. I figured I'd give Earl his toilet funeral on Monday.

When I got back I saw that he'd rotted pretty quickly. He had moldy spots all over him, and his fins had fallen off. I took him to the bathroom and took him out of the bowl with his net. I wasn't about to just pour everything into the toilet. I wanted to keep the pebbles and the decoration for the next fish I planned on getting.

I took Earl to the toilet and flipped the net upside down. He did not fall out. I shook the net, and nothing happened. I flicked the back of the net, and he still stayed in there. It took a while, but he finally dropped out of the net and hit the rim on the way down. He left a blue Earl-shaped mark on the porcelain that was kind of disgusting. I wiped it off and flushed him.

And then I saw that there were blue drops on the tile behind me from the sink to the stall. I cleaned up the rest of Earl's remains and washed out the bowl.

But I didn't get another fish. I lost my heart for that kind of thing pretty quickly.

I currently have nothing alive on my desk except for the bugs that live in the office. There are many spiders and other things I can't identify. They have traps all around us, but the little fuckers still manage to get around. But I just don't have the heart to try to keep something else alive after all this time.

RIP Earl and that big suckerfish. His name might not be Mike. I don't know. I made that part up. But maybe Mike and Earl are together in the great beyond. Hopefully not in an office. If there's an office in the afterlife, then I'm probably going to be stuck there. I've spent the last 15 or so years hoping I don't die at work.

Poor bastards who do.