CTRL+ALT+DEL

Last week, I sent an email inviting a friend of mine to join the Boy's Club for our weekly "sit down" lunch of some of Boston's finest bar food. You know, your basic Buffalo fingers, burger with fries, and a few laughs as we watch yesterdays sports highlights for the umpteenth time. My friend hadn't joined us in a while, and he had hinted of being a little down in the dumps recently, so I figured he was overdue to grace us with his presence.

A few hours later, I received a surprising response. He was unable to make it because he was on vacation. And it wasn't some kind of lame, heading up to New Hampshire for the weekend, or driving down Rt. 3 on a Friday night to spend 2 days/3 nights in the lavish Dorchester Riviera(Cape Cod). This was a full on, flying down to the Carribean, gonna drink Kalik beer, and possibly get my hair braided(just on one side), getaway. This was the real deal.

I couldn't have been happier for him...and for everybody else around him. Like I said, he, like many of us, had been going through a bit of a rough patch. Overworked. Underpaid. Unruly dog. Poor blog stats. I think he was in a bit of a rut. Or like they say in sports, he was scuffling a bit. In his mind, his life looked a little something like this:



He had a "brain cloud", and he had tripped a few red flags, so I was concerned. I was more concerned for those that dared to be in his proximity. He was like a Hurricane in the middle of the Atlantic. Well offshore, but computer models suggested he'd be inching his way to the coast, and becoming stronger every minute. He was a Category 3 and headed on a path of destruction.

Recent history has shown us that everybody has a boiling point. Stress can make seemingly "normal" people do some f'ed up shit. It's why you see church goers robbing banks, teachers kidnapping children, and Med students killing call girls. Every time you turn on the news, we hear of another poor soul who snapped, kinda like this guy:



That's why it's important for everyone to let off some steam every now and then. Take a trip, go golfing, get a mani/pedi(wait, what?). It's fun and cathartic. It's kinda like when your computer is acting up. What do you do? You hit the reset button(CTRL+ALT+DEL). Reboot the sucker and all the porn that was bogging down your hard drive is completely washed away.

So please, I beg you, do something fun. Everybody owes it to themselves a little "me" time. If you don't, I'll be looking for you on the six o'clock news.