I worked on Memorial Day.
It was not fun but it was voluntary so what are you gonna do? Can't whine about it if I volunteered for it. The pay is good - it is very good - but I don't give a shit about the money.
I would care about the money if it was put to good use. Like if, when that paycheck came in the wife and I went out for an extravagant dinner. Or if I bought her that 9 carat diamond broach she has been lusting after. Or if she bought me a brand new motorcycle and a Ferrari.
That's not what happens. The check gets magically deposited and the money magically goes away. To boring shit, like paying the goddamn bills. I am not even aware of extra money coming into our lives.
What is the point of sacrificing a holiday for that?
Absolutely ridiculous.
I am working today. 1-9:30. I don't know why I let this happen. Maybe some twisted notion of responsibility as assistant manager man. Nobody else wants to work it. All the smart people are home today getting high on pot and plotting revenge on their enemies.
I don't plan on working these holidays, I just kind of slide into them.
However I am bumming about this one, so I have decided that if, God forbid, I am still being viciously exploited by this job in September, I will not work Labor Day.
At that point I will be mourning the death of summer anyway and will need to lay low.
Here are my observations. Talked to a lot of people yesterday who said "You guys are not open on the 4th are you?" When I replied in the affirmative they were amazed.
Some disgusted. Those are my kind of people.
I had a lot of discussions with old timers like me who remember when banks closed on Friday, how you had to rush down at lunch to cash your check (before direct deposit and bi-weekly checks), how most stores were closed on Sunday.
We talked about how people actually survived that. Didn't seem like too bad a deal.
Now the fucking stores have to be open on Thanksgiving and banks are open 7 goddamn days a week.
The greedy, inefficient, immoral and nefarious New Hampshire State Liquor Commission closes its stores on only three days a year.
Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter.
Easter? What the hell happened to New Year's Day?
Flip the switch: I also talked to a lot of people who are working on the 4th. Some working right through the weekend.
Another sign of the impending fall of Babylon.
It is disgusting how many people are forced to work holidays and have to forsake weekends.
Truthfully, the concept of weekend has been erased from our thought process.
Our lives are small enough to start with. Yet the moneyed power brokers keep chipping away at the tiny little sculpture that is our existence to make it even smaller.
Almost invisible.
Another observation: I will hear this comment 201 times today. "I can't believe you guys are open today."
The response that gets strangled by me holding my tongue is: "Have you no relationship to reality? Are you unable to see yourself? To hear yourself? You are precisely the reason the odious Liquor Commission demands that its stores be open today. Because you can't plan ahead. Because you feel entitled. Because you don't give a damn how your laziness and selfishness and stupidity affects anyone else."
The Capitol Craftsmen & Romance Jewelers in Concord, NH gets it. I dropped two watches off there last weekend. One for a battery replacement, one for a new band.
Got a call yesterday saying the watches were ready and that the business would be closed Friday, Saturday and Sunday so their employees could enjoy the 4th of July weekend.
This operation is a business just like the liquor commission is a business. The difference is that they are not consumed by greed. And lack of concern for the personal lives of their employees.
They recognize that life is for living and that people need and deserve a break.
And that customers will not die because the store is closed for three days. Nor will they withdraw their patronage.
OK. I'm done. Had some thoughts I had to get out there.
I truly hope you have a magnificent 4th of July. I hope you have the entire weekend to yourself to live your life.
I also hope you bought your booze in advance.
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