Breaking point

I reached my breaking point yesterday at the l.n.c.b.

But first: the news. This piece of analysis from the Baltimore Sun suggests the recent incident in Mississippi with the Ten Commandments monument in the state supreme court building was not just a bit of clownish Southern Man behavior but a possible spark for a resurgence of the Christian Right.

So -- about the l.n.c.b. My decision to stop working there wasn't based on any one incident, although the fact that another employee was mugged on the way home from work, not four days after R. was attacked inside the store by an ex-boyfriend, didn't help. And it wasn't a crazy customer or the prospect of putting away 100 heavy, slick magazines that were scattered about the place. It was simple exhaustion that made me decide, about fifteen minutes into the start of my shift yesterday, that I just couldn't do it anymore.

I made it to the end of the shift -- in fact, I felt a little better in the last couple of hours than the first couple of hours -- but was so tired when I got home. This morning my eyes were killing me, another sign of exhuastion and of the dehydration that comes from standing in that store for six or eight hours at a time. So at noon I called up my friend the boss and told her I had to stop. I'll work out the end of next week, and I left open the possibility of working some shifts there in the future.

Today I came home from my other job and crawled right into bed. In fact, I did that on Tuesday, too, the day after a shift. Another sign that the whole situation was just unworkable.

And yet a large percentage of the American population has two jobs -- not counting, of course, those parents (almost all of them women) who work all day long and then come home and have the primary childcare, cooking and housekeeping responsibility in their homes. I'd like to say I have a newfound respect for such people, but I'm still too tired to think about it.

Coincidentally, there was a minor earthquake tonight and the l.n.c.b. was at the epicenter. Not strong enough to cause any damage, I assume. A 3.9 is no big deal.