The Blaze Of Glory Fantasy Job Resignation

It’s a normal day. I’m keeping to myself, just getting lost in the smooth sassiness Ira Glass’ voice purveys on every This American Life, when an email thread about another bullshit-mandatory-community-service outing this Saturday overruns my inbox. Maybe it’s just that Saturday is the day I was planning on binging through those ten episodes of rowdy, obese teens on Maury while I subsequently binged on ice cream in my underwear. Maybe it’s just that I’m more annoyed than usual at the string of self-aggrandizing follow ups of people making sure to hit “Reply All” instead of “Reply” to applaud themselves. Whatever it was, this is just the straw that broke the camel’s back. This is the popped stitch that now had that fat woman’s disgustingly pasty body pouring out of her now-busted tube top. This is bottoming out and enough is enough.

I take a deep breath. My hands shake and my eye twitches involuntarily. In three strides I’m at my boss’ locked office door. With an authoritative, climax-inducing punch the hardwood splinters into fragments that crumble into a pile. Frozen in fear, my boss drops his phone; his mouth agape as I suavely enter. It’s then that I start in on a laundry list of aggressively-specific unlovable personal traits about him in my best Ryan-Gosling-in-Drive voice while he begins weeping into an old boot filled with bathtub gin that he apparently keeps under his desk.

Intelligence, appearance, odor, I leave no stone unturned in my wake. The downpour of tears fuels me and I throw my fists down onto his desk. Startled and overcome with fear, a marathon barfing session ensures from him with the torrent of partially-digested Jimmy Dean sausage and booze squarely soaking that oversized school picture of his dumb kid who he’s always prattling on about.

The mousy office nag’s standing at my former boss’ former door as I saunter out. Tranquil and knowing her disdain for cigarettes, I spark up a fat, unfiltered Turkish bone right in front of her. She begins overdramatically coughing and, right as she’s about to quote some Internet-forum-derived second-hand-smoke “fact,” I tell her to wait and, obediently, she complies.

“Listen,” I say thundering, “Nobody liked those cookies you brought in last week. I don’t care how many dead grandmothers you got the recipe from; they objectively tasted like sawdust and farm.” Her bottom lip quivers and she opens her mouth to refute me. “I know you’re going to tell me people told you they liked them, but no one actually did. Frankly, no one in this office actually likes you or any of the culinary abominations you subject us to. I know,” I say with a nod, “They’ve all told me they hate you, your gossip, and your fixation on office politics.”

I move on while the mousy annoyance scurries to the fridge to drown her newfound sadness with spoonful after spoonful of congealed KFC gravy. I sincerely hope to see her on a future Maury “I Can’t Stop Eating Buttered Slop” episode/cry-athon.

My path of shattered perceptions and realized realities has been delightful. Everyone’s watching in horror, except for that gorgeous intern whom I’ve never had the courage to approach. She’s standing at the door, smitten as the three Guatemalan janitors furious try to no avail to mop up the levee-breaking amount of her panty soup my actions have triggered. I pass her and she hurries to keep up, the three custodians hot on her trail placing the entire army of “Caution: Wet Floor” signs. There’s no introduction, just a coy whisper from her as she says she can’t wait for the hot product my company will churn out.

The two of us step outside of the building and in celebration the two security guards start wildly firing their handguns into the air. The beauty and I both hop on my motor scooter and ride off to go eat chicken wings and consummate this beautiful separation. Roll credits.

At the end of the day, it’s your fantasy. Let your imagination go crazy; stop taking your medication if it helps. The sky’s the limit. Really, I mean the alternate version of this blaze-of-glory job resignation fantasy features Marlon Brando’s centaur ghost high fiving me while I slam dunk talking basketballs from the back of a tyrannosaurus at the Super Bowl.