The musings of a madman...

       Not to let you in on more than you need to know about me, but my full-time job has existed under the constant possibility of a random drug test...      I could, at any moment, receive an email and teams message from my manager telling me that I have 30 minutes to report to a draw station and present a sample to be tested for illegal drugs. 18 years and 8 months had successfully transpired without me EVER having received any such a thing, not even after that one time I randomly passed the fxck out at my desk. ... until now...      Last week, I got that message on Teams and the email. When she noticed my light was amber because I was on break, outside cutting the front yard, she sent me a text asking if I got them. I ran inside and checked, responded "on it" to her text, changed shoes and hopped in the truck to go to the center for the test.      13 minutes later, I walked into the center and signed in on the kiosk...

       As you may or not recall, I apparently have a son... I mean that as in only "technically," because legally, I only have a two daughters -- we don't use "step" in this house except in matters of extreme necessity. Rather than drag this tale through an infuriating side quest, I will send you [ here ] and ask that you return when you're ready to proceed. ... welcome back...      So yeah, son... We approached the period since he came to my house as more of a friendship than family, as our blood relation is honestly nothing more than a previously-veiled matter of inconvenient consanguinity. I say that to say we exchange text messages at random times of day, I send and receive memes and answer queries for advice -- again, as I might any of my friends. He has commendably and thankfully avoided employing terms that would have him refer to me as his father, even if he is growing to see me as a father figure. ... until I got a phone call after work... M...

(so we back on this?)      I tend to have to worry when things get a little too quiet. I've reached a moment where my routine is a little too... easy. So it's an otherwise mundane-ass Wednesday morning, 10am. I'm, naturally, spending my 15-minute break in my front yard leaving some pretty stripes. As a habit, to preclude people from talking to me, I usually have on my big headphones while I work in yards. This has been changed recently, as I think my wife misplaced my big headphones and I have finally taken to the habit of wearing a hat so I have updated to a pair of noise cancelling buds.      Why am I talking about trying to stay ahead of people distracting me? Naturally, of course, it is because someone decided to fucking talk to me. An unmarked-but-still-obvious police vehicle stops in front of my mailbox, but as a non-criminal (ha!), I continued what the fuck I was doing without approaching the car, I have 15 minutes to cut this front yard at le...

       I'm so into my shenanigous adventures that I often forget shit I've done soon after I've done it sometimes. As someone who so frequently goes outside JUST to do stupid shit I REALLY need to work on that, as I am often the member of my household chosen to go out and do the things; gas and grocery runs and such. Why am I telling you this?      Well this past weekend, I went on some errand runs with my wife. This naturally placed me in at least three retail establishments among the public. We're heading toward the registers when we -- well, I -- heard from behind us "aye, ain't you the n**ga man? When I say I *heard* him, I must explain that I heard it as background noise not terribly unlike what one would normally encounter in a Walmart. It was not until he approached and tapped me on the shoulder that I became aware that it was me that he was asking. Him: "Aye, bro, ain't you the n**ga man?" Wife Person™: "EXCUSE ME?!!?" Him: ...

       Y'know, sometimes it is hard for me to conceptualize people continuing to exist when I am done with them, or as it were when they're done with me...      In the summertime, work-work is slower and USUALLY lawn care is too because it doesn't normally rain in June like it just did. That said, I was "normal" at the bill-paying job and running ragged on the side hustle staying caught up in between storms.      On a particularly rainy day last week, my phone kept ringing. I should say that I've gotten an exorbitant number of spam and out-of-state calls from areas I have no business, usually shilling some kind of high interest loan I have no desire for. That said, I am adept at quickly dismissing them without interrupting whatever I'm doing on YouTube at a given moment.      On this day, though, I kept getting a particularly persistent call from a High Point number. The only person I have any business with who has a H...