I Would Hate To Be An Alcoholic Slave
I was reading some Bill Faulkner today and was thinking about how terrible it would be to be someone else’s slave. I already have trouble doing things for myself. If my job was to fulfill the demands of someone else as well, I would have to file for unemployment. Except, too bad, I can’t because I’m a slave.
Now the idea that being a slave is not the best has been said again and again. It’s an idea that has been pounded into the social-consciousness since, I would say, at least 1989. As I continued to read this Faulkner novel (I should note that the people in Faulkner’s book were servants, not slaves, but I would still not be jumping at the opportunity to be a servant), I tried to think of things that could make being a slave even worse. Why I decided to think this, I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I saw Saw IV last night and my mind has just been turning everything more tortuous. I came up with a couple options. One: you get impregnated by someone who is not a slave, but is a total dick, preferably the town sheriff. That would make matters much worse, but I can’t get pregnant, at least not with the technology available in slave-times. (Side-note: A really terrible themed restaurant would be one that follows the basic format of Medieval Times but is called Slave Times). Two: If I were a slave, but I also had a very developed case of alcoholism.
Someone is dying for a Margarita.
Clearly what is happening here is that I combined one bad thing with another bad thing to make a very bad thing. What’s interesting here is how much worst things become. I’ll illustrate my point through numbers. On a scale from 1 to 100 being a slave would score about a 78, in my opinion. Being an alcoholic is more like a 32. Now when you join these together, do you get a 110? No. You get a 244, because things would really start to suck.
As a slave you have one job: to do all the jobs. And what makes doing a job even harder? Being drunk during it. And what makes a job even harder than that? Not being able to drink during it when all you want to do is drink during it. But when you’re a slave you can’t just say, “Excuse me boss, can I get a beer over here? It would really help with my pea-shelling efficiency.” No overseer is going to give you a beer. Good luck. The only way you might get the beer is if you were a woman and you let the overseer impregnate you, but that just leads us back to terrible option number one.
Under that hot sun, no beers would be coming your way. Just more hot sun and the increased risk of whippings. You’re probably saying to yourself, “Well Roy, come on. At least they have the weekends to party a bit.” Wrong. Little known fact: slaves don’t get weekends off. You’re probably thinking, “Well, at least holidays then. You can always enjoy a nice Christmas brew.” Well, maybe you could get half of Christmas off, but slaves don’t get paid, so good luck finding a free drink.
Now I don’t imagine you to be too smart, so you’re probably not thinking this: “Roy, you could never develop alcoholism if you were a slave, because you would never be given alcohol in excess and alcoholism isn’t an actual disease, it’s just another name for an addiction that is mostly self-inflicted.” True, but that’s what makes being an alcoholic slave extra nasty: at one point you weren’t a slave.
Yes, you used to live your life carefree. Just doing your thing, hanging out with your buds. Relaxing. Playing some guitar on the beach. Sleeping under the stars. Going to Burger King and chowing down on some chicken sandwiches. Playing some darts in the forest. Building a tree house with your wife. Delivering papers for some extra scratch. Wearing in your favorite pair of blue jeans. Collecting baseball cards. Raising your kin. Planning out that big trip to Ottawa. Getting the promotion. Saving up for your first car. Investing when the market was low. Selling when the market was high. Re-watching those old Seinfeld DVDs your aunt got you three Christmases ago. And all the while your habitual drinking is a hindrance to your social and professional life. Then one day the slave truck pulls up, captures you, and you’re suddenly a slave.
Imagine the readjustment, awful.
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