Ashtray

There was this guy at work. We called him The Ashtray, and although it wasn't funny it was a better name than The Doormat. He had this talent, a dubious talent, but one that gained him notoriety from the upper echelons of management to the lower depths of the clerical pool.

He was a highly skilled, well-adjusted man who could buffer the abuse of any and all tyrannical supervisors in the office. Whenever a difficult supervisor tore through subordinates to warrant their own circus cage they'd send The Ashtray in to work for them. Every term served was practically a Master's thesis in abnormal psychology.

 

The Ashtray had dark hair, dark eyes and kind of looked like a walking shadow. He was very quiet and seemed to slip in and out of every department he was sent to. And he did all the problem ones, from corporate to casual. Dressy to messy, he was sent there if there was a difficult, dysfunctional boss to defuse any problem situation.

He won awards, citations, got fancy silver badges, the works, but especially the drama. What amazed everyone was that after all the dust had settled, he managed to walk out of the office in one piece, looking younger and happier than the rest of his co-workers. It was 100% weird.

He first gained notoriety when he served as the assistant to Miss Felice, a manager who demanded that her computer be turned on before she arrived in the morning, the air conditioning turned up to her preferred temperature and her favorite music streaming playlist set at an acceptable volume.

But that wasn’t what made her difficult; it was her disbelief in anything she was told. Her mind processed everything people said as a lie, so if someone explained a problem to her she would ask them to tell her again, and then of course again. She would then dissect what they just said and pointed out the inconsistencies in what they explained in each version. It drove her previous assistants mad, many running out crying and calling in sick too times too many.

They sent The Ashtray to her. She liked his looks; she was single and blonde and its’ been said that blondes like dark men and dark women like blonde men. Once she got over her attraction to him she went to work on cracking his marble veneer.

When he answered her questions she made sure to interrupt his answers to unnerve him. Every reply to her stern questioning would be brought down by her outraged interruptions.

One Friday afternoon The Ashtray had his nose buried in a report he had to complete by 4 pm and many co-workers had left early for the weekend. Of course the boss made him stop drafting his report to explain to her why everyone was gone. She made him explain one more time, and then again…his responses were so flat and indifferent he killed all the fun out of her sadism. Disappointed, she chastised him for not being done with his report.

But all good things must come to an end, as Del transferred to another section to find a less micro-managing boss. The next one hew as assigned to was a different kind of strange.

Mr. Boswick was an odd man. He'd report to work two hours later than Del and ignore him for most of the morning as he worked. Occasionally Del walked by Mr. Boswick's cubicle and would see him: 1) meticulously trimming his fingernails, 2) arguing on the phone with his wife, who always hung up on him, only to get him to phone her back and argue more; and, oddly 3) he would be prone to sitting in front of his desk simply staring off into space.

He trimmed his fingernails every day even if there was hardly anything left to cut. They were done so loudly you could hear the incessant snipping down the hall. Not so loud were his arguments on the phone with his wife, which were always delivered in a hissing stage whisper.

"Abby? Abby? ABBY? ABIGAIL!!!"

Mr. Boswick would fortunately gain his second wind by 3 pm in the afternoon and suddenly assault Del with an insurmountable pile of work for him to tackle, apathetically oblivious to the fact that quitting time was in two hours. It dove Del The Ashtray mad.

Co-workers would join him for a smoke on his break and the same question would arise.
"Boswick's an asshole, Del. How do you put up with his bullshit?"
"It's just part of the job, I guess".
"No, this guy goes over the line. I'd report him to the Internal Affairs Committee".
"I'll think about it. I got to go".
"Yeah! He's probably timing you with his watch! Later!"

Occasionally Mr. Boswick and Del would attend meetings and sit together at the conference table. Whenever Del got up from his seat to give handouts to the attendees he had to rise up slowly. It was peculiar, but the reason arose from an episode at previous meeting.

"Del", Mr. Boswick chastised him, "I need to speak to you about your attitude".
"Why? What's wrong?"
"The way you got up from your chair. You looked so angry, everybody stared at me. Your chair spun around a few times! That makes us look bad, Del. If that ever happens again I'll write you up for discipline".

After being admonished about the "spinning chair" incident Del did a peculiar rise from the chair to prevent it from spinning around, which only made the attendants stare at him even more. The rise was not unlike a cobra rising from its wicker basket, a sort of vertical unfolding. Mr. Boswick still looked disgusted, anyway.

The Ashtray was taken away from Mr. Boswick and handed over to a new supervisor, a Mr. Schubert. How Mr. Schubert scaled the heights of supervisory status was never known because his spelling and grammar were a modest grammar school D grade level.

The Ashtray would occasionally correct Mr. Schubert, raising his ire.
"The memo will go out AS IS!"
After the Division Chief was copied on the email, she would call Schubert into her office and ask why would he send out a message with so many errors. Schubert called Del into the room and blame him for typing up his poorly written memo.

He was then made to apologize for arguing with Mr. Schubert. The Ashtray complied, feeling bitter resentment.

Things came to a head with them when the Ashtray planned a vacation a month in advance and Mr. Schubert decided the week before to take that very week off, too.

"Coverage, Del, coverage! Someone in our section needs to be here. You can't take off when I'm going on vacation. You're already on probation for sending out those poorly written memos. I'd watch my Ps and Qs if I were you. Just a friendly word of advice".

After that admonition he'd step out for an angry smoke and run into Miss Felice, smiling at him for the first time he'd known her.
"Oh, Del, things just aren't the same without you. I feel lost without my favorite assistant".

She continued for another minute telling him that she couldn't hold on to anyone as long she did with him. He wasn't surprised but just kept smiling that strange smile of his. Funny, the smile seemed believable but you could almost detect a few cracks beneath the surface of that smile.

Standing in front of the building, having his smoke, a co-worker sidled up.
"Schubert fucked with your vacation, you know? You should look into getting a lawyer, I'm telling you".
"What's that going to do?"
"You have to document every time you get disciplined, like keep a diary for every time he gives you shit and keep copies of every time he writes you up or threatens to write you up and maybe you should go to a psychiatrist and take time off for stress time taken off and then have the psych write you a report and..."

Schubert didn't last, either. The Ashtray was reassigned to a new supervisor, Mrs. Ganigher, a divorced mother who always demanded he sit next to her while she instructed him on how to type up a report. He had over ten years experience in drafting reports, but she needed him to sit right next to her while she tediously typed away, speaking to him as if he were her child. It was maddening.

"Now this is the way we title the report and format it", she would speak slowly as if he were simple. Co-workers would walk by the cubicle and look at him, then at her and roll their eyes.

Once Del was home sick and she called him, hysterical about not being able to find a file. He was doped up on flu medication and she screamed at him.
"How could you pick an important day like today to call in sick? I need to find that file. I know you know where it is! Tell me! Are you sure you don't know??? Sure you're sure?"

 

Mrs. Ganigher rarely bathed, so when it was time to attend a meeting she'd pull out a bottle of Evening Musk and spray herself like lice spray at the local jail. She also had a bad habit of pulling at the straps of her bra while talking to people, which always put them off from her and made them prefer to speak with him, which always made her insanely jealous.

 

Even an ashtray cracks and breaks and that day finally came. Mrs. Ganigher gave him three reports to draft and loaned him out to two more supervisors to transcribe their meetings. All of this work was due by the end of the day.

While he was processing all these reports Mrs. Ganigher kept interrupting him with important questions and a few stories of her porn-addicted teenage son. Finally it was nearing the final hour of the day and he only managed to draft two out of the five reports.

"WHY? WHY NOT??"
"I'll need more time", The Ashtray patiently explained.
"NO YOU DON'T. YOU TOLD ME YOU WOULD BE DONE BY THE END OF THE DAY AND YOU'RE NOT! DEL!!!"

"I'm going to need more time to complete this work".
"I've had enough of this bad attitude from you. We're going to see Ms. Adams about your sloppy output. I'm getting really fed up with it!"

The Ashtray's eyes got real big and he said, "No we're not. I'm not putting up with this anymore. You finish this fucking work!"
The Ashtray grabbed his jacket and walked out of the building, never to return.

He didn't take anything with him and that was pretty smart. If he had the company could have nailed him for stealing, but if he walked out without taking anything they couldn't put up anything against him.

This didn't go well with his wife, of course. When The Ashtray's wife found out he quit his job there went the medical benefits and the expensive vacations and the job security.

"HOW COULD YOU DO SUCH A STUPID THING? HOW COLD YOU JUST WALK OFF A JOB???"
"I had enough", he said, stammering a little bit. "You just don't understand".
"WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO? YOU'RE AN IDIOT!"
"No, I'm not, we'll be fine. I have some money saved up".
'SO WHAT?? I WANT YOU TO APOLOGIZE TO ME RIGHT NOW FOR QUITTING YOUR JOB! I DON'T GIVE A DAMN WHETHER YOU'RE HAPPY OR NOT!"

"Look,. I've supported you all this time. Now it's your turn to support me, I mean-"
"OH, FUCK YOU, DEL!"
She stormed out of the apartment, going to a Mexican restaurant where she'd meet up with some man she was seeing behind Del's back.

Del mumbled mutely to himself and looked around the empty apartment. He wanted to cry and he wanted to laugh, but he just mused on the futility of making unhappy people happy.

Instead, he picked up the phone, dialed a number and said, "Hi, this is Del Carver. I have twenty years clerical experience and have awards and citations. Microsoft Office Suite, Adobe Creative Cloud and difficult supervisors a specialty. Please keep me in mind"....

 

May Day

I'm going to a job interview; no, let me rephrase that, I'm going to an interview at an employment agency that will send me to a place I can work at for a brief assignment. The name of the agency is DeskWorks and they came highly recommended on Yelp, earning their coveted five star rating.

I enter the office wearing a suit and tie, trying hard to make a good impression. I introduce myself as Spencer Smith to the receptionist and sign in at the front desk. I'm told to take a seat and as I do I reach for a magazine to read until my name gets called. Every magazine on the table is People Magazine, US Magazine, or In Touch Magazine.

As I pick up a magazine lamenting the death of Robin Williams I overhear the receptionist and her co-worker debate about who's the sexiest man alive.
'James Franco always looks hot'.
'Oh, he's so five years ago. Channing Tatum's definitely the sexiest man alive'.

The debate continues and intensifies until I finally hear my name called and I meet my work coordinator. He's a neatly dressed African American man in his fifties named Dalton with close-cropped hair and a green tie with a pink shirt. After the usual small talk I pull out my resume for him to review. He likes my job history and all seems well until he notices a black spot.

'Spencer, can I call you Spence? What's this here about your high school graduation year?'
'Is something wrong with it? Should I take it off?'
'Yes, I would definitely recommend it'.
'Do employers look down on high school graduates?'

He scrunches his face, hemming and hawing. 'No, it's not that. It's just that you list 1974 as the year you graduated. If you were eighteen 40 years ago no one will hire you. You're already dating yourself with your resume....Um, yes, you need to take this off. I can't send this out. This would jeopardize your employability'.

Holding my temper, I ask him if there's anything else he sees in my resume.
'Tell me about why you left your last permanent job'.
I coat the truth by telling him that I left my last position because a new manager came in and brought her own staff with her, cutting the rest of us loose.

The truth is that I worked for a mentally unstable single mother who formed an insane crush on me and thought that I would be her man, even though she still called her abusive ex-husband to come over and fix her air conditioning. 'My son still needs his father', she said.

She told me about her son's porn addiction and asked me for advice about what I would do if I was the boy's father. Either I'd change the subject or excuse myself by going to the bathroom. In retaliation, she accused me of looking at her the wrong way or snapping at her so she wrote me up in a disciplinary report. That was the true story but employment agencies don't really want to hear about all that.

I go home and change my resume and send it to Mr. Dalton the way he wants it. I call DeskWorks the next day and Mr. Dalton is too busy to talk to me. I leave a message, then another, and another and Mr. Dalton has no intention of returning my calls. I killed myself by revealing how old I am.

“The application process has several steps. The first step is taking a written test. After you pass the written test, there is a typing, Microsoft Word & Excel test. After you pass that there is an interview with two or more people who place people in “bands”, which are levels of who they think are most competent. Even at this level, you can be eliminated. The entire process takes over a month, maybe two. If you are chosen, you will probably be assigned to scanning paperwork for six months. Once the assignment is over, you have to undergo the application process again in order to be considered for the next clerical assignment”.

****************

I recently switched gyms. I dumped the last one because they kept closing every time I went there. One time someone burned a bag of popcorn in the microwave oven and they turned on the fire alarm, forcing everyone to evacuate the building regardless of whether they had their clothes on or not.

People using the pool had to stand out in the street in their swimming trunks until the imagined fire was contained. There were more strange excuses for kicking people out of the gym until it became impossible to go there on a regular basis.

The new gym I went to was in the gay section of town. The membership was cheaper and there wasn’t a microwave oven in sight. I chose that gym because I knew that the men were serious about keeping fit and exercising. It wouldn’t be just another social club. There weren’t a lot of women there, and the ones that did looked like they stepped out of ads for the LA Weekly – thin, cold, and unfriendly. But there was one who was different.

When I first saw her she was thick and flabby with a henna rinse of hair and horn-rim glasses, but the odd part was that she wore a leopard spotted t-shirt and a man’s old baggy swimming trunks. She wore tons of eye shadow, foundation and lipstick. She looked like a bottom feeder stripper trying to lose weight so she could get a job at a better club.

In spite of feeling uncomfortable working out for the first time, she was pretty focused with her workout. Unlike the others she didn’t have an iPod connected to a pair of ear buds plugged into her skull. I’d glance at her periodically because she distinctly stood out from everyone else. She was someone different. I saw her every week I went to the gym.

A few weeks later I missed my regular night and went on a different night. In spite of the change there she was, the girl working out in the weight room, which she never used before.

Her appearance changed: the glasses were gone, she bought standard workout spandex clothes but the heavy makeup was still there. The workouts did their magic: she looked thinner than she had since the first time I saw her. I glanced at her for a moment, and upon seeing me she looked alarmed, quickly got off her exercise machine, and raced out of the room.

Two weeks later the leopard girl was at the gym, by this point looking virtually unrecognizable. She wore blindingly bright fluorescent workout clothes, styled her hair, her makeup was heavier than ever and all the flab and chunk she had when she walked in with was long, long gone. She went from looking like someone’s mother to looking like someone’s daughter. When she saw me she walked by my exercise machine and made a weak, ineffectual sneer.

When she sat down at her exercise machine, instead of working out like she usually did, she simply sat there, staring straight ahead, just camping on the machine. It was if she was saying, 'I lost the weight. I don’t have to work out so hard anymore'.

Angered by her unwarranted dirty look I walked up to her and said, 'You were a lot nicer when you wore swimming trunks', and walked away before she had a chance to say anything.

I moved into the weight room and without turning around to check I could feel her eyes burning into my back. And that’s the last time I ever saw her again.

She probably got a job at a better strip club.

*******************

I show my new resume to an agency called Clerk Army and they send me out to a job with a pay rate closely approaching minimum wage. The job involves typing up letters to the Mayor of Los Angeles and the Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department.

My supervisor is a woman who looks like a young Elizabeth Taylor from 'Suddenly Last Summer' and whose husband also works in the building. He checks up on her several times a day. Perhaps it's because she only hires men to work under her and she wears her clothes so tight they look like they're going to burst from her body. Every curve and highlight of her body gets equal stage time when she reports to work.

In the beginning I create reports and attend important meetings and am treated like a valued employee, pygmy-sized pay and all. My desk is situated in the front of the office. Everyone sees me as they walk by the front door. I enjoy the attention and the responsibility. It makes me feel needed. Everybody tells me I’m a real life saver.

Two months later the secretary who’s been out on physical disability leave returns and I have my job duties taken away from me. I’m reduced to picking up her mail and running downstairs to set up tables and chairs in the meeting room. I also have to unpack and set up twenty laptops every other day. I’ve also been moved to the very back of the office in a small corner, out of plain sight from everyone.

After three months of running around the building and doing nothing else, my supervisor senses my boredom and calls me in to her office. Wearing a tight sweater with a plunging neckline and even tighter pants, she lets me know that my assignment is winding down.

'Spencer, we really value your work here. Would you be interested in having your assignment extended by another six months?'
'Well, um…'
'I know you’ve been thinking about returning to full-time employment. I can advocate for you to return to full-time if you agree to a six-month extension'.

I can tell she’s working me, and I can’t remember being worked this hard since 1974 when a girl at Rodney’s English Disco badgered me into taking her to the Rainbow Bar & Grill and then ditching me once I snuck her in.

I tell my boss that I’m not interested. She responds by not talking to me for the next two weeks until my assignment is over. I’m actually pretty relieved I don’t have to deal with Young Elizabeth Taylor anymore.

When I drive home I think about the next assignment and how I have to work for more money. The phone company wants to disconnect my line. I finally get a call from Mr. Dalton at DeskWorks. I let the voice mail on my dying cell phone take the call. Let him leave a message for a change.

He wants me to guard a jewelry store in Beverly Hills for one night. A wine tasting party in the middle of Beverly Hills need temps to guard the stores so the drunken rich people don’t go berserk and loot the local merchants.

I decide not to call him back. An old man needs his rest.

The Andy Seven Inventory

It's every disgruntled worker's fantasy to walk off the job, but how many actually do it? Well, two months ago I did. I was so angry when I walked off I left my things on my desk, and you have to be seriously pissed off to do that. A month later I received two boxes of my things FedEx'ed to me with a packing slip some poor soul at work probably had to type out, so just so his/her efforts weren't in vain, I give you The Andy Seven Inventory:

1 Bottle TRIMSPA Dietary Supplement (approx. 20 pills)
1 Bottle Gaviscon Extra Strength Antacid (approx. 30 pills)
1 Bottle Armani Code (Cologne)
1 pr. Sunglasses in black case
1 Bottle Apple Pectin 500mg (approx. 90 pills)
1 pr. reading glasses in gold case
1 Bottle Aspirin 325mg 3 brown pills; not aspirin (How do they know? - Andy)
2 pack Zantac Maximum Strength (approx. 18 tablets)
1 cord Motorola phone charger
1 Hair Brush
1 Desk top 2011 Taschen Magic Calendar (Highly recommended! - Andy)
1 Bottle of B-12 Dot Vegetarian Formula
1 Halogen Lamp Bulb
1 pr. scissors
1 Cigar, Optimo Peach
Andrew Sevrin Nameplate
1 pack of LA County Sheriff's Dept. Breath Mints
2 Elle Decor Magazines (11/2010 & 12/2010)
1 Toy Coffin (Retail Slut painted on it) (The only good thing I got from that store - Andy)
5 Plastic Las Vegas Coasters (Black & Red)
1 Box of Kleenex (Did they count the tissues, too?- Andy)
1 Cake of Memorex CD-R's
1 Mouse Pad Artistic Painting (Dali's "Persistence of Memory" - How ironic! - Andy)
1 Set of Small Earphones for to digital audio (SIC) (Hello, they're called earbuds - Andy)
3 Packets Starbucks Iced Tea (SIC - it was coffee) Instant Drink Mix
2001 Thomas Guide Los Angeles and Orange County
1 Bottle Fantastik Cleaner
1 Staples Stapler
2 Boxes of Samoas Girl Scout Cookies
1 Envelope with 2009 Birthday and Holiday cards
1 Frame with Certificate from Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) - Outstanding Support Staff : Director's Employee Recognition Award - August 2005
1 Certificate of Appreciation - Los Angeles County Registrar - Recorder/County Clerk's Office
1 Vintage Can of Schlitz Beer used to hold pens/pencils
1 Ceramic Frog Figurine with 7 quarters, 6 nickels, 3 pennies, 1 dime
Salt & Pepper shakers (1 each)
1 Halogen Desk Lamp
1 Best Buy gift card ($25 value)
1 Starbucks gift card ($15 value)
1 Maggiano's gift card ($25 value) (I wonder if it's good at the bar? - Andy)
1 small tin TRIMSPA with 3 red tablets
1 small tin with thumb tacks
1 Tide-To-Go Spot Remover pen
4 boxes of matches
3 Cigarette Lighters
2 Cologne Samples (POLO and HUGO BOSS)
1 tin with pennies ($0.67)
1 coin from Costa Rica (50 colones)

Well, there you have it: an inventory list that summarizes what makes me tick. A lot of pills, smokes and sexy cologne to seal it all up. And I'm back doing what I do best, making cool clothes. Goodnight, everybody!

Bubblegum And Garbage

1980: The Laufer Company was an entertainment publishing empire that put out a slew of showbiz rags on a monthly basis: Rona Barrett’s Hollywood, Tiger Beat, Flip, Rona Barrett’s TV and Movie World, etc. They had offices on Hollywood Blvd. across the street from the Chinese Theatre and it was walking distance from my courtyard apartment built by Charlie Chaplin’s studio. It was a temp job that paid poorly, but when you’re living the punk rock lifestyle everything is either free or cheap, anyway.

My first assignment was working in the mail room. We had to open up mailed requests for 8 x10” glossies of TV and movie stars.
“This one’s for Dirk Benedict. Who’s that?” I asked.
“Who’s that? You don’t know who Dirk Benedict is?”
“Where have you been?”
I wanted to say guzzling beer at the Hong Kong Café watching The Weirdos play “We Got The Neutron Bomb”, but I was hung over and they would have asked, “Who’s The Weirdos?”
“I’ve got a request for Scott Bayou. Where’s the Bayou pics?” I mumbled.
“THAT”S SCOTT BAIO!!!” some gay ranger yelled. “Don’t you know? It’s Chaaaahhhhchee”.
“Yeah, Chachi from Happy Days”, some girl chirped. “He goes ‘wow, wow, wow’”.
Everyone laughed but me. Are these people crazy?
“Who am I?” some Chinese kid quizzed. “Eeeey!”
“A used car dealer?” I asked.
“It’s the Fonz!” the girl chirped once more. “Chang, you are so funny!”
“Fonzie, Fonzie, Fonzie!” the homo fan wailed. “I have one for Henry Winkler!”
Henry Winkler, sounds like a Rabbi from Baltimore, I thought.

*****

My boss Phyllis was a tired, dog faced blonde in her seventies that liked to flash cleavage, which always made me feel uncomfortable.
“Andrew, do you prefer Andrew or Andy?” Phyllis nervously asked.
“Andy’s just fine”.
“Andrew, go down to Basement Room B-50. I want you to clean out the room. The Andy Gibb contest is over and we have to clear out the room to make space for the Charlene Tilton giveaway”.
“Will I need a broom and a dustpan?” I asked.
“Oh, Andrew”, she spurted. “You’re always joking”.

How do you clean out a room without cleaning materials? I took the creaky elevator down to the Basement and opened the door to a tiny storeroom, just a little bit bigger than a closet. A pile of postcards tumbled out the door at my feet.
I switched on the light to see: The room was piled with postcards three feet deep from one end of the room to the other. I walked on postcards, I kicked them out the door, I jumped out of the room and grabbed a trash can in the hall and started grabbing handfuls of postcards and throwing them in the bin. As I threw them out I noticed one postcard had a photo of Bettie Page with a crocodile.
“Hey, wait a minute”, I said and tossed it to the side for a pile I was going to take home. The next postcard was a vintage Fifties postcard of the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas.
“Sweeet”, I gushed at the cool postcard. Five minutes later I sat down on the pile examining every postcard. Some were lame but a few were awesome.
I began reading the postcards and started chuckling. This is what they said:

Tiger Beat’s Andy Gibb Contest
WHY I LOVE ANDY
A is cause he’s Adorable
N is new pictures of cute andy make me swoon
D is for his dreamy eyes
Y is for his yummy lips yummy yummy andy

I giggled like an embarrassed schoolgirl. The big cock block of course was the signature:

MICHELLE JONES, 11
Topeka, Kansas

Eleven? That’s not jailbait, that’s embryo bait. Oh well, at least I scored a cool postcard of a jackalope. I was such a vain bastard I blew 2 hours reading the Andy glory parade and finally tossed out the rest of the junk. It wasn’t very hard work.

*****

Robert was a huge, Tone Loc-looking black guy in his thirties. He kept calling me “Young Blood” because I was just barely in my twenties.
Phyllis raced over to us. She never walked, she raced. She was very intense.
“Robert, Andrew”, she commanded nervously, “I want you both to load the truck up with all the Expired Issues boxes. Take them to the landfill in Sylmar, and remember, BE CAREFUL”.
After loading the pickup with endless boxes we tore down the 101 to Sylmar, and there it was: The Sunshine Canyon Landfill Station.
Passing the gate we entered a hellish scene: miles and miles of sprawling, flat land with large ditches scattered here and there, tractors shoving enormous piles of trash into even more enormous gaping holes. There were broken television sets, chairs, dressers, exercise bikes, etc. There were scattered bonfires of burning garbage. It was like the Mojave Desert of junk!
“Damn, Young Blood”, Robert exclaimed, “there’s some halfways good shit lyin’ around here”.
A map was handed to us showing where we were allowed to dump our boxes, so we turned to a tiny plot of dirt after almost getting run over by a rogue tractor.
I jumped up to the truck bed and handed boxes to Robert.
“Okay, these babies are pretty damn heavy so watch out”, I told him.
“Cool, youngblood, use yo’ bionics, that’s the way”, he grunted.
“Incoming!”
“I love it, love it, love it! Say, youngblood, where you from?”
“New England”, I panted heavily, “You know, Kennedy Country”.
“President Kennedy, man it’s a shame the way they shot him down like a low-down dog. Me, I’m from South Cackalacky. I got me some fambly in North Cackalacky”.
Robert called the Carolinas “Cackylacky”; he was clearly insane, but who better to hang out with in a garbage dump than a lunatic?

I handed Robert another box and he dropped it. The box burst open and out tumbled magazines with the cover blurb, “TV’s Bathing Beauties Pictorial”. The cover showed Heather Thomas, Farrah Fawcett and Cheryl Tiegs in bikinis.
“Well, alright! Check it out!” I jumped down and leered at a copy. “Robert, dude, check out Linda Carter in a string bikini”. I picked up the magazine and jammed the pin-up in his face.
“Awyeeeeah”, he picked up his own copy. “Jack-well-leeen Smith. I love it, love it, love it”.
“This one’s going home with me”, I smacked my lips.
“Sheeeet, youngblood, ah heards that. SNORT!” he snorted.

Two hours later we were done and took off in the pickup. The radio was cranking “Da Doo Da Da” by the Police. When Sting got to the moronic chorus, “da doo dah dah”, Robert started bouncing up and down like a madman and singing along at the top of his lungs.
“Come on, youngblood”, Robert roared. “Sing along! Use yo’ bionics! Da doo dah dah!”
He was out of tune and out of rhythm with the record, but who cares? I just spent a small fraction of my life in a garbage dump and this song was our National Anthem.