Chicken sh*t, Angry Pony & Lucky Cat

Today as I drove to work, I passed a dead black cat on the road and then right after that passed the pasture that has a colossal pile of chicken shit in it.  It was glorious, steam coming off, stench so bad you could taste it, and then, just two driveways past,  there was Angry Pony's pasture.  That poor little pony was going to have to smell that all day.  Not a good day for Angry Pony. The only good news is, he wouldn't be able to smell the dead cat.

As luck would have it my day would mirror that of Angry Pony. Nonstop shit all day. When you work in a company that has done a lot of down-sizing, you become like the Lone Ranger, The last of the Mohicans, like a one-legged dog guiding a blind guy through the Iron Man competition, like a kindergarten teacher with 200 kids.  I mean, we are talking broken crayon chaos, paste eating out of control, kids crapping their pants and people have been on recess for hours.  The principal is eating Raisinettes and drinking a Slurpee for lunch. It's ugly.  I am one person, I keep reminding myself of this and try and remain calm, but then things like a fax machine with an attitude can just break you.

Since it would seem other departments think I have nothing but time on my hands and because people trying to get a job at my company can't take their lazy asses down to Kinko's or maybe even the local AM/PM to send a fax, they dump this responsibility on me.  Anything over like, say, two pages and my fax machine acts like a woman with PMS on the edge of a bridge waving a Ho-Ho in one hand and an empty Midol bottle in the other demanding someone extract her uterus and give her some ice cream (ok, so that was me and it was just one time and it was a long time ago...ok, not really, but it makes for a good story, I think...and it could happen), but I digress.  Anyway, aforementioned loser left documents for me to fax, like, probably 15 pages. My fax machine almost crapped its pants.  I cussed at it, it jammed, I cleared the jam and then it kept taking two pages at a time.  I was borderline hysterical and the intern says, "oh, you are not letting that fax machine break you are you?"  She said it in a compassionate way, but I had to admit, she had a point, that machine was breaking me.  It was 4:30PM.  I had reached my threshold for BS, dare I say, I had surpassed it. The machine did it again. I was almost crying.  I eyed the area under my desk and wondered if I could hide under there and consider it a test of the Evacuation Warden to test the area to see if it could fit a hysterical fat girl under there.  Who could question my commitment to safety?  However, I remained strong and kept at the fax machine. It continued to toy with me.  I wrinkled the pages, I threw them down, organized them and tried again. Fail. I started mumbling and did a laugh/cry combo.  The intern tried to comfort me, but I was too far gone.  The intern sent a secret SOS to one of the managers and said goodnight and slipped out before all hell broke loose. God must have known my next stop was the roof because suddenly the fax went through. There was a calm in the building, a miracle had occurred.

I'm gathering my belongings to go home when one of our managers comes over and asks me about some headsets I'm supposed to be ordering.  Now, I don't know anything about these damn headsets and I am supposed to get them ordered ASAP.  No one can give me definitive info on them, but I am supposed to order them and get the best price. Why don't I just order some parts for a Boeing 747?  Seriously sick of the whole, "we got rid of the person that used to do this....so could you do it?" mentality.  But this is my life.  I lectured aforementioned manager about what I knew about the damn headsets and that yes, I would order something.  I hope when they come they have those styro-foam balls on them on those bendy squiggly spiral wires that people wear for Halloween.  That'll teach them.

Finally, I escape the building.  I'm driving home and finally get close to home. As I approach Angry Pony's field, I think "that poor bastard had to smell shit all day and I had to deal with it all day, we are cosmically connected." The air still reeked of chicken shit.  And then I came to the dead cat.  He was just dead this morning, but now his intestines where stretched for quite some distance.  I thought about my day, thought about Angry Pony and then I thought....lucky cat.