Methods of Coping

Given the rather stressful nature of dealing with someone who's personality clashes with mine with the weight of a 10 car pile-up, I've had to find ways of continuing to earn my paycheck without going postal...sorta. My two favorite ways of dealing are music and guns.

The music aspect comes in the form of listening to my "Bad Day" playlist on repeat for the entire 8 1/2 hours I'm in my cell. The playlist includes Alvin & The Chimpunks, Single Ladies, various songs from the Chuck soundtrack, songs from my wedding, 90s songs, 80s songs, Disney songs, Hanson, Huey Lewis & The News, Jack Johnson, New Kids on the Block, Taylor Swift, just general happy songs that will not allow you to be in a bad mood when you're listening to them. Unfortunately, it's losing its effectiveness which has lead me to turn to my guns.

I've built up quite an arsenal over recent months. I currently keep 4 firearms in my cubicle. They all four have very different purposes. The Tommy Gun is used for an all-out brawl among many people. The double-barreled shotgun is mainly used for intimidation purposes as it can only fire two cartridges at a time and is a pain in the butt to cock and reload. The revolver is useful in the heat of the moment. But my prized weapon is my rapid fire rifle.


This is the BuzzBee Toys Ruff Stuff Rapid Fire Tek rifle. It has a 6-round magazine that holds 6 darts in 6 shells. It's has lever action and ejects the empty shells to clear the barrel for the next shot. Cool, isn't it? It provides me great stress relief to not only fire this baby, but it gives me some sort of peace to load the clip and click it into place on the gun. Fortunately...

This resides on the wall between myself and Grib. However, even with all of these preventative and reactive measures to try to keep my sanity, I still lose it sometimes. I promise you'll hear about it soon.