It went out to everybody. Everybody.
I'm not sure how it happened. But it did. My worst nightmare.
I was working from home. It was snowing hard and I had the option. My bald tires and broke ass sealed the deal. Few knew this, but the cafe and shuttles busing folks in from all over town weren't running so nobody went in anyway.
The problem from home is that I can't focus. my guitar is there, the whole internet. Food, coffee, everything. No one to look professional for. I was in sweats. Talking to women online, the nine. I was drinking too. Why not? Who knew. But this was not the cause of the mishap.
My brain was constantly diverted to other endeavors. Going down video rabbit holes and reading articles left and right about everything and nothing. I was listening to podcasts with interviews of my favorite artists. Any time ANY person I knew was mentioned, I'd have to look them up and read all about them. DOB, DOD, how they died if they had in fact. What their whole story was. Wiki is a great place to get lost for hours. I did. I was doing little work. It was all right in front of me and easy, but so very time consuming. Hell, I was even writing. Anything to keep my mind away from what I didn't want to think about or do, in this case work.
Then an issue came in, a big one. Students were buying access codes for a course that was old. Old content. You see it was my job to update this material. Now it was up to me to fix it. This problem of mine. But you also see, students were BUYING these codes that went to dead ends. Internet dead-ends. For $86 a pop. Imagine enrolling in a course online, so you can sit on your ass and get your "education" and piece of paper as we all do, and spend $86 and sign in with said code to get rejected. I'd be a bit mad. It was my fault this had happened.
To make matters worse, these styles of issue stretched much further than the students and I. I did not interact with the students. It's not a "student-facing" position as I heard a co-worker state on the phone to a student just yesterday. What a crock of shit. If a student called me looking for answers, you answer them damnit!
I hadn't eat much other than 1/5 of a cheese danish, and a granola bar. Oh! And 2 pb&j toast sandwiches. Ace. But drinking on these non-fulfilling meals meant feeling quite content. Worried now, but collected. Whatever that meant. How about, "carrying less anxiety over the situation."
Back to topic. You see, this reached beyond these two entities. It reached to advisors, advisor's superiors, my bosses bosses. The company that runs our bookstore out in Missouri. Missouri for fuck sake, an hour time difference. Just to make sure thousands of materials get into hundreds of courses getting out to hundreds of thousands of "students" or so I understand. That last number I made up. The first two are educated guesses by me, a guy in the "biz."
This went out to a lot of people my superior. Money was involved now. Reimbursement, on our behalf. A fuck up, a screw up, a mistake, a mishap as I stated earlier. My fault. Woops. It happened, but every time it did, I wondered if it were my fault and how many other mistakes in the current term could be in there. You see, it was my duty,
And I am lazy.
So I was instructed by a team-peer to shoot out an email to all these higher-ranking folks in various departments, IT, Advising, LR, MBS (Missouri book store? I was never told) and beyond. Fuck. I had to now conduct a full-scale attack to remedy this situation, reaching out to various folks to let them know what's going on, as per protocol. Involved, will be a mass-email sent to all these people...at once. Shit on my socks Danny. Shit on them.
Whose Danny? No idea. perhaps this protagonist. Should I piss all you off to no end and change perspective and tense? I don't even know the word for it. Let us, shall we? (No, I will)
Danny took a big swig of his make-shift mixed drink. 151 and Arnie Palmer. Not zero, just lite. He wondered why the heck the normal drink was called "Lite" and not "light." Also, why there wasn't a non-lite version. Or Non-LIGHT version for that matter. Whatever the case, It was not "AP Zero" Which was trash. In a free vendor-swag thermos of the brushed stainless steel type, Danny poured the 151. This is IMPORTANT, listen carefully. The 151 goes in FIRST. If you pour after the AP LITE, then it will only sit right on top of the ice tea and nothing will ever mix it ever unless encapsulated in a hyperbolic wind tunnel in space on the moon or perhaps in the hands of a seasoned pro such as Danny. But this would require a sealed container, which Danny's free vendor thermos did not have. So he mixed it correctly the first time. 151, then the arnie. Perfect. But he had no ice, this was acceptable if mixed correctly, which is rarely ever was, and/or after some heroic swigs. Danny was no stranger to these types of swigs of his makeshift drink. He did.
After several of these heroic swigs and side-tracking to his newly set-up acoustic and self-criticism of using too many hyphens in words such as in this sentence, he took another swig and a big breath and typed up email after email to individuals to fix the issue he'd made. Being CC'd in multiple other emails from responses and from the people he was responding to, reaching out to others for answers. All the while being asked to include even MORE people who cried about not being CC'd in these emails.
After finding out how to go about this now giant fiasco, he finally had to formulate this mass email to the powers that be. The powerful, faceless, folks downstairs and over and across the city. (Danny worked on the 4th floor, the top floor of the building) But in mid-email, he got distracted for a while thinking up a lyric and tune and picked his guitar up. Then he had to shovel. Then, he began watching a film. About LBJ. No one gives a fat flying fuck about LBJ. Not even Danny or most importantly, LBJ. Why? Because at this time of the making of this film, LBJ is cold, dead and gone and most likely bones in a box. Halfway through he looked at the time and realized he was hungry and had to piss. Danny came back from more cheese danish and pissing, (not at the same time) and drank some more. Realizing the time was now upon him, he sat down. The day was nearly over and he had to get this email out.
But again he was distracted. A woman had replied to him. He began typing to her. They got to talking a while. They had been off and on for a few days. He told her how attractive he though she was and she egged him on. Danny insisted, being as drunk as he was, he said a few things he wouldn't have, had he not been drunk. He told her how beautiful she was, and she asked more and more. He had hinted, but not said what he wanted to do to her, because that was not his style. He waited for quite a while to tell women this. He didn't like to use, or be used. A classy gentleman Danny was. But she asked, so Danny blew the doors off. As well as his own drawers.
He typed and typed and typed and typed things he'd do to her. He sent it over. Rubbing his hands together, thinking (because he was cocked and stacked) that it was the best he'd written in a long time. As he sat back admiring his work he soon realized what he had done. He was so drunk out of his mind at this point, he hadn't sent it to the woman at all. He had typed it out. He was staring right at it, so it was not lost, thank god. But he DID send it to the many many administrators he had CC'd in the email. Co-workers, IT staff, MBS (MISSOURI I HOPE) contacts, bosses, Advisors, I mean, everyone. People above his pay grade. He was mid-sentence in his original email, and simply continued with what he had spent the better part of 23 minutes writing to this woman.
It was glorious, no doubt about it. But Danny did not send it to that woman. No. He sent 8 large paragraphs which were increasingly graphic. More and more intense and sexual. Hell, that's sugar coating it. Danny sent the most sexually explicit things he'd ever thought in his head to these people. Although he was heavily under the influence at this point, the implication of what he had just done was not lost on him. In fact, he sobered up, went wide eyed and about had a hard attack. How would he get out of this one?
Danny took a swig. A big one. He chugged rather. He needed to disappear. He needed to go away now. ASAP.
He searched. He flailed. He slammed his laptop. It flickered. He swiped everything off his desk in flurry and got up knocking his chair down, he took his guitar by the neck and held it over his head and promptly smashed it on the corner of his dresser. It did not need a second smash. He tossed what was left clear across the room and found the cologne bottle he had knocked on the floor. The aluminum cover dented. He ripped it off and smashed the top against the window sill and threw the contents down his throat in one swallow. There was less in there than you'd think. He looked around and found the bottle of 151. He downed the 5th of what was left straight up. He did not feel it.
He whipped the bottle off to the side hard against the wall making a dent. He threw the tissue box on the floor and the lamp too. He flew into his closet and tore everything out. he found the pledge and the dog stain remover. It was called animal stain remover but he only had a stupid dog that had been outside this whole time. If it were up to him, he'd stay out quite a bit longer. If he accomplished his wish, he'd be out there until the sun came up again on the snow once or twice until someone found him out back. Or perhaps he'd already jumped the fence. He did that sometimes.
The pledge was in a spray can, this would be hard. He smashed it against the wall and smashed it against the corner of the dresser and smashed it against the dresser again and across is "stupid fucking head" and smashed it against the floor and against the broken lamp on the floor and again and again. he frantically ripped open the pockets of his leather jacket and found his pocket knife. He took it and stabbed at the can. He was determined. He finally punctured a small sharp hole which he immediately attached his lips around and lifted the can up above his face as he stood, swallowing the entire contents. He rushed to the bathroom now. not to vomit although the urge overcame him. But no, he ripped open the medicine cabinet for something more potent and only found expired nausea pills. he ran back to his room and choked on the contents of that. Only 20 pills or so.
"FUCK!" he screamed at the top his lungs in a blood curdling screech. In his drunken, aggravated and desperate state he flailed back into the bathroom. There was one orifice of the room he had not pillaged. The shower. He half-hearted an attempt to swipe the curtain aside to failure. So he ripped the whole rod down as it fell on him. Danny Threw it aside in a rage and found them all. All the bottles neatly lined. He reached for the conditioner and decided to opt for the dry scalp shampoo instead as it probably had more naughty chemicals in it. He twisted the top off and held it upside down over his upturned face. He waited.
Finally drops fell out, then, the rest and then at a steady pace. He had to give it his best not to gag fully on the thick substance trickling down his throat into his body. He didn't have the time to wait for the rest. It was nearly empty anyway. The hair gel. He could simply squirt it into his mouth like yogurt. he did. But it was the next that really turned him on once he laid eyes upon it.
The Noxema.
NOXEMA LORD NOXEMA! The Noxema. He spun the cap off of the container and shoved his index and middle finger into it and swiped up a generous amount of the chalky substance and shoved it deep down his throat and swallowed. he did this 3 more times as he walked calmly back to his bed. Where he promptly laid down. Finishing off the contents of the Noxema like frosting.
Danny fell asleep. Surprisingly. Not worrying about the email anymore. or the woman. Not because he had forgotten. For he knew he would not be around in the morning to deal with any of it.
Any. Of. It.