Schleprock

Do you remember Pebbles’ and BamBam’s friend, Schleprock, from the old Flintstones cartoon? He was the one always going around with a dark cloud over his head and it seemed everything bad happened to him. If lightning was going to strike, don’t be standing around Schleprock! Don is my Schleprock. There have been times I would be standing next to Don for some reason or other and pray that a thunderstorm didn’t pop up. The only problem is, most of Don’s issues were self-inflicted…or at least self-indulged.
Around the office we would all place bets (pretend bets, of course) about what calamity was going to happen to Don on his next vacation. Invariably each year some catastrophe would happen whether something happened to his vehicle or someone would get sick or something would happen with hotel reservations…you just knew SOMETHING was going to happen. Even before he would leave on his trips, getting his car into traveling shape was an ordeal. One year, he traveled out west and I think repairs to his vehicle cost more than the vacation.
Don is the kind of guy who doesn’t like confrontation and it’s easier to bear a burden rather than have someone else mad at you. The problem is, that gives other people an open invitation to walk all over you. Even Don’s family took advantage of his gentleness and generosity. Here is a guy putting in 40+ hours per week and his wife is a “stay-at-home-mom.” Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s absolutely wonderful when a wife is able to stay at home and look after her children and provide a safe haven for her husband when he comes home from work. I know that is an archaic view, but I believe a Biblical one nonetheless. The problem was Don would leave his job and go home to walk the dog, cut the grass, make dinner, get in a load of laundry, wash the dishes, walk the dog again, help with homework and put in an hour or two of work he did on the side to make ends meet. Only to fall in bed and have his wife wake him up in the middle of the night with some hair-brained scheme of how HE can make more money! He made me tired just listening to the stuff he did.
And listen I did. A lot of times Don would stop by my office just to unload or to look for a tiny bit of sympathy. I don’t know how many times I would sit and shake my head as he would talk about his 22 year old daughter with no ambition or his 14 year old son who spent most waking hours playing video games or his wife with grand ideas of starting an Internet business. I knew he was tired a lot and often yawned throughout the day…he was even diagnosed with sleep apnea. I don’t think the poor man suffered from sleep apnea…he suffered from sleep deprivation! While he was at work during the day, his family would sleep and loaf and lounge…then they would be up all night while he was trying to catch up on some desperately needed sleep.
It didn’t take a clinical psychologist to see what was going on, but until Don saw what was happening it would be a never-ending downward spiral until he crashed and burned, leaving behind a family with no means of support. I don’t know how much good our “counseling” sessions did for Don, but I hope and pray that even the verbal and emotional support I provided gave some relief from undue pressures oppressing him…not only emotionally, but physically and spiritually as well.
I’ve always said you don’t have to look far or hard to find someone worse off than you. Don is the perfect example of that. But, I wonder how he would ever find someone worse off than him.