{"id":1176,"date":"2015-05-10T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-05-10T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/?p=1176"},"modified":"2015-05-10T08:12:05","modified_gmt":"2015-05-10T15:12:05","slug":"make-an-ordeal-out-of-nothing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/2015\/05\/10\/make-an-ordeal-out-of-nothing\/","title":{"rendered":"Make an Ordeal out of Nothing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Postaday for May 10th: Journey<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong>Tell us about a journey \u2014 whether a physical trip you took, or an emotional one.<\/em><\/p>\n

(I had no idea what to write, so I cribbed from The Hero\u2019s Journey<\/a> to create the following. It’s entirely fictional.)<\/em><\/p>\n

I was sitting in my home office, browsing the internet, content in a cloud of my own inertia, fused almost as one with my big orange office chair. Outside my window, my neighbor\u2019s dog barked, a constant litany of boredom.<\/p>\n

My stomach started with a gurgle, and then a rumble, and then a deep pang that suggested hunger. A gnawing began to grow, in gentle tendrils that laced themselves up and down my spine.<\/p>\n

But I knew better than to hop right up and feed. I was as like to get hungry from tedium as I was from a need for nutrition. Besides, I had a conference call coming up in a few minutes. I continued internet browsing. Oh, look, a dog chasing its own tail falls into a swimming pool. Hilarious.<\/p>\n

A window popped up on my work PC. \u201cNeed to bump the call by half an hour.\u201d This made me a little angry. Which conference call? I work with several teams in one day, have several calls. These guys think they\u2019re the only game in town. Sheesh.<\/p>\n

A tinny ding, and Outlook informs me I have a new meeting invite. I check it- the pending call is the one that is getting bumped. My stomach growls, loudly, in response. I\u2019ve got shoes on and I\u2019m out the door before I even realize it.<\/p>\n

The sun is bright in my eyes, unadjusted from the comfortable darkness inside my house. My feet protests the pavement, as the lymph pooled from hours of sitting works its way out. The dog barking is louder now that I\u2019m outside, more irritating.<\/p>\n

My neighbor\u2019s flower bed has gone to weeds. I used to see him out there, every sunny day, weeding, or flowering, or whatever you call it. He\u2019d say hello. I\u2019d ask him if he wanted anything from 7-11, and I realize now that\u2019s where I\u2019m headed. He\u2019d always smile and say a diet pepsi would sort him out. I\u2019d smile and say sure, he\u2019d gives me a thumb\u2019s up. He was a nice old guy.<\/p>\n

It occurs to me that I have bread and lunch meat in my fridge. I don\u2019t need to go to 7-11. But I\u2019m going to anyway, get something to eat, get a diet pepsi for my neighbor, pour one out on his old flower bed. Maybe that\u2019s silly. I\u2019m in a silly mood.<\/p>\n

My driveway leads to a street, of course, which has a sidewalk. The next street has no sidewalk, however. I walk against traffic, the 7-11 looming ahead in the bright sunshine.<\/p>\n

I walk into the 7-11. The clerk knows me, smiles. My stomach growls again, fiercely. I have no idea what I want. The frozen burritos look like bricks. The bags of chips look like bags of sawdust. There\u2019s greasy slices of pizza, oily hot dogs on rollers, a cabinet full of dried-up donuts. My head swims with hunger and indecision.<\/p>\n

I grab a bottle of diet pepsi, walk a few more aisles. Candy bars and gum and more bags of chips. My phone in my pocket beeps\u2014a text from a coworker. The call that was bumped has been unbumped, and starts in two minutes.<\/p>\n

Shove my phone into my front pocket, where it pushes against my hip at an odd angle. I check my wallet. There\u2019s only one dollar in there. I take a step away from the counter, and there\u2019s a twinge in my hip. My phone is at an odd angle because it\u2019s resting on some loose change. I fish the change out\u2014that and the dollar are just enough for the diet pepsi.<\/p>\n

I leave the 7-11 and start to run down the road. At a cut in traffic I cross the street so I can run on the left side. A car honks, but I ignore it. The barking of that damn dog is a beacon. I turn onto my street, and as I approach my driveway I realize I\u2019ve shaken my neighbor\u2019s diet pepsi up, but good.<\/p>\n

I check my watch. Con call in one minute. I trot up to my neighbor\u2019s weedy flower bed. I\u2019m standing there, and I glance up. His old wife is peeking at me from behind the curtains. I give her a wave, and the curtains close. The dog stops barking all of a sudden. It\u2019s an eerie quiet as I stand there for a second or two.<\/p>\n

Then I run back to my house, into the door and up the stairs. Join the conference call. I\u2019m a little bit sweaty from the jog back, and a little thirsty. I open the diet pepsi, and it explodes all over the place. I\u2019m stunned. On the con call, someone is saying \u201cJason, what do you think? Is that a good idea? Jason? Are you there? Talking to the mute button again?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Postaday for May 10th: Journey.\u00a0Tell us about a journey \u2014 whether a physical trip you took, or an emotional one. (I had no idea what to write, so I cribbed from The Hero\u2019s Journey to create the following. It’s entirely fictional.) I was sitting in my home office, browsing the internet, content in a cloud … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Make an Ordeal out of Nothing”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[61],"tags":[140,13,139],"class_list":["post-1176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-postaday","tag-diet-pepsi","tag-fiction-2","tag-heros-journey"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p24y52-iY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1176"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1177,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176\/revisions\/1177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}