This is not my beautiful house; this is not my beautiful wife

I'm still in the office, rewriting 7 documents that the Guy Next Door, who outranks me, "drafted" and "revised" over several weeks with a younger lawyer, and fighting my resentment. There's a bunch of backstory here. I couldn't possibly do it justice without making myself foam at the mouth.

Suffice it to say that GND dropped the ball on this assignment 2 months ago and left on a vacation he planned, oh, 2 days earlier, and I got crap for it because I should have been babysitting GND. Even though he outranks me...and he was given the assignment because I was unbelievably busy...and I was supposed to be going on my vacation, planned 6 weeks earlier, and I wasn't even going on vacation because I was preparing for a jury trial that just got scheduled...

I'm beginning to foam.

My problem right now is this: Guy Next Door is singing along with his iPod, as he is wont to do. Off key. American Pie. *shudder*

It's times like these that I find myself wondering where, in my life, was that fork in the road that led me inevitably to the point where I am sitting in my office at 11:00 p.m. on a Thursday night, completely rewriting 7 extensive documents already given the stamp of approval by a more senior dude, while listening to the senior dude sing American Pie.

Was it the moment 2 months ago when I didn't pitch a hissy fit with Guy Next Door because I'm a professional and professionals don't pitch hissy fits? I rethink the wisdom of acting like a rational adult alot, but as a practical matter, the Happy Pills (thankfully), keep me from feeling what I really feel.

Or was it earlier than that? Perhaps 2 years earlier, when I was first assigned to the case. I couldn't really say no, but I might have been able to pawn it off along the way if I tried.

Or even earlier? Much earlier? Could it really be that moment in the summer before my second year of law school, back in 2000, when I accepted a job the following summer with a small hometown firm and cancelled my on-campus interviews with all kinds of fancy New York firms. Could it possibly be that which led me, inevitably, to this spot now?

Gaia help me, he is singing along to Sgt. Pepper's now. The entire album. And I am deeply resenting The Firm's written "no drinking on the job, even after hours, with your client, and your client is paying - NO" policy.