Running Late

I was running late for guard duty, which rarely ever happens.  As I was rushing around trying to get ready, I could somehow hear the chatter between the other guards at work on the radio.  The guard I was to relieve at my post was moaning about the futility of his existence and going on about what a bastard I was for leaving him stuck there and so on.  Meanwhile, I was having my own problems.  I kept trying to put on my guard uniform, but every time I looked down I found that I had put on my normal jeans and t-shirt, and I had to start the process all over again.

Finally, I thought I had it right so I was off to work.  By that time it was getting light out, and I found myself reporting to a park in the early morning hours.  I headed for the guard shack on the premises, but a supervisor caught me on the dirt path.  He took me over to a shaded area where the management were all waiting around a cluster of picnic tables.  First they reprimanded me for being out of uniform, and it was then that I noticed that I was still just wearing jeans and a flannel shirt.  On top of that, they told me that the shirt was ugly, which seemed unnecessary.  Then they made me watch some kind of training film right there at the bench.  I tried to go, but I knocked over the projector as I was getting up.  They told me that the film stock was very old and fragile, and that in damaging it I had released dangerous chemicals into the air that would probably give us all cancer.  I wasn't exactly having the best morning.