Almost there.

 So here we are, the Inglorious Ninth of June, wherein I celebrate the 39th anniversary of my employment here at the egregious mold-pit wherein I labor for my daily bread. Next year there will be parties and perhaps an interview with the local media, although I wouldn't bet on it, and I will no doubt go home afterwards and weep into my pillow at the waste I have made of my life.  But as I said, that is next year. This year, I can only contemplate the noisome mess that I will be in one year and wonder how the hell I got myself into this situation.  I didn't want to be a minor bureaucrat; I wanted to play center field for the New York Yankees, a common life fantasy in these parts and one that I could never realize given my complete inability to hit a curve ball. How swiftly was ambition crushed, my life torn from its preordained path and sent down the loathsome path to the lower depths of the bureaucracy! How wretched are the cruel twists of fate that lead some to the pinnacles of glory and others to the soul-sucking monotony of life in triplicate!  Life is not fair, which what I will be annoying everyone I know with for the next year. By the time the 40th anniversary rolls around I am sure that everyone will be sick and tired of listening to me and will be conspiring to hit me over the head with a shovel and selling my carcass at the weekly farmers' market for meat. I have great things to look forward to this year.