You can't fire me, I quit!

It's an unseasonably warm October, yes
but where have all the ghosts gone?
My second day off in a row
after eight straight on
and I'm a greasy Puerto Rican
rolling around in bed with Hank and Teddy.
Trotted down the stairs in my underwear
put the thawed pork chops back in the fridge
since I was there, forgot what I originally
went down there for, settled on a slice of cheese.

The smell of strange smoke wafted through the window
and I bolted back down the steps, checking to see
if something caught fire on the stove somehow
but it was a false alarm. A look out the hallway window
told me what the problem was. Thick gray smoke
bellowed through three yards across the street
as an old man stubbornly continued to mow his lawn
with a constant cloud of heavy exhaust
pouring from his riding mower.
He rode out onto the street and I assumed it was to
stop the engine and inspect the problem
on non-flammable ground, but he turned right around
and mowed another strip of dying autumn grass
not caring if the whole yard went up in flames.
My hat was off to him for that.

All this commotion inspired me to put pants on
and venture into the real world to run some errands.
I knocked a book off the shelf at the first place I went
the silence being broken as it tumbled end over end away from me
and tipped over a sign at the supermarket afterwards
with the six feet of two hundred forty pounds of clumsiness
that I am. I saw a father in the juice aisle pleading with a toddler
to walk in a straight line and behave
and it frightened me to think that I can barely
manage my own self in public, let alone someone else.

I stumbled to the checkout successfully
after finding what I needed to cook those pork chops
and looked at the tabloid covers as I waited in line.
One issue had unflattering candid shots of female stars
sans make-up in some kind of selfish attempt
to make us ordinary people feel better about ourselves
for not being perfect. Fumbling my way through
the self checkout process and escaping that place
could not have happened fast enough.

But getting home was not as unhindered as I'd hoped.
I crept forward at the traffic light where I make a left
to pull onto my street and some guy was coming out
of the wrong side of the one-way lane where I had to turn
thus preventing me from getting my groceries home
as quickly as I'd hoped. I yelled at him and made
made suggestive gestures with my fingers showing him
which way he was supposed to go as I waited for the light
to turn again so he could get out of my way.
After I was done with my display of enraged bravado
he shrugged his shoulders innocently, his curly greying hair
bouncing a little, and I couldn't look at him after that
though I'm not sure why.
Maybe it was because he resembled Alan Alda from M*A*S*H.

Unemployment Insurance be damned.
I need to get out of here
before the bedbugs take over.