The Last Shift I Ever Worked At My Last Job.

Originally written February 2005.

If you've been sober for 5 days and you STILL look like Nikki Sixx from Motley Crue, then either:

a) You're Nikki Sixx from Motley Crue... or
b) you need to call in sick for work.

I have not been sober for 5 consecutive days since I moved to Austin, until now. I'm halfway through my sixth, and I've been awake for about 22 hours. I think, besides this flu virus, I'm getting some serious alcohol withdrawal because I can't sleep. My boyfriend says I'm coughing like one of those sickly puppies in the pet store that noone buys cause they're obviously not long for this world.

So, since I won't be going to work tonight, it's Story Time!

This story takes us back about 8 months, back when I was an inventory specialist. Basically, you hop in a van, ride to a store, and count it all up. After 6 months it requires no thought at all, just mechanical 10-key work. I've done it for years. I could hold a detailed conversation, take notes in my head, or basically do whatever I wanted with the entire non-motor part of my brain the entire shift...

The major downside was that it didn't just give you a BAD sleeping schedule, it gave you NO sleeping schedule. Some stores wanted you done before they opened, some stores after they close, some stores during business hours. You could be told to meet the van nearly any possible time of day, or you didn't work.

In this case, we were off to a three-day stay in the valley (close to the border between Texas and Mexico, for you non-Texans). As in, you're still in Texas but I wouldn't drink the water if I were you. As in early morning trips in "borrowed" company vans to pick up phony prescriptions and smuggle back Valium and Ketamine.

But that was another, much more fun work trip. This one I was stuck with a massively overweight guy in my hotel room that snored. Bad. I spent the first night huddled under the bathroom sink, both pillows tied around the back of my head with a belt, and I could still hear him. I eventually slept that way, which was the cause for jokes the next day.

The next night I figured: no holds barred, this called for booze. Except there was no liquor store, so I could only pick convenience-store stuff. I figured fuck the beer, a bottle of MAD DOG will sing me to sleep. Only problem is, when I drink a whole bottle of MAD DOG, I begin to talk to God... (MAD DOG spelled backwards is GODDAM, after all).

As I'm walking back to the hotel from the convenience store, I give a passing spanger $5 dolars because I'm in a good mood, and he says "Praise God!" Then he says, "You know what kind of person you look like? You look like the kind of people I see over at the pizzeria down the street. Seems like a cool hangout for guys like you. You should go..." I wondered a bit about this Pizza Place, but knew I had to be up at 5am to get in the van, so I just filed it away.

Now maybe the rest of this can be attributed to the fact that I had had 3 hours of sleep the night before, but it was still really strange... The only thing on at the time was "Bruce Almighty", and I wound up watching it by myself, which intensified the MAD DOG God trip. Then immediately afterwards my roommate comes in and commences snoring, without allowing time for the booze to fully blossom and knock me out.

So there I was, drunk out of my mind but unable to sleep with the MAD DOG singing to me, "God wants you to check out that pizza place..." So I figure what the hell.

I find the pizza place, and it's totally empty. I almost give up and walk back, but then I decide a slice of pizza would probably do me good. I ask the owner where everybody is, and he points down a hallway that I would have assumed was employees only, being all wrecked chairs and upended pool tables. But then I heard music at the other end. My MAD DOG drenched mind was not prepared for what I saw...

I experienced my first Christian Heavy Metal Club that night. It was a huge warehouse, and the walls were swirls of angels whooping ass on demons all rendered in this combination of Mexican-Mayan traditional style and more Hispanic-tattoo style. There were bible quotes (all in Spanish) rendered in flaming letters. All this color and religion was just lighting up my MAD DOG drenched brain circuits. Onstage was a surprisingly competent metal all-cover band. You can probably picture the stuff they played; Tool, Pantera, you know. Each of the members was switching off vocals, but none of them was a particularly noteworthy singer. They hit every note on the solos CD-perfect, however. I was up front, singing along, trying to have some fun, and suddenly they stop. The guitarist hands me the mic and says "Come on up..."

I did a few songs, and then I guess curfew hit in this sleepy border town. They told me they needed a singer and asked if I could hang out with them the rest of the evening... I remember again that the work van was gonna pick us up to go home at 5, so I politely declined.

So that's why I try not to listen to God anymore, because he tries to make me the singer of Christian Metal Cover Bands... Or something...