The World's Coolest Job

Being the guy who gets to drive the fire truck would be awesome.

Think of it: You get to drive a big-ass truck really fast and make a crapload of noise to warn everyone around you that they better get the fuck out of the way, and the best part is that your buddies are watching you the whole time. You can even tell stories over beer after work like: “Dude, did you see me go through that red light doing ninety?”

“Yeah! And you almost took out that dumbass in the Miata who wasn’t paying attention. That was awesome, dude.”

You also get to play with big hoses and fire. Good times.

I had this epiphany of what a cool job fire truck driver is while out for a bike ride yesterday morning. Saturday was a scorcher of a day and I had a friend over and made some awesome big-Jeebus cheeseburgers and we washed them down with plenty-o-beer. My caloric intake for the day was definitely positive, even considering the 11km run earlier in the morning.

So, for Sunday I decided to engage in some Operant Conditioning Negative Reinforcement. For those of you who haven’t read my first Motivation Chapter this is where engaging in a stimulus (such as exercising) elicits a response that removes a negative feeling (such as feeling guilty about a night of drunken gluttony).

I’d done a fair bit of running lately and my right Achilles was feeling stiff, so I decided to opt for going out on my brand new bicycle. My old bike was a 15-year-old piece of shit and last year while riding it to work I was screaming down a scarily steep hill, looking at the fraying brake cables and thinking, if those suckers snap them I’m royally boned. Then I had another thought: This is the last time I will ever ride this bike.

I left my bike unchained next to the bike rack and it took over a month before someone finally stole it, although I noticed that it changed positions in the rack a few times. That’s Canada for you; we have discerning thieves.

A week ago I finally bought a new bike. My last one had been a mountain bike that I had never really taken off road, so I opted for a hybrid that was more road bike with just a bit of ruggedness built in. There aren’t any shocks on it and the tires are fairly slim, so you feel every little bump, but compared to my old bike it’s pretty damn fast. Fast is cool. Fast is what I wanted.

The alarm went off at 6:45am on Sunday and my wife let out a moan. “What the Hell is that for?”

I’d set it early so I could go for a long ride and not feel guilty about ditching my family for half the day. I told her to go back to sleep and got up, ate a quick breakfast, gulped a large cup of coffee and was out the door by 7:20.

I was a pedaling machine. Calgary has a pretty awesome system of bike paths that start just two blocks from my house, and I pushed hard for over an hour before I even realized that I’d forgotten my iPod. Half way into my ride I was going along the Bow river near downtown when I heard the fire trucks.

Three of the big suckers went screaming down the road, sirens wailing and the drivers all sporting big smiles like, Yeah! My job kicks ass. I stopped to watch them for a bit then decided to take a drink of water and ponder life while I pulled spandex out of my ass crack.

Sure those guys get to have their fun, and not everyone’s life is a big bowl of excitement, but it’s still life, which is better that the alternative. John Lennon said that “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” I don’t know about that, because I still think planning for the future is a good idea, but I believe that John may have just been encouraging us to take Quintus Horatius Flaccus’ advice from two millennia earlier: Carpe diem. Seize that fucking day and kick its ass.

My job is pretty good. I may not get to have as much fun as the guys who drive the fire trucks, but it doesn’t suck my soul dry. Still, if I won the lottery I’d be handing in my resignation. Since I almost never buy lottery tickets this is a moot point. The real fun of my life comes when I’m not in the office; I think it’s important for everyone to make their own fun, and rarely is that found on the living room couch, unless you’re naked with someone else.

Speaking of couches, that’s where my kids were when I got home at 10:30, just as I had expected. Also as I had expected, they had found the “once in a blue moon” box of Froot Loops I purchased the day before and eaten heartily of the chemically-flavored bounty. My final prediction in regards to my wife still being asleep also proved to be correct.

I took a shower in the spare bathroom to make myself smell nice then brought my wife breakfast in bed. Much of the day was left and in need of some serious seizing.

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