CAREER OPPORTUNITIES

There are jobs in this world that a human being, a real person with real feelings, was never meant to perform. These jobs are degrading. They are sadistic. They push a person to his absolute limits, and return little or nothing as compensation. Professional diaper washer, bull masturbator, meter maid, prison rape researcher (an actual career), these are truly deplorable ways in which we could be spending our time, but without which we could not function as we do.

I submit to you, however, that nothing, nothing in this wide world, can come even remotely close to the abject horror, the unspeakable torture that is being The Designated Driver.

First off, I'll be the first to claim a DD is absolutely necessary in all cases, which is one of the main reasons why the job is so awful. If you are DD, you have entered into a sacred contract that stipulates 1) you will protect the lives of every soul in your care, and 2) you will make sure no one gets date-raped. We, as a society, will likely agree both tasks are of paramount importance. We, as a society, might also agree the DD is likely to just get crapped on the whole time s/he is performing these tasks.

But you cannot complain, you ungrateful bastard! Soon enough your coin will flip, and all debts will be repaid in full! You brought this on yourself!

So you smile, you con drunk people into letting go of each other's genitals at the end of the night, you talk with strangers who spit unconsciously while they slur in your face, you stop at Taco Bell, at White Castle, at IHOP, you drive safely through the wee hours of the morning while Nelly Furtado blasts on the radio, you sweet-talk frat boys into taking their hands out of your friends' shirts / not beating the shit out of you.

All the while saying to yourself, "sweet mother of christ jesus tapdancing christ in a chickenbasket I could really use a double bourbon right now."

Tempting, isn't it? Surrounded by all that sweet, intoxicating medicine, the revelers with inhibitions lowered, the girl (if you were 6-beers-and-shots into the night and she were just a little less passed out on the couch at 9:30pm) who would make a fine conquest, your mind wanders...

Alas, you stave off, you saint. You martyr. You persevere.

"He has Elton John on his iPod? Oh how funny! Look, everybody, how lame that is!" [not so lame when I'm holding your hair while you vomit on a Volkswagen, eh?] "Oh you look so cute holding that purse! It matches your dress! Awwww, doesn't he look so cute with that purse?!" [yea and that homeless guy would have looked cute holding it, too, if I hadn't snatched it up off the sidewalk.]

But you knew exactly what was going to happen, didn't you. You volunteered for the job. And why? Well, that's obvious. You're going to go home, swear on everything holy in this infinite universe that you will never, ever, in your life get drunk like that for as long as you shall live, while simultaneously making the same solemn commitment to get as brain-bustingly shit-faced as soon as physically possible. You're going to break the goddamn land speed record in Vodka. You're going to Minor in Whiskey at the Sorbonne. You're going to teach the fucking standing-room only, Nobel Prize winning class in Crap-In-Your-Pants-Drunk off Sambuca because of the things you've seen tonight. Now that's what I call "job satisfaction."

And you love every minute of it don't you, you sick son of a bitch, because someday you won't qualify for immunity, you'll qualify for the Senior Discount, won't you. You'll be "That Guy" at the party instead of that guy at the party one day.

And the weekend's right around the corner, and some other poor bastard will be DD, and you're gonna get you some payback, aren't ya. Hellz yea, you are.

Just do me a favor and stay the hell away from my Volkswagen.