Places I've Worked

Almost Made It

Details: Published: Wednesday, 08 February 2012 14:48; Hits: 2414

front This is one of those stories that starts with the main character waking up to something happening...and he’s not sure what, but he’s pretty damn sure he doesn’t like it.

Do you know that sound your car makes when it hits the rumble strips on the side of a four lane highway? Now, put yourself in the passenger seat with your eyes closed and listen to that sound. Awful isn’t it? You don’t know what’s going to happen, you don’t know if the driver fell asleep, or if they died or if he just doesn’t have control of the vehicle anymore, you just don’t know!

I opened my eyes and saw grass. Normally, grass is a nice thing to see. It’s green and soft and fun to roll around in....

But not so fun to see when you’re in a Home Furniture deliver truck. What you’re supposed to see out of the wind shield is the road, that’s it. Not grass, that’s bad. My driver, we’ll call him...Karl (he's in the truck waiving hi), had lost control of the truck and we were now in the ditch between the two lanes of the four lane highway.

inside So, he did what any good driver would do, try to get it out of the ditch, and he did. The only problem is that the truck was so long that even though the front end was going strait and back on the road, the back end still had momentum and was coming around fast.

This is what you would call, bad. When I say “truck” I don’t mean a small pickup truck. I mean a fully loaded delivery truck. The back end kept coming around, forcing the front end of the truck back towards the ditch we just came out of. It kept spinning to the point that as we re-entered the ditch, we were pointed exactly backwards.

All that was scary enough, but the dumbest part of all this was that because of our angle, speed and probably because god wanted to teach us a lesson in the subject of “shit just might get real any second”, the truck rolled over upside down!

side You read that right, we not only put a deliver truck in the ditch backwards, pointing the wrong way on a highway, but UPSIDE DOWN. Needless to say, the furniture didn’t make it.

We were both fine however, I only suffered a broken toe, first and only bone I’ve ever broken to date.

Moral? Don’t sleep in the truck.

First Beer

Details: Published: Sunday, 05 February 2012 03:00; Hits: 2551

Spring Valley Golf Course - I’m not a drinker, just ask Asa, I never really liked beer. Sure, I’ll have a glass of wine, or an Iron Butterfly, or White Russian, or “Fun” on the Beach, or Fuzzy Navel, or other equally “chick” or “fru fru” drinks. But beer, nah. Too bitter. I don’t drink coffee either. I have coffee with my sugar sometimes, though.

This all MAY have something to do with my first experience with beer. It all happened on a bright and sunny day at the golf course I was working at in high school. My job there was to water the Tees mostly, and other stuff, like driving the golf carts at ridiculous speeds and trying to flip your passenger out (not customers of course...)

On that fateful day I brought a long a Sprite can from home and drank most of it in the car on the way. After getting out of my Dodge Colt (nice hatch back stick shift, kinda miss that car) I took the can with me and finished it off and recycled it (oh environment, how we sometimes take care of you).

Then, after everybody else showed up to work on what needed to be done for the day, we all piled into one golf cart, the four of us, it only seated two. I sat in the passenger seat and unconsciously picked up a can in the cup holder.

We found the owner/our boss working on one of the holes. Thinking I still had my Sprite can in my hand, I downed what I thought was the rest of it. Unfortunately, it was not my Sprite can, but a few days old, back washed beer can that someone had put out their cigarettes in.

Let’s just take a step back and consider what is going on in my mouth at this point. Not only was there beer in there, which is something that someone had purposefully let go bad after several months, you know, fermented (juice does that by itself if you leave it in your fridge too long), but used up cancer sticks, and mostly just the ashes of them. One of these two things are so bad for you, that if used correctly, kills you. The other is beer.

Needless to say, I instantly dropped to the ground, writhing in disgust as to what I had done to myself. My boss and co-workers, meanwhile, are looking at me as if I had turned into a goat or something equally strange. In an attempt to get everything out of my mouth and throat, I made that sound we all make when doing the same thing,...which is not the most attractive noise to make.

This is, quite possibly, the worst three minutes of my life (aside from trips to the ER, truck flipping, and pretty much anytime I put my foot in my mouth).

I did, of course, eventually explain what I had done and everyone had a good laugh at my expense, which I deserved, of course.

Moral of the story? Ugh, don’t drink things that are already open and you don’t know what’s in it. But people who drink and smoke? Could you please not just leave those sitting around? You never know what some moron might mistake your old beer can with cigarette butts inside for their own drink and decide to down it.

The Crying Man

Details: Published: Thursday, 02 February 2012 21:05; Hits: 2465

Home Furnature

Now, I don’t want to say that it’s not ok for a grown man to cry. I cry all the time, just ask any of my ex girlfriends...(wait, do you thinks that’s why? shit).

But I will make the distinction that if you DO cry, it has to be about something kinda important. Like when Jesus cried, it was about a friend of his dieing (though, he knew he wasn’t really dead, but “just sleeping”, or was going to raise him from the dead or something, your a funny one Jesus!). Or when I cry every damn time I watch the end The Iron Giant, or Toy Story 3, or Monsters Inc, or when I can’t have my way, or when someone doesn’t like me... (I’m beginning to see a trend here, darn it.)

Alright, so, my co worker and I (I learned quickly to not call my co-workers “partners”) drove to Virginia to deliver a couch. It was a big couch, huge really. It’s one of those big, nice new sofas that has a really tall back and really big arms. The back arched up in a nice and lovely wood finish that said “Isn’t this nice? You probably want this in your home. Well, too bad, ‘cus the only place I’m designed for is a warehouse.” At least, that’s what it should have said.

Before we even bring it up to the house, we walk up to check it out. The front had a two door entry, with a 90 degree turn to get into the living room, there was no way it was fitting in those doors without damaging BOTH the couch and his house. We look at the other doors, back and side, they were worse. We tell him that it wasn’t going to fit. That if he really wanted us to try, we would have to have him sign a waiver, which would remove any responsibility of damage to both the couch and his house, and we were pretty sure even if we pushed and pulled and swore at the thing, there still no way that thing was getting in.

We explain this to him. So...he started to cry. We sympathized with him and said that we liked the style of the couch and it would fit the look of his very lovely, Victorian house, so it’s really too bad it won’t fit. He explained that he measured the spot that it would go and it would fit there. We looked at his living room, it was huge, and we agreed that yes that would be a great place to put a couch, but it was just too big to fit through his doors. We sympathized again that the new fur nature they make isn’t made for old Victorian houses for small door framed (and smaller, less obese people, which he wasn’t, just making a point).

He said, “So, what are you going to do, just leave then?” At this point, in my head, I really wanted to say “well, no, we could hang out with you if you want, watch some foot ball, crack some brewskies, man it’d be nice to kick back and sit on a couch...oh wait.” But I didn’t.

We explained that we could leave the couch on his porch, and if he wanted to, he could hire someone to remove one of his windows in his living room and get it through there (which would have worked) but he didn’t like that.
So, we explained that the only other option is for him to come back to the store and pick something else out. We gave him the measurements that would work for his door. We eventually left, but he was not happy and we felt a little bad...but also knowing that if we had forced it in, we would have ruined his trim and the couch.

He eventually came back to the store THAT DAY and took a second look at the couch and admitted to my coworker that yes, it was very big, and apologized. He picked out a different couch.

What can we learn from this? Measure your damn door way for something you want to put through it, not just WHERE you want to put it once it gets in the freekin’ room!