Close Call

After a certain age, you can not trust yourself with technology.  It may be for any number of reasons.  In my case, this morning, it was eyesight.  I got a text from someone and I responded with a political diatribe against the factory.  I thought it came from C.C., but I didn't have my glasses on.  So when I wrote my reply and hit "Send," I saw that I had sent it to a group.  ?????!!!!!  I looked at my phone stunned.  I'd sent it to two people who work for me, it said, and "40 others."  Holy shit!  I wrote back to the one I liked and asked who I had just sent this to.  He didn't know.  Turns out, he didn't send the email, either.  I was in a panic, but there was nothing to do, so I decided not to be a punk.  I would go on the offensive when the shit hit the fan, I told myself.  I would not be a whiner.  Still, in the very pit of my stomach, there was a big stone.  There would be repercussions.  I would lose my job.

I was giving someone a ride to the factory that very early morning.  I confessed my fears.  She asked if she could look at the message.  Sure, I said.  She told me that it went to the two people and not the other 40.  It went to someone in an area code that began "40. . . ".  O.K.  Things were already better.  Still, the one person I sent the message to was a problem.

I was nervous, but less so.  If the text got about, I would be in trouble.  I was already tracking down a rumor that another foreman had been escorted from one of the sites by two guards on Friday.  Whatever he had done, I told others, I'd surely done as well.  I live like that.  I am not lucky in everything.  Money, love. . . not so much.  But there are other things, too, and I'm glad to have the luck there.

The day was what I expected.  Awful.  And after the Great Leader issued forth the annual message, I sought out the person to whom I had sent the worrying text.  I found her.

"Hey.  I sent you a text this morning. . . ."

"Yea.  What was that about?"

"Well. . . it really wasn't meant for you."

"Who did you think you were sending it to?"

I told her a lie that was more palatable.

"I'd appreciate it if you would just forget it."

She smiled.  "Oh, don't worry, you're secret's safe with me."

Something fell off my shoulders.  The day was beautiful.  I was in love.

Now here comes a surprise.  I have become slovenly.  I have always been casual, but I realized while I was in NYC that I didn't have the tools to be other than a southern boy in hot weather who couldn't stand to dress.  So yesterday, I put on a tie and some handmade Italian slippers.  And jeans.  I don't have anything else any more, so I looked just like a farmer going to a Grange Hall meeting in town.  Still, the image made an impression.  I realized that even the people I try to represent said I looked "nice."  Whoa is me.  I must clean up a bit.  I can't continue down the path I have started.  And so. . . .

But I have lost my way.  Technology.  I have learned two things.  Do not return text without glasses, and. . . what was the other thing?