MONKEY: What the heck have you been doing?
DAH: Stuff. Being. Living.
MONKEY: Wow. Lots of details there. How long has this been going on?
DAH: All my life.
MONKEY: No, no, no. You know what I mean. How long has THIS -- what you're doing now -- been going on?
DAH: I guess since sometime early in 2016.
MONKEY: That's, like, more than two years ago!
DAH: Yes.
MONKEY: And what explanation ... wait, I mean EXCUSE ... do you have?
DAH: I think I took a couple of turns and ended up in a cul-de-sac.
MONKEY: Cul-de-sac? What is that? French?
DAH: "Bottom of a sack."
MONKEY: I don't get it.
DAH: That's the literal translation. It means a dead end street.
MONKEY: Dead. That isn't good.
DAH: Nor is end.
MONKEY: So, what do you do? Bust out through somebody's yard?
DAH: I think I need to turn around and go back, actually.
MONKEY: Why? Not tough enough to bust out?
DAH: I guess that's a choice, but busting out can do a lot of damage.
MONKEY: Yeah. Nobody likes a loser wrecking their property.
DAH: They don't. And wrecking something is what might mark me as a loser, at least in my own mind.
MONKEY: You need to get out of your head, man.
DAH: I'm thinking ...
MONKEY: Thinking? I just told you to get out of your head!
DAH: If I go back and make a different turn, maybe I can find a better road, and I won't have to wreck anything by busting out.
MONKEY: I still think busting out is an option.
DAH: Yeah, me, too. But not my first choice.
MONKEY: And what about that old saw, "you can't go back."
DAH: I can't go backward in time, that's true.
MONKEY: Like to early 2016?
DAH: I can't do that. But I can reconsider my situation and decisions, and maybe make some choices that get me going on a new road.
MONKEY: Turn your car around and get out of the dead end?
DAH: I don't think the road closed down behind me.
MONKEY: So, you can still take a different route?
DAH: And look at this as a side-trip, I guess.
MONKEY: A pretty long side-trip. More than two years!
DAH: Maybe I just had to park for a while, look at the map, that sort of thing.
MONKEY: Maybe you took a nap!
DAH: Maybe I did.
MONKEY: Well, wake up! It's boring here at the bottom of a sack.
DAH: OK, OK. I'll see what I can do.
MONKEY: Thank you!
DAH: My pleasure, I guess.
DAH is me, David Anthony Hance. dah@dahance.com
Monkey is pretty helpful, actually.