There is no place to rest, and yet

everybody is asleep on the job. The highest value

is to put-in more time.

My relation, a skinny neurotic feminist

told me

that she always respects the principal at her school.

“He gets there in the dark, and stays there in the dark,” she said.

“He must be terribly inefficient at his job,” I commented.

“What do you mean?” She asked.

“Just that, there isn’t a high standard for government work, but appearing as if there is… is the rule. He probably watches TV, until the last employee, leaves. Then he ducks-out when the coast is clear.”

“I don’t think so,” she said.

“Getting noticed, is power—especially when it seems like you’re not trying to get noticed. He’s bleeding minutes on the clock, by holding the ball.”

“I don’t get sports analogies. That’s a man’s world, and one of the many ways, he keeps it that way.”

I didn’t argue with her—and she felt herself to be superior. If this happens, over and over again—a woman starts to think she’s right all of the time—that no man can debate her.

But actually, no man WANTS to debate her.

This feeling of needing to stay away from the arrogant female is ironic, because there is no shortage in a government agency, where I work.

The next day,

I scheduled two separate meetings

for petty parents.

It was the ex-wife who was unwilling to meet with her ex-husband (even for the welfare of her child).

While she was telling me how awful her ex-husband was, I noticed that my left arm was twitching.

Was I going to have a heart-attack?

I took several deep breaths, and told her, “I understand.”

But afterward, when I hung-up, I didn’t feel good about myself.

The End (But not really. I have to keep working a government job, to live. There is a difference between living and staying alive though. Poetry has something to do with it. People are the walking dead. Living kills them, long before they die.)