Mercury wrote:So Ray, remember when you were going to write that book? What ever became of it? Why, I'm sure you and your editor are finalizing the critics copy right now and your ready to make the first large scale printing. Or you never wrote the book and your a loser.
I'm sure you are meeting it Head On (Apply Directly to the forehead!).
I am a loser? Have you worked in factories and brickyards hauling 50 pound bricks every ten seconds, and doing this for two years, when men six foot tall run away from this work when they see what's involved? Have you worked 6 days a week for 16 years, or put in 16 hour days for five years? Have you raised five children over 28 years? Have you experienced bankruptcy because of divorce, and paid back $33,000 in five years, because of your honour, working those hours to pay it back while you can't buy any luxuries for yourself, while sometimes going without proper food just before payday and scratching around your car to find coins just to buy a hamburger, and while paying nearly $700 a month in child support? Have you ever lost everything you own, including your children for six months? Have you ever come home to see your house emptied of everything you worked for for 22 years, and you have to start all over by buying a simple $20 toaster, and working your way up from there, to eventually buying a car, paying it all off in five years (along with the other debts) and re-salvaging your life? Have you worked yourself to the bone until you suffer burnout, until your body aches and you can't go anymore? Will you be able to endure all of this until you're 52 - and you still have to keep going by working 50-55 hour weeks while enduring sarcasm and sometimes verbal abuse from people, being robbed, yet keeping going? Can you endure the thought that you will have to do this until you're 70 or 80, or however long you live, because all your retirement funds have dried up because of divorce? Have you ever watched your wife/ex-wife die an agonising death right in front of her children, and seen them screaming and crying, then having to console them, and raise a traumatised 15 year old on your own? Have you ever had to deal with this family trauma?
Yes, like me you've suffered alienation from Church, family, and friends, and been called names, but what you haven't done is have the courage to look positively at all of your bad experiences, and turn them into good ones, rather then forever whining, bitching, and moaning about your lot in life and blaming others.
Yes, Merc, I'm a loser. And you know nothing about life.