I voted thin ice. I'm imagining that he got one of those humiliating workplace lectures; where a grown person is giving another grown person an embarrassing reprimand behind a closed door. And all the co-workers know it. You emerge from that door very much diminished in the eyes of everyone else.
Oh, I have no doubt
everybody at the dealership knows of it.
Maybe even some customers too.
Anyway, actually it would be better if he were fired, so he'd hit bottom. You know the idea of "hitting bottom," where there's no way but up. Dougie needs to hit bottom.
And then after that, he should seek out a private place, get down on his knees, and admit to God that he's made a really big mess of his life, and then after that:
(a) go to his former employers and apologize for having been such an asshole; it probably wouldn't get him his old job back, but it might at least get him a good recommendation from them for some other job elsewhere, such as bussing tables at the neighborhood McDonald's;
(b) go to his former co-workers and apologize for having been such an asshole;
(c) go to the Internal Revenue Service and start making payments on those past taxes he owes them;
(d) go to church every Sunday, and be respectful of the priest;
(e) go to his former wife and apologize for having seen such an asshole, and make further amends by doubling the alimony he's supposed to be paying her;
(f) go to his adult daughter, with whom he's very close, and apologize to her for the ways he treated her mother;
(g) observe the Ten Commandments;
(h) respect dumb animals, calling them "dogs" and "cats" rather than this baby-talk "woggies" and "kittehs;" animals
can sense when one's mocking them;
(i) learn to love George Bush, George Bush Sr., and Ronald Reagan, who were after all nice guys; and
(j) observe and celebrate the holy day of Christmas every year.
This may sound like a tall order, but he's
got to do all of it, every single bit of it, if he hopes to go into old age in peace and serenity. If he skips doing even the least little thing, he'll find his hoary decreptitude a hard row to hoe.
