Red headed stepchild in a bathroom stall.

Time for a little moaning.

Ten hours a day, four days a week. Sixteen times a month, one hundred ninety-two days a year.

One hundred ninety-two days a year times ten hour shifts equals close to two thousand hours of me fighting the evil advances of claustrophobia. Two thousand hours of the soiled arm rest to my left closing in on me, poking me in the side of my chest. The steering wheel, tilted as forward as possible, always impeding my precious living space, starring at me like a bully on the playground.

The sunken, broken-springed chair reclines to a coach class comfortable 80 degrees and doesn't slide back to allow my aching legs to move about and circulate blood because the wall dividing us from the patient compartment bows it's chest at my every thought. Above my head, a speaker. Continually, CONTINUALLY, barking addresses and information. And as if all that's not bad enough, forty times an hour someone airs what time it is. Therefore, the dripping second hand off of Salvador Dali's clock always lingers in my thoughts and constantly reminds me how much longer my misery shall last.

My office is the size of a bathroom stall, with someone else in there, sitting right next to me.

Then, add the fact that we drive all over the city, all the time, in all the traffic, regardless of the time or weather. Go here, sit and try and get comfortable, and then move. Go from the far west side of town to the far east, all in rush hour traffic surrounded by angry, honking, tail-gaiting, hypertensive, future cardiac patients. Patients that will inevitably never say thank you.

But that isn't what bothers me, too terribly.

I sit there avoiding evil leers from the public that treat me like their red headed stepchild. "Christmas already? I guess you can sit at the table."

Harry Potter, C3P0, Cinderella, the maid of Diff'rent Strokes, Barry Gibbs' little brother, Robin (of Batman fame), Ashlee Simpson, any of Alec Baldwin's brothers, the second guy to step foot on the moon, and me!

We are allies in this world of hypocrites. We all have special talents, but until those talents are needed we are swept under the carpet, or locked in the shed, until summoned by one of those in need. "Did someone say those in neeeeed?" We are relegated to the underworld. We are told to keep our head down and our mouths shut until that one moment when we are needed. Then, we come out of hiding, do our deed without any acknowledgement or thank you, and then melt back into the memories of those we came to aide.

So remember. When you sneak up on to the side of my toilet stall office in your gold windbreaker and velvet workout pants, batting your blue eye-shadowed eyeballs, asking that I turn my ambulance off because it "bothers" you and you believe it causes excess pollution, that I'm that red headed stepchild that you will call upon to save your life. I'm the one you've stuffed under your stairwell because you're embarrassed of my special, "magical" powers.

And then, when I politely respond to you and apologize for trying to keep warm by running the ambulance because it's 20 degrees outside, don't continue to passive-aggressively push the subject.

"Yes, we do this all over the city."

"No, I'm not concerned about the environmental effects of the engine." And neither are you, you just use that political point to try and gain advantage.

"Yes, like I said, I'll be happy to move."

"No, there's no place we can sit and have coffee at this hour."

Unless you'd like to invite us in? Ohh, wait. We're one of the Baldwin’s you don't like.

I think next week I'll randomly appear at some office downtown. Passive-aggressively knock on one of the hollow doors to an office and treat you, like you treat me.

"Uhm, do you really need all those lights? I mean, what about the environment?"

"Can you close your window? Turn the air up? Would you move your desk, please? You can't sit there."

I'll hide in the corner and shout randomly, "It's 3:15. It's 3:18. It's 3:45. Time is, 4:00. It's 4:01."

"And, well, now that we're talking about it, I'd like you to move all your stuff into the closet and finish your business in there. Grab another employee, we need you to sit no further than 3 feet apart from one another for the rest of the week."

Then, once situated in that dark, cramped stockroom, I'll wait until you pull out your lunch, heat it up, and then say,

"Excuse me? You need to run across the street in the rain, into the lobby where the security guards are going to quiz you about what's going on, then up five flights of stairs. Then, find our contact and try to get the super-secret password from him. Bring him, and the password, against his will over here. And all the while, I need you to change his clothes and comb his hair."

Now you know what I feel like.

But remember. Cinderella got her prince, Harry Potter became a wizard, Ashlee Simpson's career...well, nevermind, and the second man that walked on the moon -he got to walk on the moon!