Mark Hembree Janeen Parker WR 121 8 July 2010 The Ogre in All of Us �Grab your pitchforks, there's a big, stupid, ugly ogre. I don't have a problem with the world, everyone has a problem with me�(Shrek). How many times have we watched the antics in the movie Shrek, and how many of us can see ourselves through Shrek's eyes? Years ago I learned what those words really meant. I was about thirty-six years old, and I had my heart broken over a beautiful young lady with eyes as blue as the purest water and a smile that would rival the sun on a warm summer day. I was forced to decide between the love I held for her, and the love I held for my son. I made the mistake of not fighting for the love I felt for that young lady. When I watched the movie �Shrek 2� for the first time the quote by the fairy godmother �If you love her you'll let her go�(Shrek 2) kept repeating in my mind. It was a quote my aunt was fond of, and apparently an age old proverb, as it found its way into the theatrics of the movie as well. While I didn't have a problem with the world, I was about to learn that the world had a problem with me(Shrek). I was driving home from McDonald's after work one evening, tears coming at will over a heartbreak that I felt I would never recover from. I was praying, telling God that he at least needed to send me a female friend. I was missing Elisabeth very badly, (She was the blue eyed, auburn haired beauty) and had been told by my ex-wife that if I ever saw her again, I would lose visitation with my son. As I sat at my computer that night I received a call from a very unlikely person. She was a young woman that I had known since she was four years old, but I had not seen or heard from her in over fifteen years. I could not believe that I would be hearing from her, and least of all on this night, especially after praying and asking God to send me a female friend. I had considered her a girlfriend at one point in time, though we had only kissed. However, on this night I needed someone to talk to, and we talked until around 3:00 in the morning. It seemed like an answer to prayer, but I would soon learn that God doesn't necessarily answer our prayers. In time it became obvious that everything I told this young woman in California would come out at work. People would coincidentally start talking about the same things (usually things that were very private to me, and things that only two people in my life would know about), or someone that I barely knew would have a son by the same name. The perfume she sent me in a letter would end up being poured on blocks of wood and sent down the feed belts of the machines I was working on. I was soon to learn that my life was going to become a nightmare that I might never see the end of, and that the people I had considered my friends were anything but. I had become something less than human in their eyes, a monster that needed to be hunted and destroyed. People had suddenly found a reason to hate me, and like the ogre in the movie Shrek, I had become a problem for everyone. I didn't have a problem with anybody in my life, but people certainly were proving that they had a problem with me. I had been working for a wood products company for about five or six years, and I had worked my way up through the ranks to become a machine operator. While everyone had dealings with woman, as an operator, I worked with them on a regular basis. There was one such woman about 4'11, to 5', with dishwater blond hair, and light blue eyes that had just taken on the tally position, and she found the position stressful. This day was like many for me in my position, a lot of work and few breaks to lighten the day, and on this particular day I had a cute lady around that was having about as much fun as me. Upon finding out that she was having a bad day, my first reaction was to put my arms around her and give her a big hug. I had to ignore the thoughts of course, as it could have caused real issues for me in the work place. Lacking for a proper way to console her, I mumbled some lame but well meaning words of consolation. As surprised as I was by my reaction to her stressed state, I was even more surprised when my old operator came up to rescue her from the well meaning ogre. Looking back I realized people had a problem with me, just as they had with the ogre in the movie Shrek. However, that was not going to be the end of my nightmares. As I was about to realize the bosses had found a reason to single me out, and my life was about to become even harder. When ever the young lady would come around my machine, I would notice the bosses up on the rip saw, watching to see if I would stop her to talk, while I was feeding the machine. I found it odd, made more so by the fact that people did that all the time. Soon I was being rotated throughout the mill, and I was being given drug test's every couple of weeks. I had gone from being an operator to being an employee with no real job description almost over night. I think I had finally convinced them that I was drug free, as I told them they could pay me the money instead. I did not drink at this point in my life, and drugs were never going to be an issue as I had given them up in my youth. But the problems were never going away. I made the mistake of listening to one of the Hispanic workers when he told me one of the woman liked me, and I should ask her out. She was in her mid to late thirties and I did not think things could get any worse. Of course, she denied liking me at all, and she always wore this beautifully scented perfume that reminded me of the woman from California. However, coincidences do occur, and this might have been one of the many that seemed to be occurring in my life. Whether everything that was occurring was coincidental or not, the effect upon my life was obvious. People had found a reason to not like me, and although I suspected the reasons for their opinions, I was fast becoming bitter with people I had thought were my friends. And I began to relate to a fictional character in the movies, more than ever. With all the nightmares I chose to change jobs within the company, believing it would fix all of the problems. The problems were not going away that easily, however. It would not be long before everyone I dealt with started pointing at things with their middle fingers. I had only seen it done once up to that point in time, and it had been done by the female tally woman. While I found the situation uncomfortable, it would be the arrival of the Human Resource Manager at 11:00 one night, that would really change my opinion about everyone and everything in the company. Supposedly my well meaning fellow employee's were concerned about my well being, so much so that they had to ask him to inquire about me. I had employee's seeking concealed weapon permits out of some misguided fear, and my Human Resource Manager suggesting that I seek a counselor to deal with whatever issues were bothering me. Frustrated with people that did not know me, and that may well have hated me, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I sought out a counselor and began working to build a case against the company I was working for. I had determined in my mind that I had done nothing to deserve what I was being put through. I had worked hard to get into the position I was in, and was doing more than most Lube Technicians in the company. If the company thought to take away my job, they would lose far more then an angry employee. The law was on my side, and as long as I kept it that way, I would be nearly untouchable. They might well have thought of me as the ogre, but they were acting more like ogre's every day. Life has a way of reminding me, that people have a problem with ogres, and they are not welcome where people socialize. I prefer to avoid bars as much as possible, I learned after my divorce that bouncers preferred that I stay away from bars as well, apparently the rumors preceded me. However, when I get tired of staring at the walls, (and I want to be around other people and listen to some good music) I will visit the local bar. On one such occasion I ran into an old neighbor who's lawn I used to mow. She was at the bar with her sister-in-law, whom I had only known in passing, and never realized that there was a connection between the two. Both women shared common traits that I have found myself attracted to over the years, blond hair, and beautiful blue eyes, and the latter shared a smile I had not seen in many years. I had been dealing with many feelings when it came to these two women that made it difficult to approach either of them and decided to send both women a message that was clear, from the heart, and a means of helping them feel at ease around me. So while the two women were out smoking, I requested a song entitled �Purple Rain�. I never meant to cause you any sorrow, I never meant to cause you any pain. I only wanted to see you laughing, I only want to see you laughing in the purple rain (Prince). As I waited patiently for them to return, the police showed up as they often did, and the women chose this opportunity to leave the bar. Having noticed that the police had a tendency to show up whenever I left the bar, this last slap in the face came as no surprise. The two women had taught me the lessons I would learn so well, people have a problem with the ogre. So how does the ogre who isn't wanted in the real world cope? They turn to the internet, of course, the world where everyone remains anonymous, and all of life's myriad problems can be ignored. Life has taught me that there are no escapes for the ogre. Only a true monster can fit in with the despicable, and immoral of the virtual worlds of our day. But having no real friends, and not really wanting male friends, and lacking the money for a real life, I turned to a fantasy game popular among all ages called World of Warcraft. A virtual world where the scum of the earth can be as immoral as they want, and a place where I mistakenly believed I could fit in. It would not be long before I realized that even there, where anonymity ruled, a man such as I, did not belong. In a world where you could be a sterling example of what humanity was meant to be, I found that I was only allowed to interact with males within the game. The few times a female character, (actually played by a real woman) interacted with me, we would encounter a long pause in the game � while presumably she was receiving a phone call, or she was disconnected � though her character never showed the common symbols for a disconnected player in the party, and a minute or two later she would have to take off. As these scenarios played out over a year and a half, along with other oddities, I began to realize that like the ogre, I was a problem for people everywhere. Once branded an ogre, a man can spend the rest of his life with a scarlet letter, invisible to the naked eye, marking him for the crime committed, real or imagined, that has relegated him to the status of an unwelcome problem. When a man enters school for the first time in over twenty years and is asked to do a project in Math 10 with other people, and the only woman near him has to walk to the other side of the room to avoid dealing with the ogre, one truly realizes the worth people place on his existence. When an instructor in Math 20 marks problems wrong on a memory exercise that I scored 100 percent on, I realized that something is wrong. When I got back to my seat and a young woman who reminded me of a lost love began to cry, after realizing the teacher had screwed up my grade on the memory test. I began to realize the misery an ogre must endure. When a seat in math class was suddenly unavailable because it was next to a woman, I began to appreciate how hard I would have to work to trust another soul, or feel like I truly belonged in the world I was born into. I suddenly realized that an ogre can never change his life, and some truths will remain forever ignored. I began to appreciate how hard it could be to live in a world where everyone had a problem with me, and woman were a forbidden treasure only a privileged few could enjoy. Works Cited Shrek. Dir. Adamason, Jenson. Perf. Mike Meyers, Eddy Murphy, Cameron Diaz. PDI and Dreamworks, 2001. Film. Shrek 2.Dir. Adamson, Asbury, Vernon. Perf. Mike Meyers, Eddy Murphy, Cameron Diaz, Julie Andrews, Antonio Banderas, John Cleese, Rupert Everett, Jennifer Sanders. PDI and Dreamworks, 2001. Film. Prince. �Purple Rain� Purple Rain. Warner Music, 2001. CD. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter: Bantam Classics Series, 1850. Random House Publishing Group P, 1981. Print.