Last Saturday Night

The idea of setting free is an interesting notion. Being let go (fired) from a job is a fitting analogy for such a theme. On one hand (probably the left) it can be victimizing as a vital life line is cut off, however on the other hand (this would naturally be the right) it grants one freedom, of sorts, for a shot period of time. Which by the way is probably the worst thing an employer could possibly give a disgruntled employee: time.

I came across this problem last week. It was a Saturday (in all honesty it was probably the best day of the week to get fired), in a busy and over-crowded kitchen. The spitting of the fryers and constant tapping and cutting of knives, as well as every foul word being spoken quite loudly. These are-- were my friends. I suppose they still are, however it is much easier to keep friends when you cannot avoid them.

Around five-thirty two post meridiem, I began expressing my concerns about management. Sure, I may have been a little too loud about it, and may have used a few “suggestive” descriptors for important emphasis, although I believe that the fearless leader of a manager could have handled the situation in a more professional manner. After being sent home (and to add to an already wonderful evening) the hero left me with a poem he had wrote while he spoke entitled, “Don’t come back.” Oddly enough, that was the whole poem. He was a pretty witty guy.

Most people may have viewed this as one of those situations that could be considered a crisis, but for whatever reason I did not. The most mopping I did was spending fifty dollars on beer at the near by pub and explained my situation to anyone within earshot, to which no one cared. I then made my way home to watch some internet reviewers primarily Brad Jones, however some other reviewers made their way into the rest of my evening’s viewing.

The next day I went to the film festival. In my fifty dollar splurge on beer, I missed one of the films I had intended on seeing: Trigger by Bruce McDonald, so I settled to see Incendies. It was a heart warming film about teen who has to give up her child, and is reunited with her child in a political prison. She is once again pregnant, gives birth to twins and migrates to Canada. After this I returned home, began searching for work and wrote a few essays.

The first essay focused on the gender norms in the film “Kramer vs. Kramer”, the second on how Coleridge’s “Christabel” was told through the dead mother’s point of view and how its narration was very similar to the third structure of Personal Myth theory I had been working on for the past three years. It wasn’t until two-thirty four (I was about two-thirds of the way though my second essay) that I realized something; if I was still at the restaurant I used to work at, I would not have been able to do all these mundane, yet enjoyable things! I was free, at least for a little while.

-A. Warren Johnson