Infamous Jak

(My brother made this after I told him the story)

So today another post office was short staffed so after finishing the regular route I had to go over there to help out. So not being familiar with the area I’m struggling to find the exact house for one box. I look to my left and there’s a monkey!

What! What! What! I look closer and there are a dozen monkeys all looking at me.

I call dispatch because clearly I am not in Kansas anymore. They said oh yeah, your at the tiger zoo.

“THE TIGER ZOO!!!!!!!!!!”

Yeah, go through the gate and you’ll see where to deliver the package.

Suddenly all those animal warning signs I assumed where about dogs make A LOT more sense. So I drive up to the gate, which looks half fallen down for the record, and enter the worlds easiest passcode to guess ever. Seriously, think Spaceballs level of security.

I drive through, and the sign says “do not leave vehicles, tigers roaming property”

Now the postal service says neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow. It doesn’t say shit about tigers. I’m 3 seconds from bailing but drive to the area. Joe Exotic tells me where to leave the package and I drive to the area, where only monkeys are open range apparently, drop off the package and take off.

As I leave the monkeys are walking alongside the gate following me!

Last year I was suicidal and hospitalized for almost two weeks. My plan was to stay there until they let me out and try again. One day a nurse brought his guitar and started playing Cover Me Up by Jason Isbell. I had owned and loved the album for years at that point, but it took on a completely different meaning to me in that moment. I broke down crying and couldn’t stop. All I could think was my wife and how she was the only thing I had in this world I was still fighting for. A lot of people have songs that changed their life, but this song saved mine. I swore then and there I would never put her through the hell I had caused her ever again. It’s been a long hard road, but I’m in a better place now. It’s strange and wonderful what music does, how a person I’ll likely never meet or talk to is the reason I’m still here today. Any time things get hard, I go back to this song and this moment.