Looking Back - Chapter 16

Before I get into this blog, I want everyone to understand that I have a VERY big soft spot in my heart for the handicapped, senior citizens, children and animals. I am by no way making fun of any of them, just telling a story that happened to me and making fun of myself.

As I may or may not have mentioned in the past, I have had a variety of jobs when I was younger. Dish washer, utility worker, lawn maintenance, peanut mill production line worker, banker, candle stick maker, Indian chief and so on.

One of those jobs that I had was a fill-in driver for a food service company, meals on wheels if you will. Most of our clients were senior citizen centers. Places where the able bodied senior members of society would gather Monday thru Friday. Usually they would play bingo and stuff like that. But in an effort to keep our business profitable we also took clients for day care centers & mental health facilities.

One this particular day I was working with a co-worker named Hector. Hector was teaching me the route, who gets what, how to load the truck in the order of the stops and so on. I liked Hector, he was cool, he had a great personality, liked jazz and loved women. We got a long well.

During the route Hector told me that we had a new client and that he was going to show me how to do an initial set up. When we get there I can see that it’s not a senior citizen center and I could see kids walking around, so I thought it was a day care. I was wrong.

Hector parks the truck and tells me to start unloading the stuff and that he was going to go in and find out where everything went and he would come back and get me. So I get everything off the truck and loaded onto a dolly. One thing that I didn’t mention is that it was August, which meant that it was as hot and muggy as Satan’s balls. After a couple of minutes I thought to myself, “screw this” and wheeled the stuff inside. Now I am standing in the very nice and cool air conditioned foyer of this school when I see this kid sitting on the floor and he starts to row a boat across the floor, but he isn’t in a boat. He is doing motions like he is rowing a boat and just scooting on his ass backwards across the floor. Ooookkkkaaay. As I am watching him row, I see another kid sitting on the floor leaning against wall. This young man is wearing a football helmet and has oven mitts duct taped to his wrist. I thought to myself, “Cool, they are at recess or playing a game”. I was wrong again. BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! HOLY SHIT!!! He just starts slamming his head against the wall, HARD! And then tries to unfasten the chin strap, which must have been the reason for the oven mitts.

It’s at this point that I am praying that these kids don’t gang up on me because I would have come through the wall like the Kool-Aid man! I hear that they can smell fear.

So I let out a loud yet subtle, “HHEECCTTOORR!!” A couple of seconds later he comes around the corner and says that he will show me where to set everything up at. Thank god, I thought I was a goner.

We make our way to the room where we are supposed to set up everything and he gives me the run down. After we get everything set up Hector asked one of the teachers if there was anywhere that he could get a drink and she tells us where a water fountain is and mentions that there is a soda machine in the teachers lounge too. Hector opted for the soda and we make our way to the teachers lounge.

When we got to the teachers lounge there was a little girl standing by the soda machine with her hands clasp in front of her with her head down and looking very morose. We thought maybe she had gotten in trouble or something so we were going to be extra nice to her to try to cheer her up. We both said hello to her and asked how she was doing and she didn’t move a muscle. In an effort to not be annoying to the girl we just decided to get a soda and go about our business. Hector walks over to the machine and puts his money in, makes a selection and BAM, this little girl lunges and grabs the soda and then pfffffttt just slobbers all over the top of it. Without missing a beat, Hector says to her, “Yeah, you’re right, that one is yours” and then goes into his pocket to get more change. He again puts his money in the machine and the little girl, BAM/pffffffttt all over this one too. Hector is visibly taken back a little bit and turns to me and says, “Hey man, you think you can run interference for me? I am running out of money!” So there I am standing there like I am trying to block a four foot Kobe Bryant so that Hector can get a drink.

A dollar fifty later and he drops the damn thing walking out of the room!

Don’t get dead