I think I quit.  I think I'm tired of contributing my considerable brainpower to the public discourse.  I think I'll be happy working at the grocery store forever, just so long as my boss is happy to have me doing the work I do.  I think I'll enjoy the TV dinner selection at break time, sleeping through the best moments of my friends' lives, getting paid more than some of my teenager friends, and drinking copious amounts of alcoholic beverages to make my laborious life livable.  And to that end, I think, just for the sake of being able to maintain some semblance of sanity and cohesion in my life, I quit.

I am part of a crew at work of six guys.  We are, for the most part, polarized in different directions about nearly everything.  We agree on some of the core stuff, like drinking is fun, O.J. did it again, and my favorite team won't make it to the Super Bowl again this year (DA BEARS!).  We disagree on things like welfare, Iraq, the economy, the upcoming civil war, the supremacy of Mike Ditka, how much the Hawkeyes suck just because they do, and the role of government in my decision-making processes.  Somehow, we make it work, while getting our work done, and we still (mostly) tolerate each other.  So when one of them went on vacation last week, we kinda slumped into a funk for a bit, waiting impatiently for his triumphant return, to bounce our ideas off his newly-tanned noggin.

I hate to disappoint him, but I think I quit.  I'm going to make my workplace a much more livable environment by not participating in the political discussions that make overnights so interesting.  And I think I quit because while he was gone, another one of the guys figured out why I'm so angry.  He didn't mean to psychoanalyze me, but he hit it on the head when he suggested that my problem with other people having my money stems from a history of being "punched in the face by the iron fist so much that you wouldn't recognize the silver palm if you were staring at it."

So I think I've decided to quit.  I can't keep putting up excuses for the dissolution of welfare, the immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq and the elimination of the emergency bureaus and committees of the government, the unconstitutional taxation of the people, the robbery of the Federal Reserve Bank, the gang-type warfare of locking up and torturing people at Guantanamo Bay, and the supremacy of Mike Ditka.  I know why I do it now, and it seems like hypocrisy to claim that I'm angry on behalf of the guys that work with no end in sight to keep welfarts fed, couched, and addicted to Springer, when my real reason is because I'm an overgrown fussing little boy with a daddy issue.

I'm right, but that's not the point.  The point is that I think I quit.

If you are able to form some sort of back-and-forth from my rantings today, then you should feel the freedom to write me some hate mail.  I offer you, by way of normality in my blog, one of the hymns we sang at St. Mary's, one that I posted in my blog on a previous anniversary of 9/11, one that is still near and dear to my heart.

"All that we have and all that we offer comes from a heart both frightened and free.  Take what we give now, and give what we need, all done in His name."

Mahalo.