Making Trouble

If you make enough categories, eventually everybody will fall into one.

There is a group of people out there, you may have heard of them, you may know one or two, heck, you may even be one yourself. The people in that group are called Born Winners. They are the people for whom Luck is their bitch and Fate is their…other bitch. No matter what they do, (or don’t do, which is even more frustrating) they always come out on top. Arrived to work late because of traffic? That’s the day a disgruntled coworker came in and blew away everybody who showed up on time. Got pulled over for speeding? That’s how they ended up meeting the love of their life and spent the rest of their lives happily married to a cop. It doesn’t matter how bad it seems like things are going to be, because it always works out to the advantage of the Born Winner.

There’s another group of people out there. They’re not so lucky. In fact, they are the complete opposite. Born Losers. No matter how hard they try, life just takes a huge shit on them at least once a day. Al Bundy is a fictitious example of a Born Loser. Not one episode of Married…with children, went by wherein Al didn’t almost win the lottery, almost get a brand new car or almost get to take a two-hour long dump in private. It got so frustrating that I had to quit watching the show. Real life Born Losers end up being country music singers and spend the rest of their lives talking about how their wives left them, their trucks broke down and their dogs died. Pitiful.

Then there’s the group I belong in: Born Trouble Makers. I’m not proud; frankly, I’m annoyed by it. I’m constantly getting in trouble, and many times it’s not even my fault. I seem to have that personality where eventually I will say or do something that, while completely innocent in my eyes, is extremely blasphemous to somebody else. Or what’s even worse are the times when I think I’m doing everything right and that I’m following all directions, and I’ll be all proud of myself, but I still manage to screw things up and get myself in trouble.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have the Bart Simpson mentality. I don’t try to get in trouble. I don’t want to cause bad things to happen to myself. I’m just always around when things go bad, and I must have some kind of “blame target” on my forehead because people lob “trouble bombs” at me constantly, (“blame target”? “trouble bombs”? What the hell do those things even mean?)

Sadly, I’ve come to accept my position in life. I’ve even become dependent on it. In all honesty, it’s to the point where, after 26 years, if I’m not in at least a little bit of trouble for something, I get anxious. I start to get scared. The way I’ve always figured it, if I’m not in trouble then that just means my trouble making aura is gathering its strength for some big bit of mischief and I’m going to get screwed.

Also, I have a tough time with bosses and other authority figures. Whenever somebody in charge of me, (work wise, of course) tries to be open, friendly and jokey with me, I shut down, because I know that sooner or later I’m going to do something to disappoint this boss and have him yell at me. I tried explaining it to a boss in the army once, it just made him suspicious that I was going to do something bad like rape his cat pillage his house and burn down his lawn, (or something to that effect).

I’m a decent guy if you get to know me, sure I’m neurotic in ways, of course I have weird habits and rituals, sure my novel sense of humor and stunning good looks take a little getting used to, but I’m not really a bad guy. I try to do the right thing and stay out of trouble, but I think trouble just has a really big crush on me. I can’t get away.

At least I’m not a Born Loser. I may get in trouble often, but I always manage to come through in the end smelling like a rose. A rose that grew in a big pile of cow manure maybe, but a rose none the less.