AOD*, take a firetrucking number!

Life has lots of bitter pills. Nothing you can do about it.

One of those bitter pills that's been bothering me for some time is the way some people just say "firetruck it" and give up.

Well, it's an option. I don't think it's a good option, but I'm not the boss of the giver-uppers.

I can understand it, mind, and increasingly as I wobble into oldenhood I can empathize. But I still think it's bullshit. Particularly when there are so many who would give anything for just a tiny bit more time to do living stuff.

But I digress.

##########

I adore working on fence in July.

Which is to say that I hate it passionately.

It's hot in July, and there's often little breeze, so hard physical labor in the hot stillness sucks. You sweat a lot, but there's no breeze to force evaporative cooling, so the sweat just runs into your eyes and burns, and into wire scratches and burns, and into chafed areas and burns. Being sweat, it attracts sweat bees and stable flies, which bite and sting regardless of how much insect repellent you apply. The sweat washes repellent away, you see.



As for the hard physical labor, well, it's hard. It burns up energy and makes you tired. It works muscles which get sore, and it strains joints which also get sore. The energy bill has to be paid which means increased heart rate and respiration.

Within half an hour of beginning, you're hot and sweaty and panting, sore and aching, burning and stinging and chafing, tired and thirsty and miserable.

But you're also building something, and you get the immediate gratification of seeing and touching the progress you're continually making.

You're also very much not sitting on your ass watching idiotvision and waiting to die. In a very real sense you're poking your finger in fate's eye and showing the universe that while you may not be as good as you once was, you're still suiting up and showing up and driving on. You're still useful and alive. "*Angel of Death, take a fucking number!"