Pandingham was relieved of his duties at Geneseo because of the general rot and decay of the American mind, which wouldn’t know the road less traveled from the long and winding road or the Yellow Brick Road. Cuts to staff caused by low enrollment also contributed to his dismissal.

Due to high driver turnover Pandingham was fast-tracked into his new position with FedEx, which used to absolutely positively get it there overnight, but now gets it there if the weather is pretty good and there aren’t too many call-ins. He likes the quick-paced, physical nature of the job, but is having some trouble assimilating with his co-workers because of his intellectual past.

An issue arose in his first few days during the mundane task of “balancing” with the delivery routes around him. Balancing ensures that all the routes have roughly the same amount of work on any given day. Pandingham responded to a request for his stop and package counts with some verse:   

Packages, there are a-many
Stops there are a-lot
Help, I would take any
That’d save my soul
From this wicked plot…

While the verse produced several curious looks and some whispering among co-workers, an incident a few days later almost turned violent. During the morning sort, where trucks are loaded with that day’s deliveries, the guy who runs the Lackawanna route, Lenny Lazaroni, was caught up with a package that needed retaping, just as Demi Lovato’s “Really Don’t Care” came on the radio. Lazaroni asked Pandingham to forward the station because the song reminded him of his whore ex-wife, who took all his money, his kids, and was living in his house with some fuckhead named Brad.

Pandingham did as requested, and the search landed on the classical station, which happened to be playing “Rhapsody in Blue,” with Khatia Buniatishvili at the piano. Pandingham was over the moon for this version of the classic Gershwin composition. So taken, he waved his arms playfully in the air, on his way over to help Lazaroni with the package, and said, “I just love Khatia’s Rhapsody—she’s so capricious and sensuous.”

Lazaroni dropped the tape gun, grabbed Pandingham by the collar, and said, “Look, man, I don’t fucking go that way—I like girls. If you ever say shit like that to me again, I’ll fuck you up. Don’t try me. I got nothing, so I got nothing to lose.”

Pandingham was able to smooth that over, but just barely, and was making some progress with co-workers—bitching about dogs on his route and Dumper Dave, a co-worker who routinely dumped all his stops and went home early. Then, one afternoon, just as he was heading out to do a pickup run, Laura showed up.

Laura was his old Geneseeo colleague and paramour. She was waiting for him outside the building with her Shakespeare and Keats. Laura refused to go on antidepressants because she didn’t want to dull her senses. She wanted to feel the hot blood course through her veins. She wanted to feel her own fire. Once, she stabbed Pandingham in the side due to a disagreement over a line in Byron.

He was smitten looking at her as she leaned up against her beat-up 2009 Volvo, pulling on her Marlboro, thick with Jim Beam. Though he needed this job, like a bowtie goes to a pretentious windbag’s neck or a beret goes to a self-important asshole’s head, he went straight for her.

Pandingham managed to escape with a warning after blowing off the pickup route. He’s unsure how long he can keep up this charade, especially if Laura keeps coming around. But until they send him on sabbatical, he’ll keep punching in and trying to hide his intellectual past.  

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Rippington has done her best to remain disciplined in her practice, both personally and professionally, but has had to adjust her approach to meet the bullshit of the world. In most cases, especially when it comes to Stoicism’s central tenet: control what you can and let go of the rest, she has been able to adhere to the philosophy.

She explained, “The world is chaotic, and to stay grounded, you must maintain control of your emotions. So when one of these overindulged sophomores sits down with me to hammer out a new schedule and can’t look away from their phone or is disrespectful, I don’t get mad or lash out, I just put the little shithead in Mr. Pulusi’s first-period English class. You see, Pulisi is an old-school gangster—he makes those kids secure multiple binders, notebooks, journals, colored pens, pencils, and markers. He makes them follow the rules of The Chicago Manual of Style to perfection and pummels the shit out of them with the Oxford comma, and the lady known as Macbeth. Don’t even try passing off an AI-written essay—his bullshit detector is set to eleven. It’s also not a good idea to have your mom call him to complain because he’ll dress her sloppy ass down too.” 

The Stoics also place great emphasis on virtue, encompassing wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance. In traffic, when someone flips off Rippington for texting while driving or for being a little too involved in one of her Khatia Buniatishvili playlists, she doesn’t respond in kind. Instead, she attempts to diffuse the situation by blowing kisses from her hand at the person flipping her off. Often, however, this only further enrages the motorist. Rippington is quick to point out, “My rejoinder cascades with peace, love, and temperance. It’s not on me if they can’t handle it, the fucking babies.”

As successful as she has been in assimilating Marcus Aurelius’ teachings into her everyday life, Rippington sometimes encounters unhinged people who pose a significant challenge, forcing an adjustment. There was an encounter at Home Depot, where a guy with one of those long, stupid beards and a bandana was trying to return a gallon of Feldgrau-colored paint he didn’t need for his WWII-themed man cave—Feldgrau is the same blue-gray color as Nazi uniforms. 

He was giving the customer service representative a horrible time, despite her patience explaining the store policy about not accepting returns on custom-mixed paint. Holding the shovel she was returning, Rippington had the urge to bash this guy’s skull in—in her mind’s eye, she saw him on the ground, blood trickling from his stupid smashed-in complaining head, while others waiting in line applauded her actions. 

But she dug deep and showed restraint. Instead, she leaned her shovel against a nearby Ryobi display. Then she stood behind this guy, and summoning all her strength, latched onto his barely visible tighty whiteys and proceeded to give him a thermo-nuclear wedgie, eventually tearing the band off his Fruit of the Looms. Stunned, the guy turned around, cursing and tried to hit Rippingerton with his can of paint. She smoothly ducked and store security quickly wrapped the guy up and walked him to his F150, which, of course, was equipped with balls tethered to the truck’s hitch.

Patting her on the back, people in line, store staff, and security asked if she was okay. Rippington said she was fine, and as she made her exchange, she was proud of how she kept herself in check and felt a sense of extreme peace—thanks to her Stoic practice.  

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