Captain’s Log…hehe…log.
November 29th, 2007 by Dusty
For some reason I assumed I would have more free time after I quit my job. I’m far happier and less prone to fits of killing people than I was this time last month, but here’s a rundown of how it has gone since my last day in the rat race –
Thursday – Flight school calls and says “Hey, Dusty, wanna teach ground school to the new private pilot students? We’ll pay you.”
“You mean I can talk about flying for 2 weeks to a bunch of people who assume I know more than they do AND you’ll give me money? My answer is yes.”
(Seriously, this is awesome on the level of a blowjob while drinking a beer on the beach)
Friday – last day of work. I stayed until 5:30. Go figure that one.
Saturday and Sunday – started putting together lesson plans for private pilot ground school and quickly came to the realization that I had forgotten quite a bit about the basics. Spent about 10 hours a day reading and writing, knowing full well that five students had paid good money to have someone teach them everything they’d need to know about flying before they actually flew.
Monday – Work another eight hours to prep for four hours of Private Pilot ground, and on more than one occasion am bewildered by the fact that I have infinitely more flying knowledge and experience than those sitting before me (who presumably have none), yet they can ask questions that leave me standing there like a monkey who got caught humping a football. I tell them that I will have their answers the following day. Get home and my tooth starts hurting and keeps me up all night.
Tuesday – Still have the toothache, but I stupidly decide to rally through it. Get to the airport, study to prep for the day’s lesson, and as the day progresses, so does the tooth pain. By 3pm I am pretty desperately looking for vicodin, a bottle of vodka and a gun in case the first two don’t work. Class starts at 4 and I have to delegate my duties to another instructor because I can’t stop sweating and screaming. My concern grows along with the swelling in the right side of my face.
I have now called in sick on the second day of the first job I have actually wanted in ten years. Good career move, Dbag.
Wednesday – I now haven’t slept or eaten in thirty six hours. The skirt feigns apathy and goes to work, but I know deep down she wants me to think she cares. I call the dentist and tell them I need to see them as soon as possible. They say 11 am. I say okay and I leave the house at 8, because I have a plan.
I am looking you dead in the eye when I say this – I know that as a reader you probably think I am the biggest pussy in the universe because I’m always overstating how much things hurt. I have had two fragmented lumbar discs, sciatica that paralyzed my left leg at one point, and the two surgeries they required, and I did the prescribed eight weeks of physical rehab each time. I would gladly have two spinal surgeries and give birth through my urethra for each day of inescapable pain I had as a result of an abscess below one of my molars. Hyperbole be damned.
When I got to the dentist, I looked at the receptionist and said “I need someone to numb my face up or you’re going to have a grown man in your waiting room wailing like a veal calf for the next three hours. Just as loud, but not nearly as tasty. Can you help me out?”
The dentist was walking by and said “Come on back.”
Five minutes later I had the gas mask on and about a gallon of anesthetic in my face. Normally I don’t really like needles, but this time I was trying to suck the last drops of numbey goodness out of them as he pulled the syringe from my mouth. I breathed deeply of the happy gas and felt the side of my head slide away from my skull. Doc came back in to look at the xray of my mouth and said “Wow. I’m not sure how you are still conscious. That’s one hell of an infection.”
So I felt a little better about letting the skirt see me crying before she left for work.
“Okay Mr. Scott. I hope you have a clear schedule, because you’re going to be in a chair for the rest of the day. We have you scheduled to see an endodontist at 2 pm, and I’m going to prescribe some Oxyslammerall to keep you sane until then.”
“Gehsssschhh…p,” I said matter-of-factly.
Having no idea when the numbness would wear off, I clutched the prescription in my fat little hand and drove like a maniac to the nearest drugbarn. I popped the first pill when I got back in my car and went home. Whatever it was, it worked until the anesthetic wore off. That is to say, not much at all. I did nab a few hours of sleep, however.
I was in the endodontist’s chair having an emergency root canal until 6 pm. When I quit my job I saved up a little money for emergencies. I also figured that since my insurance was good until the end of the year that medical emergencies would not fall into the “emergency” pile. Interesting thing about my insurance policy – I pay them about $1500 over the course of a year, and they offer to pay a total of $1000 in benefits. Still trying to figure out that math in my mind. They said that my insurance was maxed out so I would be paying for most of the procedure. Merry Christmas.
So the going rate for a root canal is $1495.00, and I also had to go spend another $500 on follow up visits. I am officially finished having emergencies because I can’t afford any more.
So…by Wednesday I had missed 2 days of a job I had had for 3 days. So far so sucky.
Thursday – Got back in front of those fresh-faced young pilots-to-be and taught them all about aviation weather, which for all of its importance is slightly more boring than golf on the radio. They were champs and got through eight hours of it by Friday. I left them with the promise of more interesting material on Monday. And by the way, read a hundred pages over the weekend. The right side of my face had a yellowish bruise and looked like I was storing pomegranates in my cheeks for the winter.
Again with the ten hour workdays on the weekend, and then another five days of getting up at 6, studying until 3, and teaching until 8.
Sounds crappy, but aside from the yawning vacuum where my emergency fund used to be, I could not be happier or more fulfilled. I met some of my friends from my old job for lunch one day last week. We sat around our favorite table at our favorite lunch spot and they talked about work. I knew they had to take the elevator back to their cubicle and do their jobs and deal with the same unstable pyramid of insecure ego-cases as they have for god knows how long, and then they’d be going back to the same place to do the same thing the next day, and so on ad finitum. When you ask if they like their job, they say something like “It’s a job, you know. Some days are better than others.”
It is EIGHT OF THE TWELVE HOURS YOU ARE AWAKE ENOUGH TO TAKE NOTE OF THE WORLD. MAKE IT COUNT.
I am only recently coming to realize this, but if you aren’t excited to get out of bed in the morning and going to bed satisfied with how you spent your day, you are doing something wrong. Everybody has the opportunity to do it, and everyone deserves to know how great it feels.
Enough of the crappy motivational speech wannabe stuff. I’m going to go learn about aviating and get to work on the next post.
Awesome…..that is all
Did I ever tell you that you’re my hero?
I wish I had the pomegranates to do what you did.
Way to go, Dusty! Hope your face gets back to what passes for normal soon!
You, sir, deserve more than just kudos … My favorite phrase for the day … “Seriously, this is awesome on the level of a blowjob while drinking a beer on the beach.”
I am fulfilled!
I feel your pain, Dusty, not personally, mind you, but my former boss used to say she wanted to come back in her next life as a toothless male as the two greatest pains in her life were childbirth and root canals. I hope that eases your “shame” at the skirt seeing you cry.
I feel your pain. Well, I don’t really feel your pain, but I can relate. Well, I never have had a root canal, but I know someone who has, does that count?
Nice post!
I showed up the second day of one of my new jobs wearing a pair of fuzzy slippers, a skirt and blouse that buttoned down the front and an amazing case of bed head. My job was to open up the place in the mornings and I had the only keys. I had had a charley horse sproing in my neck the night before and I had passed out in pain, coming to in just enough time to get to work! It was awful!
The worst pain I ever had was when my Pakistan-trained dentist tried a filling when she should have done a root canal. The back two teeth on the lower left are more filling than tooth. Dumb broad.
Amazingly enough, one of the teeth cracked when I was eating. The pain went from my jaw, through my neck, all the way down my back, and made my left foot fall off.
I think my dentist is a terrorist that hates Americans. Maybe that shit passes for dentistry in third-world countries, but in the USA it’s called “torture”.
The 15 minutes I spend reading your blog (yes, I’m a very slow reader, but I savor every word) makes the eight hours of dealing with insecure ego-cases go by much faster.
By the way, I stole your office chair. And your dry erase board. Thanks.
Hi, Dusty - I am glad you edited this one with my suggestion, that is, changing your original line of ‘getting lap danced by a cabana boy’ to
)
‘getting a b.j. on the beach’ It sounds much less, um, bizarre, and will appeal to the small portion of hetero readers you still have
PS - Hope you feel much better very very soon!
hugs, j a
You are so awesome, Dusty.
Dusty:
Again I applaud your brave leap into the unknown.
Just a jockstrap with a ripcord and poopoo to that financial security whatzit.
It is quite the duality to read and enjoy your brave adventures and feel bad at the same time of the accomplishments that my cubicle toiling has wrought.
I used to thunk I was cool once for climbing this high.
You Rock way harder than I do, but I guess I’m just addicted to the dough.
Keep at it man!
Seriously, this is awesome on the level of a blowjob while drinking a beer on the beach
Sometimes I almost, ALMOST, wish I had a penis just so I could say shit like this. You’re the wind beneath my wings, Dusty.
You are a puuuusssssseeeeee.
My female employee waited all weekend with stabbing root pain that went from her neck to the top of her head, then came into work, then got a root canal at 11am, and got back to work ready to kick ass by 2pm.
She is fucking hard core.
I am so lucky. This is why I can take off for a week of vacation knowing shit will get done back at work.
Phil
Jax, FL
I’m so glad I read this. I have a job interview tomorrow, and I already think I’m hating the job.
Thanks for just affirming what I have been telling myself all week.
Dusty, sorry for a sideways comment here, but …
I don’t know who “Anne” is but I am fairly certain I love her!!! LOL!
Me too, I wanted to grow penal cord just so I could piss on my boss’s desk when I left. Leaving never felt so good, why are such low level hemorrhoids allowed to supervise? As for pain, I had a root canal and nowhere near the pain you have, but then God made up for it by sending this incredible dushbag my way through and on-line auction. Dang, people can suck.
Phil:
Your employee is probably a junky and didn’t feel it anyway.
Dusty:
I’m one of the lucky ones that has a hobby as a job and financially secure too because of it. It takes some real stones to bail out without a parachute and still land lightly on your feet.
Congrats!!
gl
Hell yeah, Dusty. You truly are the man. Glad your tooth is feeling better.
Remember when I interviewed you back in May? Well, shortly thereafter, I was inspired to compile my best essays into a book. Do I have you to thank? I’ll never know.
Anyway, today is November 30, and my book was just released nationwide. Orders are flying in, and more importantly, my dream to be a published author just came true.
I know what you’ve been saying now. I get it. Thanks.
-Ryan Zeinert
communistdance@yahoo.com
www.theCDP.net
Quite a support system you have here. You tell us about your week, and we all tell you you’re terrific for it. Am I jealous? Hell no, look at the week you had. I just like to be different…..so…you suck and you’re stupid…..see? Looking forward to the next entry, Mr. Junior Birdman, sir.
“It is EIGHT OF THE TWELVE HOURS YOU ARE AWAKE ENOUGH TO TAKE NOTE OF THE WORLD. MAKE IT COUNT”
Dusty….your so right, life is too short.
Life is the longest damn thing you’ll ever do.
I don’t always enjoy my job.
I think I would like it more if I didn’t go in at 6:30 in the morning.
Like, if I got to pick my hours. Just show up when I wanna.
That’d rock pretty hard.
So you’re a ground instructor? Are you a flight instructor, too? Crap, you must be getting through this stuff fast. I was working on my commercial when you wrote about soloing, and I just got hired as a CFI.
If I didn’t get paid to fly with these kids, I’d still be doing it. I think that must be job satisfaction.
Until you solo them anyway, because then you’re just shitting kittens all over the place.
How much of a profit do you take from the merchandise sales? If it’s not enough, maybe you can start a “Feed Dusty” fund like you did to buy the Dance Dance Revolution game. I am sure many of your loyal readers would be more than happy to contribute.
I can completely understand your situation. I work in my cube farm and wait to leave and recently dealt with being diagnosed with diverticulitis which is some of the worst pain I have ever felt and the doc fix me up ever so kindly with an 18 gauge needle to my lower abdomen without the advent of anesthetic or pain killers. Power through the pain and continue to write so I have something to look forward to during the day.
Woot canal. Oof. I can welate. I had my fwist woot canal in May. It was oh so painfwul. I wish my Dentist bewieved me when I said I metabowized the pain kiwwer weawy fast, ’cause he dwilled into my big abscess-hole and I fewt it awot! Oh so painfwul!. He had to keep giving me shots and shots and shots. I cwied like a baby. The weceptionist came in to check on me because I was scawing the othew patients!
I fink my face is still swollen fwom it.
And…I have to wait foah next yeah to get my cwown because of dumb insuwance cwap. Ugh. I hope my toof doesn’t cwack befowe den!
I feew for you!
Hi Dusty,
Sorry to hear about your tooth.
Here’s a tip from one lecturer to another:
I find that when I’m faced with a really tough question that leaves me standing there looking like I’m retarded, I just say:” EXCELLENT question. Finding the answer is part of your homework.” Then go home and feverishly look for the answer.
Hope it helps, and that you’ll feel better soon.