MATTERS OF INTEREST: The Daily Grind

Gun-toting, tomb-robbing, adventureologists have unceremoniously exhumed another MATTERS OF INTEREST, disturbing its thousand-years slumber beneath the Mayan Pyramid Kukulkan. In a fervent and impassioned denial of what is obvious to everyone at the party, I am Matters.

This month’s foray into the black heart of science, nature, and the universe delves deep into the greasy innards of a topic that beleaguers even the most sickeningly positive among us. This topic is The Daily Grind, and it wants you to file that sarcastic mutter in triplicate. This is not the type of grind that "rap artists" do with their "honeys" in your "“hip hop clubs," mind you. You will find no information here regarding your grunge rock garage band skater antics.

No, this is the type of grind that pulls a nine-to-five and still finds time to hassle the neighbors with the minutia of local politics. This is the type of grind that concerns itself with missing socks, and fritters away evenings vacantly transfixed by Everybody Loves Raymond reruns on TBS, while strands of saliva dry into long white streaks along the obese rolls of its extra facial skin. This is the type of grind that, over a period of years, wears the soul down to a numb unfeeling thread-bare nub, fit only to animate the walking dead flesh of carcasses waiting to more accurately fit the clinical definition. This type of grind erodes your humanity, and it does it every day. This type of grind is called The Daily Grind.

This column aims to help you, the reader, more fully understand The Daily Grind. By the end of this text you will be able to:

• Answer the question “what is the Daily Grind?”
• Identify the seven signs of the apocalypse
• Identify three signs of danger, including rail-road crossing signs
• Identify The Daily Grind in a police line-up
• Solve all problems

Keep reading.

The tapestry of human history was woven by indentured servitude and sweat shop child labor. It is well established that the first casualty to The Daily Grind was Mrrrrrrrrrrag, shown here (red arrow) submitting the first patent application for a perpetual motion machine. Since the time of Mrrrrrrrrrrag, countless others have blundered down the same path as this hapless troglodyte. While the toll in human suffering inflicted by The Daily Grind cannot be expressed as a quotient of rational numbers, rest assured that raw fingers and repetitive motion disorders are rife. Recently, such advents as The Internet and Matters Of Interest have taken great strides to break the vicious cycle of The Daily Grind.

The Daily Grind is an indiscriminate enemy. It ignores class boundaries, race, and credo. It is much like the road, in that it "don't care." Of course, like all indiscriminate enemies, it attacks the poor and minorities most savagely of all. It is imperative that you know the warning signs of The Daily Grind. If you have caught yourself thinking the following, it is likely too late for you:

• "it’s a good thing my socks participate in the laundry buddy system. They are vulnerable, and there is safety in numbers."
• "The daily ebb and flow of traffic is the rhythmic life-breath of the city. In the morning its concrete lungs inhale the masses anew, fresh from their homes and beds, charged with energy for the day, and come night, it exhales a steady stream of human waste and misery, exhausted and drained of life."
• "Sports are neat. I think I like baseball best."

You have two natural weapons against The Daily Grind:

1. Blinding, furious, white hot optimism. As should be obvious to even the most adolescent neophyte, I am a burning ingot of unchecked optimism. It is the raging hellfire that keeps me artificially young. Note that this option should be exercised with a measure of caution. Consider the space shuttle Colombia, which, in 2003, was consumed in a fireball of optimism upon reentry miles above Texas.
   
2. Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll. Rock on. Crank up the lo-fi guitar riffs, and cue the smoke machine. Fade to camera three and cut the lights, because we’re selling out. Be sure to buy our products. BUY BUY BUY.

~Matters