Day #19 - 11/3/97 - 3:43PM

It's a beautiful Fall day in Virginia with the breeze gently nudging leaves off of trees.

I forgot to tell you what happened yesterday. I killed a snake in my garage. (I know what you're thinking: "How did a former Program Director get in the garage? arg! arg!") This snake was given a lot of chances to vacate. He showed up a couple of months ago and scared the crap out of my wife a few times and then proceeded to live somewhere among the boxes and junk. She KNEW he was there and it was freaking her out. She told him to leave. She told him if he didn't leave he was going to get wacked to pieces by her big, strong husband. She warned him. Then, unfortunately for him, I came home from Cleveland. So, I go trotting down the garage stairs Sunday morning and all of a sudden my mind says to itself, "Mmmmm.....that stick is moving.  No, that's not a stick. That's a...... SNNNAAAKKKKEEEE!"

As Bones said many times "He's dead, Jim."

Okay, so how can I cleverly relate this dead snake incident to my situation? Good question. Here goes...

It's obvious the snake was, in his mind, just doing his job. You know, slithering around, eating crickets and mice, and basically just scaring the crap out of my wife - which is something snakes are trained to do from birth. (It's genetic. There's a "scare the crap out of women" gene in all snakes.)

I inherited this snake like Jacor inherited the morning show of "Corey, Jay & Desiray" and everything else at WLTF-FM. Be as it may, I'm the "Program Director" of my garage. I decide what goes in it and who gets to use it and live in it. This is all based on research, focus groups and analysis...trust me. I know what's best for my garage. Screw with my garage and you screw with me! But, more importantly, I did a focus group study. My wife was the focus group. And SHE SAID she hated this thing and it had to go. She's in the target demographic when it comes to my garage. Of course, there are lots of folks who love snakes and would have thought he was a merry little chap. But I didn't ask them. I asked my wife, the focus group.

....So now, the snake is gone.

....anything here sound familiar?

I'm feeling pretty damn good right now. No, nothing happened on the job-front today. As a matter of fact, the phone was pretty quiet. But, then again, I just started getting tapes out a week ago. It takes some time. So, why do I feel so good?

Well, what I haven't mentioned up to this point was a personal issue I had been dealing with during my last days at WLTF-FM. During those last two weeks (and the two weeks since), I was waiting for the results of a medical test. (I didn't even discuss this with Jay, my best friend. Only my wife was aware.) Not to get into it too deep, but if the test had come back positive, it would have meant a biopsy on one of my major organs (gosh doesn't THAT sound icky?) and who knows what else. You can imagine how difficult it was dealing with this knowlege and also the knowledge I was probably gonna get fired. I didn't know what to worry about first...or more!

Got the good news via snail mail today. The Doc sez the test was negative and no need to worry. So who cares if I'm out of work? I've got my health......

....there's a lesson here.