It was Five years ago Today

Five years ago, my life was humming along quite nicely...These are my specific memories of that day, July 3, 2001....on that day, Dave came into my cubicle, "Dan, can we talk to you for a minute? just come into my office."...I thought, oh oh...was it something I did? or more importantly, I wondered if it was another company setback, and I was right.
Dave laid it on the line...."Look, in business, you gotta do tough things, and today, we gotta do Layoffs, and you're one..."
Well I just exhaled greatly with the weight of a ton of bricks landing on my head...Dave continued, "Hey, I KNOW this sucks, it really does suck for all of us..."
By that time, the 'laid off' demon had already set in and I was in that numb sort of state where you just function...."oh yeah...okay"
Soon after, Steve, Brian, and a couple other guys went in.
As in any layoff, everyone is stunned, and bummed, but we just go through the certain motions as though everything is normal.
Four of us decided to walk to lunch at Marvins, Steve asked me, "so what are you gonna do?" I said, "you mean today, or the rest of my life?" We all cracked up...
We got to Marvins and ordered lunch...Steve had a hot pastrami and he seemed to enjoy that sandwich like it was the best thing he ever had...I understood....
Now, Five years later I have empathy for everything, like Warren Zevon said before he died, "Enjoy Every Sandwich"....
Last summer we had a reunion picnic, it was great to get together with those guys, and the fact that they show up to these things speaks volumes....Back in the day, we were part of something!...we were gonna build something big, then we would sell the company and cash in!.....
We didn't cash in.