There's Never a Good Time to Have a Bad Day

For you schadenfreude addicts out there I've got a gusher for you: Tonight is "Interaction Day Eve", when the ghosts and goblins of Interaction Days past rise from the tomb of Phil Crosby, the patron saint of corporate re-education programs.

And while it be of trivial importance (though worse than a root canal), I will face it as did my ancestors did the eve of the Battle of the Boyne (er, well, they wouldn't be my ancestors in a direct line sort of way since they all died; Ham o' Bone says that all his ancestors survived the War o' Northern Aggression by ducking it, hiding out in caves in North Carolina. I wonder whether Darwin actually meant "survival of the 'coward-est'"...but I digress).

There's an Interaction Day Eve tradition where children don suits and ties and go around the neighborhood scaring people by saying, "transform visionary infomediaries!" or "brother, can you paradigm?" in return for a donation to the Chamber of Commerce or "Up With People!" It gives one the shivers.

Interaction Day gives no quarter. You start an hour earlier than normal, during the heart of rush hour, and it's at a location that must be 'coptered into unless you leave at the crack of dawn. But who needs sleep or coffee! Sleep and Starbucks are for the bourgeois, for those who worship comfort and clear-spoken English! Did I just say the word "English"? An gaeilge!!

On this eve of the battle I'm leafing through the literature looking for inspiration while hoping for a different result. The Lord Earl of Tyrconnell, loyal to the Catholic King James II, controlled most of the island of Kinsale.

It was fought on July the 1st, 1690 at a river bend four miles west of Drogheda. A flanking maneuever - it's always a flanking maneuver isn't it? - left James' army vulnerable. I see no immediate parallel in fighting Interaction Day since it appears inviolable and unflankable. Calling in sick is beyond the pale, something no good Irishman would do unless he had too much of the drink and was unable...

(a moment's pardon)

Ahhh...Jameson goes down easy doesn't it?

No that is unthinkable, well, not unthinkable because I just thought of it. Call it plain wrong. I wouldn't be able to look my teammates in the eye the next day. Three other gallant souls face the same test tomorrow, all of them whining and complaining and similarly inconsolable.

Nay, in some way I long for Interaction Day. I long for it to be over, tis true, but I long for the satisfaction of knowing I endured to the finish. But to anticipate purgation's end before it's even begun is to prolong it. An insight of profundity is always keep your eye on the present moment.

Pep talk's over. I won't shoot till I see the whites of their business shirts. As Scarlett O'Hara said, "I can shoot straight, if I don't have to shoot too far."