Have a Good Day

Dear Dad,

I hope you always have a good day.

Thank you for taking care of me.

I love you.


He kept this note, on paper shaped like a heart, in the center drawer of his desk.

He looked at it nearly every day. 

His daughter, 6, had given it to him one morning as he was walking out the door.

He had put it in the center drawer on a cold and gray day.

And forgotten it, mostly.  As bills and documents and notes filled his desk.  As he tried earnestly, then desperately to get a call back, to get an interview.

Then, one warm, bright day he opened that drawer.  And saw the note.  Remembered exactly the day she had given it to him.

He sobbed uncontrollably.  He threw the clock from his desk to the opposite wall and delighted in watching it shatter on the ground.  He threw a box of envelopes.  He pounded on his desk. He cried some more.

He knew that in just two months, all the money and all the access to money would be gone.  That the illusion of his "going to work" would be exposed.  That the only thing he had done since the writing of that note was "pretend" to work and organize funds to keep things going.  At least through the school year so that wouldn't be disturbed.

They had a summer vacation coming up.  After that, not long after that, it would be over.

By July, he'd hit 6 months of unemployment.  And the few small "client contracts" he had barely paid his office rent. 

He'd heard a news story about how people who have been unemployed for 6 months or more NEVER got hired.  It was automatic wastebasket for their resumes.  Not even an interview.  Call it unemployment discrimination or just figuring that if this person was good, they'd have gotten a job within 6 months of losing the last one.  So, out of 100 resumes received, 10-15 could be automatically thrown out just based on dates. 

He know that about three weeks after the vacation, he'd hit the 6 month mark.  He'd had exactly two interviews.  And then the letters about how better, stronger candidates had been chosen for final interviews. 

Thank you for taking care of me, she'd written.

And he had been.  For almost 7 years.  And for years before that by being a good steward of his income and managing the household finances frugally.  But now he couldn't imagine changing the lifestyle to which she'd become accustomed. 

He looked at the note every single day after the day when he cried and threw a fit. 

It reminded him to keep working, keep looking, keep fighting. It made him smile when he thought of his daughter and her love for him.  And the deep, strong love he felt for her - a love he'd never felt for anyone else. 

I hope you always have a good day.

Such a simple plea, really.  And when he returned home, he tried to make it seem true.  He hugged her and threw her up in his arms. 

He wondered if she had any idea about the sadness inside him.  Wondered if she could sense a change. 

He knew that on the upcoming family vacation, he'd be robbed of joy.  There'd be a moment or two where he'd be lost and blissfully enjoying his surroundings and the quiet family peace.  But they'd be short and at night, he'd think of returning home, of a three week limit.  Of an ugly end to a summer. 

Would school start with his daughter telling her friends My Daddy lost his job, but it's alright.  We're getting an apartment?

Would he get a call? Or a new client? Or a contract? 

Would money fall from the sky?  Would it be smart to spend $5 a week on lottery tickets or save that money for when the going got really, really tough?

Maybe he could through September?

After he started his morning with an email to each of his few clients and some job browsing and resume distribution, he'd started browsing online classifieds for women.

Maybe the comfort a woman for an hour or two would help him forget?  Or maybe he'd find someone similarly desperate and they could steal away a few times a week and escape into each other's kisses for a moment or more. 

And then, he'd send an email or two.  Maybe send and receive a photo. 

Then, open that center desk drawer and read, I hope you always have a good day.

And he wouldn't reply to the next email or he'd delete the thread and he'd circle back to the job boards and his network and see what he might work on that would allow him to keep taking care of the girl to whom he was everything. 

He began to feel tension in his shoulders and neck.  Ran the shower at night hotter and hotter.  Turned the music up in the car on the way home.  Added weight-lifting to his running routine.  Eventually, he'd end up masturbating every single day before he left his office.  And for 10 minutes, maybe 15, the stress would just float away. 

But, back in the car facing traffic, it would be back.

One month.  Two.  Then it's over. 

For now, he tucks the note back in the drawer. And opens the email about the condo where his family will be in less than seven days.  Maps out the route. And tries to forget that after the beach comes the end. 

The Best Thing

The best thing about being officially unemployed with a big savings account from years of working secure jobs and living conservatively is, well, everything.

Except for watching that account get smaller and smaller.  But hey, for now, there's money.

So, you can go to a very long lunch at the Mexican restaurant just a bit from your office.  You can realize how incredibly fat everyone there is.  Disgustingly fat.  You can contemplate how they smell -- everywhere.  How they aren't fucking anybody with those bodies, just fucking their faces with nachos.

How you are fucking your face with nachos, too.  But you're thin.  Your BMI and just any plain observer would say so.

Maybe one day, if this keeps up, you will be a fat Mexican restaurant goer, too.  And you'll go with other fat people because you will all be fucking your faces with food because you can't fuck each other so there's no pressure.

But, while you're thin, you go alone.  Because you don't have a job and who wants to fuck a good-looking dude with no job? And if you go with someone who has a job, they have to get back to work and they can't drink two margaritas at lunchtime. 

For the record, I only drank diet coke on this day.  I'm not ready to be fat and un-fuckable -- yet.

So, you can watch the fat people.  And you can marvel at the delightfully thin, well-proportioned businesswoman who clearly has a job and who, of course, walks past the Mexican place but doesn't eat there. 

And you can ponder the ads for the nail salon - the ads featuring painted toes.  And you can wonder why the toes and feet aren't really that pretty.  I mean, couldn't they have gotten women with prettier feet to be the feet models for their ads? And then you can further marvel at the woman who is 50 and has big hair and is wearing sandals of some kind and has a giant bunion and her toes aren't painted and you can think that this is some huge miscarriage of justice.

And you can wear your suit and tie to "work" so you can feel professional and then you can take the tie off in the morning and jack off at your desk because no one will be coming in and because touching your dick feels good and because you can't do it with an actual person because they will find out you don't have a job and then feel like shit for fucking you and your mostly average dick that doesn't really stay hard anymore because you don't have a job so your confidence is waning even though you look damn good in your tailored suit and silk tie and soon you won't be able to buy new ties or shirts to go with the nice suits you own and you can keep wearing the suits to the office and they will wear out and then you won't be able to buy more but for now you look damn good and people check you out but you can't even get aroused unless you are alone and you are alone a lot because you are trying to be a writer or some god damn thing and you think that if you finish eating Mexican food with fat people you can walk back to your office and sit at your laptop -- the one you bought when you lost the secure job you had - and you can type a bunch of crap and people will read it and like it and then pay you or offer a book deal which never happens because no one reads a blog with 15 posts and then tells the blogger they can have a book deal and now you are wondering when this tremendously long run-on sentence may end - or, it may not -- and you contemplate Bartleby Scrivner and you're not even sure you spelled it right and you would prefer not to pretend anymore about the job thing and you really want to be doing readings of your new book that currently is just 10,000 words on your computer in some file and well, that's all for this.

And so you do write.  And you blog.  And you check your stats and discover you are getting some clicks and making some cash just by sitting there or writing snarky posts that people may even laught at.

So, yeah, it is pretty good to be unemployed and think about the big shit you took yesterday or the ulcer you may be getting from worrying but trying to not appear too worried because you don't want anyone to know but maybe if you told them they'd help you get a job but probably not because they know you and so they know why you don't have a job and why you lost the one before that.

Plus, you keep wearing suits and going to the office, so things seem fine. But if they didn't, they'd definitely not help you because who hires some unemployed, depressed bastard who needs to work real bad? No fucking one, that's who.

And so it wears on you but you've just had a big Mexican meal with fat people and taken some medicine for your seasonal allergies and you are craving a nap but afraid to take one because what if you oversleep and then miss your appointment to volunteer - that's right, you don't have a job but you fucking volunteer every week for no good reason but you do like the work but they don't know you're unemployed and so actually worse off than the people you are helping but then you do have that savings account and so despite the fact it is dwindling you feel ok and can put on a good face and all that.

Fat people. Mexican food.  Playing around with your dick at your desk.  That's why it is good to be unemployed but with some cash.