It's the moment we've all been waiting for: the boat has won. It has taken my soul and crushed it. I'm not even sad about it. There's just nothing where my soul used to be. Dead inside.
I don't even know when the soul crushing begins: is it at 4AM when the garbage truck comes and scares the life out of me by making boat crushing sounds? 5AM when Hastings decides he wants a walk for the 4th time this night? 7AM when I'm sitting, staring at breakfast? 8AM when I'm laboriously doing dishes and managing slop buckets? 8:30AM when I'm sanding a horrid multihull boat?
10AM when my back is so twisted I can't move? How about noon, when I really hate the thought of the repetitive motion of lifting a fork to my face to eat, or even worse, the thought of doing dishes again? How about when I can't take sanding anymore, ask for a re-assignment, and end up mangled in an engine room, cleaning engine grease? How about when I'm asked to find the johnson-keter-hoosker-do, move it half a turn with the Phillips, and paint it with 6700? Now, I didn't take shop class, so I don't know about hoosker-dos, Phillip is busy with his own project, and do I mix 4200 with 1500 to get 6700? Ah, but wait, we're all out of 1500, the hoosker do is off-kilt and needs to be replaced, and we could relax while waiting the 6-8 weeks for the hoosker to be re-engineered in Timbuck2, but we can't, because friends, there are 99 other projects left.
By 3PM I'm on the verge of hysteria, and I could be googling boat sales websites, divorce lawyers, and looking up wonderful, land-locked houses for sale, but my hands hurt too much to type, and, guess what, we don't have internet anyway and I don't feel up to standing next to the dumpster, the boat yard's version of Starbucks.
They say "What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger", but the reality is "What Doesn't Kill You Makes You WIsh You Were Dead". So, instead of important google searches, I amuse myself by staring glassy eyed at the 10 million fruit flies that have overtaken the boat. Sometimes my eyes move over to all the bloody mosquito carcasses splattered on the walls. Then I notice the mold growing.
At 5PM, it's beer time with the rest of the zombies. I open our emergency tiny fridge (the regular tiny fridge needs the ocean to run) and everything falls on my feet. I sit there in my disgusting clothes, drinking beer out of a bottle. Look how the mighty have fallen!
There's a new person here. He wears a different shirt from yesterday. There's joy behind his eyes as he talks about blister repair. He doesn't sit in the dirt, but in a chair. Oh, new boat owner full of hope, may the light stay with you a little longer. It's lovely to see.
6PM, time for a shower. I forget my towel and scrubbing brush, but it doesn't matter, because no amount of scrubbing can erase the blackness on my soul. 7PM, mosquito time! Sadly, every night they leave us just enough blood so we can live one more miserable day.
Are you currently dead inside? Do you remember what pushed you over the edge? If you still have a soul, I hope you do something nice with it today. We'll just be zombie-sanding.
