Bus-man's Holiday
5:00 AM: Buster's eyes opened wide as he heard the sound of my bedroom door slowly creek open. I lackadaisically emerged to relieve myself prior to going back and getting some much needed inside-eyelid time for my action-packed day. Making my way through the dim hallway, Buster pops out and announces, "IT'S BUSTER DAAAAYYYY!!," to which I react by recoiling wildly, collecting myself, and saying in a somber tone, "I know, dude, but it's early and I need sleep. You want me to get fired? Then I can't pay rent...yatadayatadayatadaaaa....we're homeless. I don't know about you, but I don't want to be homeless. So please, we'll celebrate in a few hours....thanks." I subsequently return to bed, get comfy again, and almost drift off before I hear the halls bellow, "Buster Dayyy.....Hellloooo!....Buster Day!"
After more than half of my allotted sleeping time has been depleted, the noise stops or I block it out proper, either way I maybe drift for about thirty minutes before...
EH!.EH!..EH!..EH!..EH!
OKAY!
I hit the snooze (cue dumb-ass kid quipping, "What's the snooze") before once again rising from my linen cocoon. Time for real shit. I stroll like a zombie into the common area and make my way to the kitchen. I put on the strongest coffee known to man (it actually has a skull and crossbones em-brazened upon the label) to give me enough juice to make it to lunchtime. Out of the corner of my ear, I hear it again. "Buster Day! Hey! It's Buster day!" This is the problem with unemployed, self-entitled roommates: They have an almost monumental lack of concern for your business. This can spill over into resentment if you let it, but it's best to put your best foot forward and live. "YEAH! HAPPY BUSTER DAY, MAN, HERE, BRO, GOT THIS FOR YOU!!" And then we have breakfast; him...emphatic, you...surviving. All the while mentally spouting, "must be nice to have your own holiday.""I wish I could just lounge around and drift by like flotsam unabated by such inconveniences like...I don't know...responsibility and poverty and bills and whatnot."
I go to my job. It's sometimes bad, sometimes not, just like practically everybody's so I don't complain. I come home, Buster's off napping, though the living room is roasting like he had some sort of beach party in the middle of February and left without turning down the heat. Little shit, though I guess it is Buster Day, so whatever. I clean the day's filth from my frame and settle down to read or play a game, Bus-man comes out. "What's up, homie? Where you been?" I roll my eyes appropriately and retort, "Oh! I was at this cool place called, "Work." You should check it out some time. It's a real blast. That is, if you love to deal with people all day that, for some reason, think you can fix all their problems. Get this, though, oddly enough you only end up pissing them off because you can't. And the clincher is...nobody can. Just them. And this is where it get's interesting, bud. They refuse to adhere to that reality because, much like you, they exist on a plane of straight self-servitude with little to no regard to others around them. They simply live out their days waiting for others to come through for them in areas where they can't. Which is ALWAYS! Sound familiar?"
A soap-boxy sidebar: Meal tickets are great for you and usually nobody else. Keep that in mind, kids. When you don't have to do adult things, life is pretty awesome, but you should always be mindful and courteous of those who have to grind, because they help make it all happen. Understand, that at every turn of their menial, mundane exertions, everybody else wants to be right there with you. Unfortunately, they cannot. It is for this reason why you should not drive them insane or, at the very least, not wake them up prior to their preordained obligations to celebrate a holiday that they themselves are unable to thoroughly enjoy. I hoped that Buster would one day realize this and chill....but,
I look over. He's already asleep again on the couch. so I stop spinning my wheels because there's no road to scrape. I guess real life is boring, or at least not officially audible on Buster Day. So I put on a movie to marinate my bones in fiction, brush my teeth, and go off to slumber my day away before waking to face another. Unfortunately, though, I know that Buster Day starts roughly around 5:00AM sharp...Every day.
To conclude, Buster is a cat named Ghost. And to clarify, I have no animosity towards him, but contrarily have enabled him to continue his freeloading lifestyle for several years now. That is not to say, however, that I do not shame him on a daily basis for being unemployed. P.S. He's asleep right behind me, calm as can be. Must be nice. Rant over.