A penny saved is a penny burned...

Sandwiched between dreams and reality is an overworked and under-appreciated slave in a tacky uniform working their 3rd double in a row; forcing a smile and taking your shit because you need to exercise control over something as you piss away your savings on the 'vacation of a lifetime,' and they need the tip.

Fueled on coffee, grease and cigarettes you set out to the last bastion of American hope--the casino floor. The elastic waistband on your "comfort-sized" pants groans under the heft of yet another 'lumberjack' breakfast as you park your decidedly non-lumberjackian, double-wide excuse for an ass into a bucket seat at the nearest slot machine, and begin to feed it quarters. All because the XXL t-shirt you bought at the airport gift shop says "feelin' lucky." And the saddest part is that as you pump your savings into a machine designed to take your money, you don't even smile; your souless eyes, sucked dry from the super-oxygenated air and stale cigarette smoke, are dead...your golden years are spent hooked up to a machine, watching lights blink in a choreographed dance to the polyphonic jingle of games like 'Lucky Larry's Lobster Run' and 'Kabloom.'

Man...I cannot wait to retire.

Explanation

Before this thing gets under way I feel it necessary to explain the title so that we're all on the same page. As defined, Punctuated Equilibrium is as follows: It's a theory in evolutionary biology, which states that most sexually reproducing species will show little change for most of their geological history. When phenotypic evolution occurs, it is localized in rare events of branching speciation (called cladogenesis), and occurs relatively quickly compared to the species' full and stable duration on earth. Good stuff.

How that pertains to me is based on observations I've made about my life and how it's progressed thus far; for you see my life seems to follow the tenets of the above theory in that change has not been gradual. All change related to my life has been in spastic jerks from one thing to the next...master of the smooth segue I am not.

So there you go...a little background before we get too far.