09/01/2005 - 1:33 a.m. | last vestiges... gone

Two of the aforementioned 26 voicemails were from my boss Brian. He was quite indignant that I did not show up for work today. "Not acceptable. We might lose the contract! Blah blah blah!" I had stupid class all day long, though (or is that another lie? I forget), and the longest I could have made it in was like 40 minutes. But I've decided that isn't good enough for Mr. Brian Van Holm, so I went out and bought a 30 dollar set of crutches. I was nearly hit by a car today, see, and in the process of dodging that white SUV, I twisted my ankle pretty bad. Maybe even conked my head on the pavement.

See, I was riding my bike to the bank to cash that fucking petty cash check so Ericka would stop hollering at me, and I've seen people blow by that stop sign on Race and Elm before, but I was totally caught off guard this time. And my bike (I was on my bike, see) doesn't have the most amazing set of brakes in the world - coaster brakes, you know, like on a kids' bike? - so when I noticed the bitch wasn't gonna stop, I jammed my feet down and twisted the wheel hard. I kept going, though, and sort of got tangled up in my bike in the process. I fell over and the weight on my ankle made it twist too far, so on and so on. I had my roommate pick me up and take me to the hospital because my ankle was hurting like a motherfucker, so there was that whole lovely ordeal. Luckily, nothing was broken, just a mild sprain, which should probably be fine within a week or so at the latest. And then I was feeling sort of nauseus and manic from the whole thing, so they thought I might have a concussion, so they did a CAT scan or something, which was vaugely horrifying, but they mostly think it was shock from the, you know, near death. Anyway, I was at the hospital for like four hours, so that's why I never made it into work.

And maybe you're going, "Well, $30, Nate. That's a lot of money for a guy who is almost out of a job." (Or: "That's a lot of money for a lie...") Oh, it's well worth it, my friends, when those fuckers get a load of the self-righteous fury I am going to be in tomorrow morning. I've already started practicing my speech. "I nearly died yesterday - I nearly died - and you're leaving these messages about what is and isn't acceptable, about some stupid contract? None of this stuff even matters! I could have be hit by that car!" And: "Since I started here, I've seen nothing but non-stop finger pointing, and I am just sick of it! You're going to treat me with this little respect? Like I'm just some punk kid playing hooky? Tell me why I should stay here for even one moment longer!" Heh heh heh.

And, just to prove that there is no such thing as karma, I also apparently had a call from some drawing I entered when we saw Old 97's up in Chicago. I have won a 2 night star at a Marriott and $500 internet money. Oh lord, what's happening now?