Pride
Like everyone, I have mine. Like everyone, mine is often foolish.
I don’t care to romanticize the more lackluster days of my past, suffice it to say that I was once in a worse place than I am currently (which is not saying much).
10 years ago I was unemployed, from June to January—fat, lazy and stupid. The summer was the worst Chicago has seen. Record heat indexes and hundreds of related fatalities. People were dropping dead in their stuffy apartments. Cooling centers were opening up to allow the elderly and feeble denizens a respite from the weather. During this time I lived in a few different apartments, none of them with air conditioning. It would have been nice to have a job to go to so I could’ve cooled off for 8 hours.
I did some odd jobs, I sweat, I labored, I ached, I felt sick. I nearly passed out a few times on the streets, the heat coming out of the asphalt like a goddamn oven. It was a rough time. During all of this, I vowed I would not ask my family for money. I had my pride.
I could have gotten a job but my pride always seemed to get in the way. I was a host at Bakers Square for a week when the manager made a mistake with the schedule and I told them to forget it, I wasn’t coming back. I worked in a telemarketing office for a little while, long enough to make one sale, netting me a heavily taxed paltry amount. I cashed the check and never went back. I did this a few times at a few places. I went to interviews, bringing my resume and my attitude. I didn’t get any of these jobs. The worst night was as a busboy in a pizza place where I was on “audition” for the job. I did my best but the other bus boys were faster and I didn’t clean many tables. I was not asked back. They paid me in cash and I spent it on two slices of their pizza, a pack of smokes and a 40 of malt liquor. That left me with a cool 3 bucks to live on.
I suppose we all think we are better than something, meant for greater things and on the verge of our own version of success. I had no reason to think such things. I was a college drop out, a bum who might have been homeless were it not for patient roommates—a fool suffering from absurd delusions. Pride makes us think we are better than we are. There is nothing wrong with washing dishes and scrubbing floors. Pride tells us we should be something more.
Pride wears thin in the face of adversity. By summer’s end I swallowed mine, picked up the phone and called my father. Thanks again, old man.
I don’t care to romanticize the more lackluster days of my past, suffice it to say that I was once in a worse place than I am currently (which is not saying much).
10 years ago I was unemployed, from June to January—fat, lazy and stupid. The summer was the worst Chicago has seen. Record heat indexes and hundreds of related fatalities. People were dropping dead in their stuffy apartments. Cooling centers were opening up to allow the elderly and feeble denizens a respite from the weather. During this time I lived in a few different apartments, none of them with air conditioning. It would have been nice to have a job to go to so I could’ve cooled off for 8 hours.
I did some odd jobs, I sweat, I labored, I ached, I felt sick. I nearly passed out a few times on the streets, the heat coming out of the asphalt like a goddamn oven. It was a rough time. During all of this, I vowed I would not ask my family for money. I had my pride.
I could have gotten a job but my pride always seemed to get in the way. I was a host at Bakers Square for a week when the manager made a mistake with the schedule and I told them to forget it, I wasn’t coming back. I worked in a telemarketing office for a little while, long enough to make one sale, netting me a heavily taxed paltry amount. I cashed the check and never went back. I did this a few times at a few places. I went to interviews, bringing my resume and my attitude. I didn’t get any of these jobs. The worst night was as a busboy in a pizza place where I was on “audition” for the job. I did my best but the other bus boys were faster and I didn’t clean many tables. I was not asked back. They paid me in cash and I spent it on two slices of their pizza, a pack of smokes and a 40 of malt liquor. That left me with a cool 3 bucks to live on.
I suppose we all think we are better than something, meant for greater things and on the verge of our own version of success. I had no reason to think such things. I was a college drop out, a bum who might have been homeless were it not for patient roommates—a fool suffering from absurd delusions. Pride makes us think we are better than we are. There is nothing wrong with washing dishes and scrubbing floors. Pride tells us we should be something more.
Pride wears thin in the face of adversity. By summer’s end I swallowed mine, picked up the phone and called my father. Thanks again, old man.
posted by ZombieDante at 12:26 PM
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