Decisions, part 1

Before I get into any of this, I should state for the record that in my heart I do believe that I'm awesome, and anytime someone is talking to me and it seems that I don't believe that ... I'm probably playing possum, whether deliberately or not (or I'm just frikking burnt out or depressed). I only state that for the record because it ties into this post and the next. Ok then.

Today at work was a difficult day. Cooter was out (not that he contributes much, but he is a body on the line) with some custody related blahderall. Brad left for a doctor's appointment, was supposed to return, but didn't. So that left me, Jim, Fred, and Christy to run the whole shebang. On top of that, there were frequent periods where no guns were ready for us and we had to wait and do repairs. So, to sum it up: we didn't get a lot accomplished. However ...

Mike came by right before lunch and told us that there would be no work on Saturday. We had been solicited the day before, but honestly, I was hoping that tomorrow would be cancelled. Usually we spend the five hours doing repairs, and I wasn't really feeling inspired to come in and do that. Instead, I get to stay up late on a Friday for freaking once, do what I want, maybe sleep in, and my whole Saturday is free. And when is the last time that's happened? I can't even remember.

As Mike was leaving Jim made some snide remark about Cooter, like all of us had been doing all day long, when I remarked, "Speaking of Cooter .... we're not working tomorrow, and ..."

Jim got it right away. Cooter doesn't know! And Jim and Christy both thought that was hilarious. And it is, let's be honest. Cooter thinks we're working on Saturday, which means he'll get up, drive in from Claremont, and nobody will be there, and if there's anything funnier than that I just don't know what it is. So that was a topic of conversation all afternoon. We did call Brad, though, to let him know about tomorrow.

Yeah.

You're already ahead of me, aren't you.

My conscience was bugging me already. It was the full-service Lori vs. Lucy maelstrom in my brain over what am I going to do, and I just didn't know.

On the one hand, it's fucking Cooter, the most annoying boy on Earth. Fuck him!

On the other hand, if I already felt guilty then ... how would I feel tomorrow?

Plus, we might have all been in on it, but ----> I'm <----- the one he's going to be pissed at, and whereas I piss him off several times daily, this would be really pissed to the point where he'd be fucking miserable to have to work next to, which is exactly what I have to do. Plus, I could forsee him banging on my door sometime around 5:15 and disturbing my weekend.

On the other hand, if I just tell Cooter then when the joke isn't played on him and he doesn't go in on Saturday, he'll tell everyone that I told him and the others will be disappointed and I'll be the wet blanket.

How am I going to work this out? I stewed about that all afternoon.

And there was only one solution I could come up with, and the answer was just bizarre enough that the solution could only have come from me. I went on Myspace, logged into Jill's account (which is really my account) and e-mailed the stupid little fucker. I can't reproduce her distinct dialect (I just attempted it and failed), but it was along the lines of a friend of hers at the gun factory said there ain't no work tomorrow and figured he ought to know. Don't ask who it was cuz I won't tell ya. And something to that effect.

Knowing I'd be the prime suspect, I cleared out of the house completely. No Myspace (and I haven't logged in there yet tonight), no telephone, nothing. I distanced myself as far from it as possible. Yeah well there was a SECOND reason I ditched out of here tonight, too, but I'll get to that in the next post. Upon returning I checked my caller ID, and yes there was a call I can identify as Amy's cell phone number. I haven't even listened to the message yet, but I have a good general idea what it might pertain to.

However, and this is important, Shaun has had no contact with Cooter (or Amy) since Thursday afternoon. So come Monday morning when it turns out that Cooter didn't go in (at least, if he's smart and/or believed the message wasn't a hoax), I have enough plausible deniability to cover myself with the others. If he is stupid (oh, he's stupid) and does go in, I can say that I tried to warn him.

I think all my T's are dotted and my I's are crossed and I'm covered both ways.

I do, however, wish I was the sort of person who could just sit back, relax, and enjoy the chaos that could have erupted if I had done nothing at all.

Alas, I am just not that person.