III. Wherein a Mad Spider is Angered
When I left the charming, soft, delicious restaurant I went to work for a woman who owns a series of eaterys (of Italian variety) scattered about the city, as a bartender. I was installed into a rather sketchy corporate model, given my employee handbook, a new black apron (at my expense), and a very bare training on the wheres and wherenots of the bar where I would be working... where I wouldn't be working very long, I was assured. I had been hired not to work at this particular location, you see. No, not there, but rather at the new location currently under construction. To be throwing open its doors any day now.
Voila!
I did not fall off the turnip jalopy that recently. I have been working in restaurants for a long time. Nothing ever happens soon. If someone says "soon", what they mean is "I can't jinx whatever I want to happen by saying that it won't happen anytime later than yesterday". In reality, "soon" is often "inconceivably later than anyone would care to think". So, I settled in as an extended visitor behind an impractically designed bar, prepared to wait until, say, September for everyone to get their shit together, paint the walls, put in the windows, that sort of thing. I was going to stick it out.
I like to think of myself as a realist.
And summer flew in on the wings of a heat wave;
and working down on the waterfront was beatific for the scenery,
but horrible for the tourists;
and if I said that the bar was impractically designed, I mean in every facet. Kinked and crooked, that place was. Knotted and frustrated. Without air-conditioning, bereft of a clear chain of command or procedure. A little eddy of mayhem.
All this I was prepared for. Mentally steeled. What I wasn't quite ready for was the poverty aspect.
I did not make a great deal of money at charming, soft, delicious restaurant. I did make a living; a decent living. My waterfront bar didn't even come close to providing that. If I didn't ride my bike to work everyday, basic expenses probably could have sunk me. I was running in deficit, incurring debt.
It both frustrates and angers me that personal happiness, or at least contentment, is so tied to monetary solvency. I don't like feeling like I'm constantly trying to catch my breath. I hate that every time I did a cash out from my bar, after rapidly slinging drinks all day, a stone thwacked into the pit of my stomach.
Some people thrive on stress. They speed up, focus. These are the people who create dilemmas just to feel alive, and have something to solve. You can see the manic look in their eye, and listen to their to-do lists rhymed of at a frantic pace, and think: Wow. Even though that person says that they're coming apart at the seams, they've really got something. I mean, she's going to get all that shit done, get two hours of really bad sleep, get up and kick the world in the balls again. And she can probably bite pencils in half from all that clenching she's been doing over the past lifetime. That's a neat trick.
I am not that person.
New Zealand was starting to look extremely impractical. I'm not too good with math, but I can count. Six months was not going to be enough time, not there on the water, but the new location promised to be better, and things were coming along. They printed some invitations for the grande opening. The sign went up.
I carried an image of balance scales, suspended in my head. Point one. Tilt. Point two. Tilt.
Plane ticket to the Southern Hemisphere.
Oh, look: the scales just melted.
...
And then, I got fired. By voicemail. After working a 10 hour shift.
I could probably use that softened metal to fashion some kind of machete, and head out to be-head the executioner.
A Mad Spider was very, very angry.
I had just moved six days previous. My life was packed, my living space unfamiliar. Now, no job. Now, when I actually have a roommate.
This city really is going to be my prison.
I was challenging myself to come here, at 18, ten years ago. It was frightening, and big, and wonderfully alien. The small town boy dropped himself into the heart of his country's urban identity; the trap was sprung when it became evident that I fit here. It isolated my options for movement to somewhere else.
I can't go back to small town Ontario. I can't fight through it again.
I may not be able to leave....
Fuck that. Change is in the cards, and I've said it myself: I'd rather a nightmare than a bore.
Voila!
I did not fall off the turnip jalopy that recently. I have been working in restaurants for a long time. Nothing ever happens soon. If someone says "soon", what they mean is "I can't jinx whatever I want to happen by saying that it won't happen anytime later than yesterday". In reality, "soon" is often "inconceivably later than anyone would care to think". So, I settled in as an extended visitor behind an impractically designed bar, prepared to wait until, say, September for everyone to get their shit together, paint the walls, put in the windows, that sort of thing. I was going to stick it out.
I like to think of myself as a realist.
And summer flew in on the wings of a heat wave;
and working down on the waterfront was beatific for the scenery,
but horrible for the tourists;
and if I said that the bar was impractically designed, I mean in every facet. Kinked and crooked, that place was. Knotted and frustrated. Without air-conditioning, bereft of a clear chain of command or procedure. A little eddy of mayhem.
All this I was prepared for. Mentally steeled. What I wasn't quite ready for was the poverty aspect.
I did not make a great deal of money at charming, soft, delicious restaurant. I did make a living; a decent living. My waterfront bar didn't even come close to providing that. If I didn't ride my bike to work everyday, basic expenses probably could have sunk me. I was running in deficit, incurring debt.
It both frustrates and angers me that personal happiness, or at least contentment, is so tied to monetary solvency. I don't like feeling like I'm constantly trying to catch my breath. I hate that every time I did a cash out from my bar, after rapidly slinging drinks all day, a stone thwacked into the pit of my stomach.
Some people thrive on stress. They speed up, focus. These are the people who create dilemmas just to feel alive, and have something to solve. You can see the manic look in their eye, and listen to their to-do lists rhymed of at a frantic pace, and think: Wow. Even though that person says that they're coming apart at the seams, they've really got something. I mean, she's going to get all that shit done, get two hours of really bad sleep, get up and kick the world in the balls again. And she can probably bite pencils in half from all that clenching she's been doing over the past lifetime. That's a neat trick.
I am not that person.
New Zealand was starting to look extremely impractical. I'm not too good with math, but I can count. Six months was not going to be enough time, not there on the water, but the new location promised to be better, and things were coming along. They printed some invitations for the grande opening. The sign went up.
I carried an image of balance scales, suspended in my head. Point one. Tilt. Point two. Tilt.
Plane ticket to the Southern Hemisphere.
Oh, look: the scales just melted.
...
And then, I got fired. By voicemail. After working a 10 hour shift.
I could probably use that softened metal to fashion some kind of machete, and head out to be-head the executioner.
A Mad Spider was very, very angry.
I had just moved six days previous. My life was packed, my living space unfamiliar. Now, no job. Now, when I actually have a roommate.
This city really is going to be my prison.
I was challenging myself to come here, at 18, ten years ago. It was frightening, and big, and wonderfully alien. The small town boy dropped himself into the heart of his country's urban identity; the trap was sprung when it became evident that I fit here. It isolated my options for movement to somewhere else.
I can't go back to small town Ontario. I can't fight through it again.
I may not be able to leave....
Fuck that. Change is in the cards, and I've said it myself: I'd rather a nightmare than a bore.
Comments