Drive

In 1999 I quit my job as a shipping clerk. During the previous summer and early fall there had been an extreme amount of overtime - 12 hours a day, 5 days a week. Come winter it had been a different story altogether. It was a dry winter and our business was down due to the lack of snow, without it our winter inventory wasn't selling. I was down to 20 hours a week on average and had to max out all my credit cards to make ends meet. I started searching the employment ads and found a new job as a delivery driver in a nuclear medicine lab. The hours were weird (2am til 10am) but stable and it paid a lot better. This was good because I had acquired a mountain of credit card debt.

My sweetie's drinking was completely epic by this point. He had lost his job and unable to pay his rent, he was evicted from his apartment. I let him move into mine. I met his mom for the first time and was both awestruck and completely intimidated by her. I have no idea what she thought of me at the time...

Over the course of the year I discovered just how bad his alcoholism had gotten. Because his behavior was so erratic and I felt a constant need to keep track of him, I was in a perpetual state of sleep deprivation. He was like Jekyll and Hyde. Sober, he was sweet and considerate - drunk and he turned into a snarling monster, spewing vitriol at anyone unfortunate enough to get in his way. He frequently borrowed stuff and returned it broken. He would binge drink and after he passed out, he soiled the bed. I spent much of my time off washing the bedding, trying to replace broken items and doing damage control with our management company about the volume of the music/other noise coming from my apartment along with doing my duties as building caretaker.

I feel like I was as much at fault for my sweetie's drinking as he was. There were too many times over the year when I bought his beer just to avoid the fight I knew would come if he was forced to go without. Enabling I guess they call it. At the time, I just called it keeping the peace. Not that things were any more peaceful when he had his beer mind you. He could easily drink a 12 pack a day like it was nothing and I was eventually able to accurately gauge his mood by counting how many cans he'd gone through. 3-6 cans and he's happy, social and playing his guitar. 7-9 cans and he became moody and argumentative. 10-12 cans and he would bitch at me about the crap he endured as a young boy living with his mom - "Ya know what my mom had on the back of the toilet when I was a kid?! A FUCKING PENIS GUILLOTINE!!! And she thought it was FUNNY!" *sigh* Christ. What could she have possibly been thinking with that thing?! (Seriously. If you're reading this, have a son and you own one of these things, go smash it with a hammer and throw it in the trash. You'll be doing your boy and his future girlfriend(s) a solid. Do it now. I'll wait...)

Sleep deprivation plus a driving job is a recipe for disaster. I was trying to make up for it by driving like a bat out of hell to get my deliveries done early and then I would grab a nap for an hour at a rest area. I also drank ridiculous amounts of coffee. None of this was working well unfortunately. I was constantly tired, crabby and on edge. I had trouble staying awake and caught myself falling asleep at the wheel. I began having road rage. My nerves were frazzled and my sense of humor was gone completely, I began to snap at people on my route and back at the lab. This landed me in trouble at my job.

It was becoming a near weekly occurrence that my boss would call me into her office to have a word with me about my attitude. She was unsympathetic to the situation at home, and advised me to break up with my sweetie. Her viewpoint was that he would never change (people like him never do) and was beyond redemption. I was unwilling to do that. As much of an asshole as he was drunk, he was made of pure awesome when he wasn't. I just wanted him to get his drinking under control.

By failing to heed her advice I had somehow made an enemy of her and she took it out on me in various ways, finding fault with me where ever she could. Nothing I did was good enough. She suddenly decided she didn't like the concert t-shirts I was wearing and insisted I start wearing a company uniform shirt instead. There was only one other person there who was required to wear them, and they were obviously on her shit list as well. Other drivers were still wearing concert shirts, Sturgis shirts, etc. The rule only seemed to apply to me and shit list guy. She'd give my regular route to other drivers and force me to work in the lab all day and do short runs instead. She gave me shit jobs to do and would hover around waiting to see if I complained so she could write me up for it. When we had our monthly company meetings they would always order food to be delivered for them, and she would make sure I was sent out for a delivery while they were happening. This had me missing out on the free lunch and also forced me to get the info from the meeting secondhand. Just because I missed the meeting didn't mean I wasn't expected to know what new policy changes had been made...

She lightened up a bit when my mom moved back to Minnesota from Oklahoma and got a job at the lab too. It was quite obvious to me that she'd been singling me out, and I suspect she knew my mom would've spoken up if she continued. So she was nice to me when my mom was around. Mom worked the day shift and I worked nights. If I punched in on time and got my regular route, I only had to deal with the boss for 45 minutes. By the time I got back from my route, my mom was clocked in and I only had another 30 minutes or so before I was done for the day. I spent my time in the lab walking on eggshells and trying to avoid the boss.

My mom was less than thrilled with my sweetie as well, she thought I had made a horrible error in judgment. Since she had just recently been divorced for the 3rd time she didn't feel like she was in a position to judge, but she warned me that he seemed to have a terrible temper and she was worried about me. Even so she acknowledged that I was an adult, my decisions were my own and she let me make them without interference (thanks mom).

The year wasn't all bad. There was more camping at our favorite spot. He taught me how to fish and we went fishing a lot on my days off. Mostly shore fishing but every so often we'd rent a boat and go sit in the middle of the lake. I got my first computer and joined the rest of the world on the internet. It was also the year I saw the aurora borealis for the first time - it was an epiphany for me.

Somehow I managed to make it through 1999 without my head imploding, but I was slowly beginning to unravel.