They call it a job

I have been thinking a lot lately about getting a part time job. There are many reasons for this. We are behind on some bills, namely the never ending stack of out of pocket medical expenses. With our co-payments up to $25 per office visit, $2000 per family deductible and the maximumum payout per medical procedure of 90% up to $5000 in a family of seven, those expenses are like the laundry--bottomless heaps. We have hundreds of dollars outstanding for emergency room visits for stitches, piles of overdue co-payments for check-ups and all the other constant disases kids go to the doctor for including pink eye, sinus infections, warts (ew!), whatever. Like I said, the list is bottomless and insurance covers less and less every year. Anyway, we are strapped, and not because we are out on shopping sprees or anything. It is the everyday expenses piling up.

I am so torn about this. A part of me, a very small part but one that does not want to be neglected, argues for working claiming I should do it for the family and for myself. The conversation is something like the following. The players include the Antagonist, quiet but demanding, and the Mother who is the louder more adamant me.

Antagonist: "Oh, yea! You will be out in public! Dealing with adults! A break from kick fights, stolen toys, screaching, poking, and various other tantrums!"

Mother: "Yeah, but you have had to deal with adults before. They are no better than children. In fact, most of the time you hated it."

Antogonist: "Um, er, well, yes, sometimes I hated it. But at least it was quiet!"

Mother:"Quiet, maybe, but not often, and it was an empty silence that you couldn't wait to be over because you wanted to be home where you were comfortable and warm (more than just temperature-wise, more like cozy). And the quiet was often interrupted by the damn phone ringing off the hook, nagging emails, panicked co-workers, angry bosses and the silent yet forboding bottomless stack of paperwok on your desk, under your desk, on your bookshelf, in piles behind your desk and in a stack you used as a doorstop. Plus you had to wear uncomfortable clothes and shoes every day! Now, you can walk around in sweats and who cares! Or jeans. You barely had a reason to own jeans when you worked."

Antagonist: "Well, the commute was quiet!"

Mother: "What about all the junkers you have always owned breaking down and leaving you stranded at various inconvenient places. And don't forget the guilt contributing to poluting the planet caused you! And you have evidenltly been living under a rock to have forgotten so completely about road rage."

Antagonist: "Lunchtime! Lunchtime was time to myself every day. So there!"

Mother: "Who are you kidding? You always ended up working through lunch because you always brown-bagged it because you were too cheap to eat out."

Antagonist: (Silence. Looking sheepishly down at hypothetical feet and drawing hypothetical half-circles with hypothetical toes in the hyptetical dirt.)

Mother: "Well? And what about the fact that on most days you love your job. And you can't get enough of snuggles and kisses and hugs from these guys. And even though these guys fight and scream occassionally and break many things and dirty the carpet, you are good at stopping it. And it is not just shutting them up by distracting them with cookies and sweets like they did at the daycare you took Eighty-Eight Fingers to so that to this day he won't eat anything that is not laced with sugar. You cook them good meals, with love in the sauce. They like their veggies because you make sure they are on every plate that you place before them. They sing the songs you teach them. They count the numbers you've read them and labeled crayons, cars, and blocks with. They love the games you've played with them. They have taken the first steps you've coached them on. They have spoken their first words, and you were the one first witness that. How cool is all that? Very cool, you have to admit. A stuffy office with crabby coworkers, snooty clients, crank calls, no windows, cramped cubicles, bad over heated office coffee and a demanding prig of a computer monitor in your face all day is no comparison, never, ever!"

Antagonist: (Silence. Crossing hypothetical arms and tapping hypothetical feet.)

Mother: "Anyway, have you seen the assortment of second shift work available?
How can you actually consider working when Chauffeur actually looks like the most appealing job avaialble, beating out various cleaner, bartender, waitress, sales clerk, and other lame jobs for the second shift hours you require (although the one at the coffee shop that gives a free pound of coffee per week as a perk looked vaguely promising)? There is always painting with FIL this summer, but then you won't be around to hang out and enjoy your wonderful blessing of a hubz who has the summer off. And you will be envious of him and feel kind of guilty that he is is at home doing your job while you are out farting around at something you hate that has no value to you except a couple extra bucks to pay a few cranky creditors that you don't care about anyway. Why don't you just admit it. I am right, I am always right. Don't go back to work. You'll be miserable. Hold out as long as you can."

Antogonist: Antogonist? Antogonist!

Director: "Where did she go? She was just here a minute ago...?"