South City Confessions: Being ‘on’ all the time can be a strain, for kids and adults
Think of how busy your day can be, and it’s daunting.
Every morning, I wake up a wanted man. The three cats crawl around my final resting spot of the previous night, waiting to decipher if daddy is merely taking a pee or getting up for the morning grind. You see, once they move and ring their annoying little bells around the necks, the massive 70-pound pit bull leaps off the couch before unleashing a merciless body shake. In the words of Taylor Swift, Leeroy shakes whatever problems or night terrors that came his way. It’s hard out there being an adorable pitty.
Two more dogs are then alerted and before 5am can stretch its legs, I’ve fed six pets and began my own prep for coffee. Inside a 30-35 window, I have to brush teeth, crank up the coffee, and give all eight creatures or humans in my home a kiss goodbye. In addition to that, there’s the Coke Zero load up and finding pants.
Once I get to work a few shades before 6am, it’s off to the races. The truck route could be three or 13 stops, but there’s no delay for the wicked once the top of the hour strikes. My supervisor wants to get things moving, and anything after 6:00 am is considered oversleeping. One could complain but as the great Joe Pesci said in The Irishman, “it’s what it is.” So we do it, and before 630 can crawl to 645, the trucks are out the door. Tony is the city driver, and has a considerably heavy workload.
Still, moving high end, very heavy plumbing supplies kicks the ass throughout a nine hour shift. It’s a grind like any other job in the industry-but my knees and mind don’t care about those stipulations. Whether it’s a tub that can’t be taken off a skid, a waiting-to-be paved rock driveway in front of a spec house or just an assembly line of toilets and tanks, it makes evening workout plans more of a myth than a certainty.
The afternoon soon grows tired, and stretches to 3:30pm, and then the other half of the adulting requirements begin. It’s not like you get out of day job jail, and can kick the legs up. What do you think those six pets are thinking about? Dinner. Screw your nine-hour day, because we’re hungry after those 19 simulated power naps. According to Roscoe, my beagle, the stretching near noon is particularly strenuous.
Then, I need to check on my human child, Vinny. Is he fed? When did he shower last? Does it stretch back over a week ago? Questions that are basically transferred via female ninja brain waves come out of my mouth. An hour has cruised by, and there’s a screening possibility at seven.
Here is where the cinema dilemma intrudes on well-laid plans of doing absolutely fucking nothing. Do I go and attempt the mortgaging of two hours of a coveted evening to a movie that may outright suck? No offense to the director or crew, but did they lift and lay down plumbing supplies today? Outside of learning how to drive a box truck for some front seat camera shots and that one scene where a heater needs to be unloaded, Zac Efron won’t know how to do shit.
I love going and striking gold, seeing something great in advance and letting the review marinate in my brain for a few days. When I left Chef, all I could think about was eating and rehearsing Jon Favreau dialogue. When I left David Ayer’s End of Watch, I felt like donating to the local police department, or even filling out an application. Fruitvale Station, the first sighting of Michael B. Jordan greatness, made me take a long, sad walk through the Delmar Loop.
Movies can do that, walk up and stun you. It’s like a punch from an opposing fighter that is never seen coming. However, most of the time, they can be a letdown. Continuing my binge of The Sopranos is a far better gamble of the evening hours. I know James Gandolfini, Edie Falco, and Tony Sirico are going to knock my socks off with top tier acting--and the easygoing comfort of a mafioso world will blend in nicely to whatever I am not doing at the moment. Vaffanculo, responsibility!
It’s hard being on all the time, as in having to be aware and ready to be of service to do something. Outside of a lunch that breezes by like an 80s action flick, the chance to turn it off doesn’t happen until close to 4 p.m. Unless you’re a loner with no pets or hobbies or reason to take care of anything outside of yourself, there are things to do.
Living in a city known for gun violence and just bad things in general, you can’t take the focus off during errands around public places. One of these days, it’s not impossible for one of those things you read about while waiting at the deli to strike close to you. It’s all too possible.
All of this to say that it’s okay to step outside yourself and turn the world off. It’s normal to feel like the existential crisis isn’t a fictional thing; it’s as real as heart disease. The former carries a shape-shifting facade that beats you up slowly over time. I’m relatively young at 42, but age doesn’t carry a bearing here.
My son has to balance a lot of things, including getting good grades in a school curriculum that only gets more complex and hard-to-understand. By the way, there’s the awareness of bad shit floating around every school and school day. Vinny has to be “on” more during the day than I had to at his age. Isn’t that sad?
That’s also rolled into my everyday deficit. Worrying about him, people driving around my wife, and the shit you can’t see coming.
It’s getting kind of late, as in barely past six, which signifies how drained and older I am becoming. The glory days of not seeing 9 p.m. as an organic sleeping pill are over. The colors aren’t all dark and depressing though; instead of going for a knee-crushing run, I’ll hang with my dogs.
Thankfully, they’re well fed. Thanks for reading and have a pleasant evening. Subscribing puts you on the cool list. Becoming a paid subscriber gets you every word of writing I offer.