Ambition Lost

I feel so unmotivated recently. There's all these things that I'm supposed to be doing now, and I'm doing none of them. I was thinking how crappy that is, until I thought, "Is anybody doing what they're supposed to be doing?" I think everybody lives their whole life saving to do what they think they want to do. In the grocery store yesterday, there was a bagger who looked to be in his mid forties. I couldn't help but think this wasn't how he had expected things to turn out. If he looked at me at all, he probably was thinking, "I remember when I was like you... gonna be strong, make a name for myself, get lots of money and 'pimp the hoes...' It'll all change when you have your first kid in a year... You'll have to get a second job to pay for your gas for your third and fourth jobs. You're mother will move in with your mother-in-law, and they'll both move in with you and your kid and his mother. Then you'll be the man of the house, after the super dies in an unexpected choking and drowning. But you won't be the man long when the boys in blue come after you, with the police right behind them. They'll throw the book at you. But you won't be quick enough to dodge that book... No, no... You won't dodge that book because it was thrown so fast and so hard and with a curve like from Greg Maddux on a good day. Before long you'll be sitting in a cozy, stone-cold cell... squatting over a small bucket and getting raped by small criminals. Then you won't feel like choking anyone... nope... you'll just swear on the day you were born that you would leave that so-called "white collar" penitentiary and go on to make it big and buy you a big ol' boat with a lifesaver on the front... and a big blue decal on the side that reads "$.$. Money" like you're Scrooge McDuck. And you'll be glad that you found out about the money laundering and pyramid schemes that made you the rich little squirt you were going to be back then, and will be, when you get out... But you'd stay in for way longer than you expected, playing blackjack with a chalk drawing and counting your fingers that aren't broken, yet. You'll wish you had a proper education, instead of your fancy bachelor's degree, and you'll wish you knew how to not use run-on sentences. But it won't matter anymore, then. No sir, it won't matter to the warden, or the guards, or the judge, or your prison-man-pimp. You went from wanting to be somebody, to wanting to be somebody in no time. And it only cost you your dignity and the good years of your life. And when you finally get out, you'll be glad to find a job bagging groceries for a chain of grocery stores for slightly less than minimum wage after taxes. And you'll be stared at by 22 year old punks, like you, who will look at you and hope to everything that is decent and fair and right and beautiful, that they will not end up where you are. But you will end up there, because it is the way of all things. And you will die, and noone will notice. Not even the local paper's obituary section that you paid $10 to submit it to before you were actually dead to see what it would look like. You'll have to learn your lesson the hard way, just like I did. You'll have to learn that your daughter grew up, while you threw up. Your wife was getting banged, when you were getting screwed. Your maid was working for someone else, because you could never afford her in the first place. And your car is still there, right where you left it at the dealership, because you couldn't afford one of those either. The only thing you managed to salvage out of the whole experience is a slightly better physique thanks to the vigorous activity in the weight room and also because of your weight-lifting. You've got that and some grocery bagging skills you retained from junior high, when you used to practice bagging produce day and night, until your thumbs would bleed all over the cucumbers. Oh, and you'll also have your memories. Memories of a better time. A time when things were more like a dream. But you don't even care about me, do you? All you care about is your cell phones, and your internets, and your sport utility vehicles. Yeah, I'm a grocery bagger... and I wouldn't trade places with you for the world... yes I would."

WAYne