10.31.2006

stream of consciousness

so today i was working at the lovely establishment of potbelly's and i got to experience the american corporate machine first hand in the most pleasant task of taking out the trash. my potbelly's is in a huge high rise that is on wacker. wacker has a lower level that is just for fun things like trash. cory and i took two huge garbage cans down the elevator to the lower level, through dark hallways and finally into the lodaing station (translated: trash town). here we encountered four garbage men that are employed to take garbage from all the different levels of the building and bring it here, to the basement.

in our inexperience, we did not immediately begin throwing trash places as we entered the lodaing dock. instead we stood still, cocked our heads to the side a bit and assumed a confused expression. of course, we did this in the way of the garbage men. from behind us, they yelled little tidbits of encouragement to speed up the process. cory replied that we were tired and had been working since 11 am. To this, one particularly large garbage man replied:

"i've been working since 6 this morning on another job, and i'm working tonight until 1. then i have to get up again to work at 6 tomorrow."

to this, i replied in my infinite brilliance, "why?" this question had no tint to it, no "why, dumbass?", no "why, fatty?", just plain and simple wondering why this man works 19 hour days. to this he replied:

"because i got a wife at home like you who writes the checks." again, in a stunning display of my intellect, i replied, "oh, i am not a wife." this is what came out when what i intended to communicate was, "what?!" he replied once more:

"well then we got girlfriends at home like you that write the checks." er, what again? thinking better of really engaging this surly man in a discourse on women, i just nodded and rolled my little trash can away. five minutes later after cory and i had ventured out into the cold to finish our task, we returned and as we made our way back into the building, the aforementioned garbage man of said spendy wife said to me, "smile."

posted by Unknown @ 8:51 PM