Thoughts From The Floor

A bed is not adequately painful for a truly ugly cry; sometimes you need something hard that offers no comfort or means of escape. You’ve got to use the floor–preferably hardwood, no carpet.

You must lay face down, which crushes all internal organs and disrupts the natural flow of blood to your limbs.

Then–and this is crucial–you must ruminate for at least an hour, by which time you’ll have discovered exactly what makes you an irrevocably moronic piece of trash. This, of course, is a wonderful start.

You should then switch to fetal position.

At this point, you will begin to reevaluate every decision you have ever made, and ultimately spiral into an existential depression so complete that it seems like it may last longer than death.

Dear reader, if and when you get here, allow me to ease the pain by relating a memory I encountered here this evening, on this very floor

I once accepted twenty dollars for taking care of a cat that my aunt described as “mostly dead.”

Initially, I felt incredibly guilty; she was family after all and my only job seemed to be dumping half a can of cat food into a dish twice a day. The cat required no other attention, as she was blind and deaf and hated all human beings with her entire, barely beating, heart. Surly this was not worth twenty dollars of money that my aunt earned at her very strenuous, very real, adult job.

Dear reader, this guilt quickly subsided. After the second  hour of mopping up what my aunt would later call “Stinky’s skid-marks”, I was ready for a substantial raise.

My adventure in cat-sitting only got worse.

On the second evening of dumping tuna and mopping shit, my aunt’s phone rang. By this point, I had been inhaling a significant cloud of cleaning product, and was in no state to speak to a human. I let it go to voicemail.

I was alone with a mostly dead cat, it was dark, and I am a small human with virtually no arm strength. Naturally silence, followed by a man’s heavy breathing, followed the beep.

I dropped the Clorox, grabbed stinky, and took a moment to pray for a quick and painless end.

Then I bolted.

Before the final beep, the voice whispered “hello”, painfully slowly, no less than seven times. I wouldn’t know this until the following morning however, when I returned with muscular reinforcement to listen to the message and return stinky.

To my absolute surprise, the house had been locked and empty. Stinky could return to his usual butt-dragging fun times, and I could breathe again.

I took the twenty dollars quite eagerly when my aunt returned the next day.

And yes, I had already deleted the message.

Thats all from the floor for now. Check back in tomorrow for another.