Why I'm Blessed

It's getting really hot here, which means that I'm not comfortable anywhere. Outside it's sweltering, so hot you can't breathe. Even the wind is hot. Inside, no matter where I am, the person who must not pay the electricity bill keeps the thermostat down around 70 degrees, which is much too cold. I don't like to use the air conditioner in my car, not because it doesn't work right or anything but because to turn it on makes me feel like a wimp, like putting the visor down does (one day you will all recognize my zen-like inner strength and it will all be due to my years of driving around in a 100+ degree car with sun streaming directly into my eyeballs). I know, it makes no real sense. Incidentally my zen-like inner strength only goes so far when it's actually 100+ degrees out side the car and thus about 500+ degrees inside the car and I finally had to cave and turn on the air the other day. I was chastising myself for my weakness, but I think Story was relieved, he does not have the self-control issues that I have. Whereas I practice way too much, he, in my opinion, practices way too little.

I say all that to say that I'm thankful to have a job. In an economy that I can't make sense of, that for the first time in my life has directly affected me, requiring me to spend long terrifying months going to interviews for jobs that I wouldn't get, jobs that instead went to people who were way over qualified for the positions, people who were just as disappointed with themselves for getting that job as I was for not getting it, not to mention gas prices, interest rates, the rising cost of food, and endless newscasts about things I don't understand. Despite all of that I have a job, in an office, where I don't have to answer phones or look at customers or take care of anyone, and what's even better is it's not outside. I don't know how laborers and construction workers and equipment operators get through a day. All of you out there reading this, carry a thermos of cold lemonade in your car to give to those guys standing in the hot sun with the "STOP" and "SLOW" signs that hold up traffic for hours while they lay hot asphalt on the hot road, making you late for your nice office job. I think they would appreciate it. Their job would be unbearable. That's got to be the worst. That or stump grinding.