Do something.

Last night, I was mad. Really frustrated. I was so mad that I didn't realize how mad I was until I launched into a tirade while on the phone with Aaron. So mad that I got angry that he wanted to keep talking and talking and talking. I wanted contact. Movement forward. Action.

The action I suggested to Aaron was not something Aaron was open to ... and probably not something that I want to do ... but I just felt like having sex beat talking about why I wanted to have sex.

Also, I already knew, at the point where we started the fucking unnecessary "discussion of motives," that I don't really want to have sex with Aaron. I would have, though. Just to shut myself the hell up long enough to take action about something.

I'm sick of talking. I'm sick of myself talking. It's all I ever fucking do. I don't ever actually do anything.

Look at this. This is me writing an analysis of a conversation during which I complained about how I talked about how I never do anything. This is fucking sick.

My anger stems from lots of things. But mostly, because this is one of my stories, I have to admit that the catalyst of my current fit is ... an electronic rooster.

Technically, I suppose the catalyst is the crow of an electronic rooster.

This is gonna be a long story.

My office job is dead-end. My current manager has favorite employees - people that he migrates to our area from his old department - and admits openly that he doesn't know how to "talk" to me. He doesn't understand how I tick. He looks at me like I'm from another planet.

He's my third manager since I started here. He's chatty and friendly and nice. But he doesn't even bother to say hello to me anymore.

A couple months ago, when I tried to talk to him about something job-related, he flatly told me, "Go away."

He unofficially designated my supervisor Ethan as the person who's supposed to "talk" to me, so now I have practically no interaction with my manager at all.

Yesterday, during a regional conference call, I was talking to Sherry, one of the people on the call from Orlando, about something job-related. I'd just gotten an e-mail from her, so I started to talk to her about the e-mail she'd sent me. (Since I call the roll on the call, I can pretty much determine when it technically "begins." Besides, the topic was relevant to pretty much everyone.)

She and I spoke in civil tones for a few minutes, "in front of everyone on the call," and we reached an impasse, resolving the issue.

To get us to stop talking about it, though, someone on the call decided to interrupt our chat by playing a prank.

An ear-bleed electronic rooster's crow was launched over the fucking phone line in the middle of me talking.

At my desk, I pulled the phone away from my ear. I imagine most of the people on the call - held for workers in three different states - pulled their phones away from their ears.

Then, when it ended, there was silence. No laughter. No anything.

"WHAT WAS THAT?" Sherry asked the group, sorta angry.

"I don't know," I said. "It was obnoxious."

"Somebody ... thought ... it ... was ... funny ...," my manager said on the call.

He's got the rooster noisemaker in his office.

"I'm tempted to get off the call," I said.

"Me too," Sherry in Orlando said.

There was silence.

Then, my supervisor Ethan, who sits in my manager's office during the monthly call so that they can make faces at each other during it, piped up.

"Ethan ... thought ... it ... was ... funny," he said.

(If it came from their end, which I think it did, they obviously didn't get the prank at a deafeningly loud volume.)

"Well, good for Ethan," I replied curtly.

Another long pause.

I don't think it's professional to interrupt me and a colleague on a conference call with an electronic rooster crow. But, hey, what do I know ... I didn't go to business school.

"Apparently, not everyone thought it was funny," my manager said.

Another long pause.

Then, my manager asked me to go ahead and call the roll.

I'm going nowhere in this company. I'm not treated with respect. I don't care to the degree that I should about doing my job.

I'm sick of all this bullshit. I'm sick of myself.

Goddamnit, I feel like going back to the drawing board with my life and just starting the fuck over.

It's funny to me that I'm saying this, but that electronic rooster crow was the last fucking straw.