That’s Fuckin’ Teamwork!

Teamwork is a foreign concept to me. I have engaged in it through film and theater, but it always makes me nervous and shirty. Frankly, I blame team sports. Specifically, I blame the douchebags that I had as teammates when I was a kid. There were some real bastards in my class (and no, I was never picked on), and I hated having to depend on them almost as much as I hated helping them win. I never rose through the ranks of the Scouts, and I dropped out of team sports as soon as I could.

But times change, and we grow up. And sometimes we have to paddle a Dragon Boat on the Oklahoma River.

That’s what happened last week at the Museum’s leadership retreat. I was able to combine my all-consuming love of the outdoors with my aforementioned penchant for teamwork under the slight but nagging chance of accidental drowning. Plus, they did find a dead body in the area a few months ago. So, I was psyched. But I was also getting paid my regular hourly wage so I quit my complaining and got to paddling. That was the extent of the “team-building,” thankfully, and we were able to devote the majority of the day to plotting and scheming. Luckily for me, that scheming also includes plans for my employment for at least the next fiscal year. So now I’m part of a team, I guess.

I do worry about my future, though. I have this recurring vision of a man in a brown suit sitting on a chair outside by a large open hole in the ground. A man in a gray suit walks up to him.

“Well hello,” Brown Suit says.

Gray Suit stops and looks at him. “Who are you?”

“I’m Seth’s dream of being a writer. Who are you?”

“I’m a job with benefits and a 30-year mortgage on a house in Heritage Hills,” Gray Suit responds.

Then he pulls out a silenced pistol and shoots poor Brownie in the noggin. Gray pushes him into the hole and starts shoveling dirt on top of him. Sometimes another guy in a suit walks up and helps him.

“Hi,” says the new guy, “I’m a wife and kids.”

And... scene.

I’ve got some problems.