I am thirty-two years old, and the best I can do on a Saturday is accompany my married friends to a craft fair. The thought inspired an instant twitch of self-loathing, because it was such a lame lament. You put something like that in your suicide note, and the cops would have a good laugh. "My wife burned dinner," someone would say. "I think I'll hang myself." Another wit would say, "Hell, nothing but reruns on. I'm gonna get the shotgun out of the attic and blow my damned head off." Wally found himself resenting these imagined cops. What did they know about his life?
In this excerpt, the thirty-two-year-old narrator expresses feelings of dissatisfaction with his life, particularly his weekends spent attending a craft fair with friends. This situation prompts a wave of self-loathing as he acknowledges how mundane and unfulfilling his circumstances are. The narrator reflects on the absurdity of such thoughts being misconstrued as dramatic or suicidal, revealing a deep sense of frustration and irony in his own emotional struggles.
As he imagines the reactions of hypothetical cops to his lament, he feels a sense of resentment towards them. Their dismissive attitude further amplifies his sense of alienation, suggesting that they could never truly understand the complexity of his experience. This internal conflict highlights the disconnect between his feelings and how they might be perceived by others, encapsulating a broader theme of isolation and the challenge of articulating personal pain.
