Freedom

There's freedom in failure. Oh it's not the freedom we want. I mean really, who knocks on their neighbor's door at 3 am asking for a heaping cup of failure?

Really? You need new neighbors, or maybe you should at least pitch in and get them a dominatrix. Somebody who can teach them to suck it up…so to speak.

Still, Freedom, failure, you see the connection, right? Just because you close your eyes and pretend not to see the naked wilder beast guy across the street as he's making grilled cheese, doesn't mean he's not there. Squint. Yup, there it is. That tiny thing he almost smacked with the spatula? That's freedom.

I've spent the last few months fretting over my work. I just realized last night, there's no way I'm keeping this job. It's not a "Do I want to do what it requires to stay." it's "I can't do what it requires to stay." The writing's on the dry erase board and I've got a purple nose.

Wow…

Really?

Yeah. The "S" and the "T" of it is too much, too little, too not Rob. I've known Rob for 40 years now, and I've gotten pretty used to where he rocks and where he flings poo. Things that require manual dexterity like say..walking? I can't do those things. Oh I can get the job done, but the job isn't pretty, and it'll take much longer than it's worth-- unless you're watching for the slapstick factor. Then there's some serious dividends. Don't believe me? Let me just say this: I once trapped myself under a rolling rack in an elevator: all by myself.

Imagine if you will, normal scene: rack with men's shirts on one side of the elevator, Rob on the other. Doors close.

Doors open. Shirts everywhere. Rack tipped. Rob trapped. Hands and legs pinned to wall and floor.

What the…

"help…me…"

Why do you think MyEx and I kept a box of Band-Aids and a tube of antiseptic in the bedroom? It wasn't cuz the activity was that wild. It was because Rob was that dangerous.

"My eye! My eye!"

Yeah. You get the point. Something else I'm not good at? Mindless work. If you allow my mind to wander, it will. After a few minutes, it's in the neighbors yard, leg up, peeing on the roses, and paws up, peering in the window.

Oh man, he's naked again! That sandwich does look good though...

My mind is an aimless puppy without a leash. It'll do everything from split the atom to wonder what's the matter with Grey's Anatomy. It has lots it can do, and it won't stay in one place without a tether. "S" and "T" are not enough keys to lock it up and keep it from getting bored.

My bosses are convinced that I'm doing my work too fast. That's not the problem Still, I'm the employee. I live to serve. I've slowed down.

But I've been going through my work. Slow or fast, I don't see a change. I can't focus on 2 keys. I need more. I suppose this should bug me; I mean, what do I do now? It doesn't bug me. I'm free.

My step father had a cabin on a lake in Minnesota. When I was 15, I stayed there with him for a few weeks during summer break. We did bonding things. High on his bonding list was taking Rob fishing. It's an idea. Not a good one, but hey, I was a kid. I followed others idea-rides of fun, no matter what tree they crashed into.

Now many have tried to teach Rob to fish, and many have failed. Rob still can only eat for one day.

Yeah, it's kind of a boomerang joke. Give it time. It'll come back, I promise. I’m just gonna continue without you if you don't mind...

…was a little dingy. It was tied to a dock in front of the cabin. We collected some poles some beer, some soda and I rowed us out to the middle of the lake. We'd have gone further, but one of the oars snapped in half. I thought about the Bullwinkle "Guess I don't know my own strength" joke, but my stepdad didn't seem in a good mood for impressions. We talked about moving on, but considering the circular logic of one oar rowing, we decided this was a good place to fish.

Stepdad popped open a beer while I fished out the poles.

"Use the blue one, that's my brothers."

"ok" I handed him the other pole. The little boat shifted as I moved around. I wondered how easy it would be to fall in. I didn't really want to find out...

An expert at boat balance, Stepdad made it look easy. Two hands, suspended parallel at ear level, swayed with the shifting boat; one steadied a beer, the other flicked at the end of a wrist to cast the lure deep into the lake. A Pall Mall dangled from his lips for effect.

"That's how it's done, Rob."

"Cool." I took a mental picture, cuz it was never gonna look like that when I was done.

I'm still not even in the smoking scarecrow pose yet, cuz I'm trying to untangle the excess line from around my pole. The lures hook is caught on something. In thirty seconds it will be caught on my finger.

Wait for it…

And now...

"OW!"

There it is. The good news is that the hook is now free from everything else. I pull the barb through the flesh and have successfully added the incentive needed to catch a blood thirsty man eater.

Gonna need a bigger boat…

Ok, maybe not, but maybe I can catch something better than the sunfish I grab by hand from the shore by tossing out bread crumbs.

I cast, and the lure goes nowhere. It's hanging 7 inches from the tip of the pole. I cast again. Same thing. The lure has decided to make the fish jump through hoops today.

"What's wrong?" Says dad. His voice really says, "What are you doing wrong?"

"I dunno. It won't cast."

"Let me see it." he stands up and takes the pole.

I lean over and pick up my Dr. Pepper. Maybe a little quick, because the little boat rocks.

"Careful!" Dad shifts his lake leg balance and glares down at me.

"Sorry" I offer, skulking behind the soda can.

Grumbling something about paying attention, he casts, the cigarette dots punctuation to whatever he's saying I'm doing wrong. Dad's determined to show me how it's done. He does. The little blue lure sails out further than I can see. I do catch a small ripple in the distance, that's either a fish or where my lure landed. Taking the pole, I look at the tip. 7 inches from the tips hangs the line, then nothing. The lure is no longer attached. Nice cast!

"Uhm, Dad?"

"What?'

"We have a problem." I shake the pole towards his face.

"Watch it--aw crap!" Ok, he didn't say crap. Crap is not in the fisherman's vocabulary, it's not in my stepdads either. The word he used actually suggested another body part altogether doing something my 15 year old mind had only wet dreamt about.

"Crap!" He didn't say it again. "let me see the pole."

I swung it towards him. Of course he moved, and so "towards" became more, "at." He dodged the motion by pivoting against the side of the boat, and falling outside of it.

Yes, I'm 15 and getting a Sesame Street lesson: "Dad was inside the boat, now he's outside the boat." I say nothing.

Once again, very impressive. At this point the afternoon was kind of exasperating. I'd been frustrated at every turn. So had my stepdad. When he tried to pull himself into the boat, he nearly capsized it. The bottom filled half full of the water from his optimism. His beer fell out, so did one of his shoes, and his brother's lure-less pole. I think it went searching for it's mate at the bottom of the lake.

My Dr. Pepper now tastes like Davy Jones' Locker. I pull off the Styrofoam can cooler and start bailing the boat: 12oz.s at a time. Dad's treading water looking for ways back in the boat. I'm actually ok with him hanging out right now. I'm two cases into sloshing water outside; I think we're both practicing futility.

He disagrees. He tries another sneak attack over the side again. This time is the fat man that broke the dingy's back. Red rover, red rover send Robby on over. I'm flipping out the other side trying to counteract his surprise surge. The boat is now upside down. It makes a great floatation device.

Two guys out fishing. That's what we're supposed to be. That's what we're not. We're 3 capsized dingies and all the jetsam you can take.

It was more than I could take. I began to laugh my ass off. I couldn't stop. It was too funny. There was freedom in failure, and I was as free as a fish out of water.

The story ends. We obviously got back to shore. A guy in a real boat saw us and picked us up after we'd swam half the way back with the boat in tow. 3 days later my step dad's shoes washed up on shore. We never saw the poles or the lure again.

Today, I'm here towing my S.S. "S" and "T" into shore. It's over. It's ruined. I still have a job, but I know that that's only a matter of time. I'm free and I can't help but laugh.

I also can't help but think about my divorce. I was out of town when MyEx swam to shore. I was floundering in my own pool. We'd both capsized our boat and were doing the best we could. I'll never understand her reasons for leaving, but I can respect the need. Was she laughing at our new found freedom?