Dumb Wish

I wish I were dumb. Not that I’m intelligent by any means. Clever, sure. But I’m not very smart. When I say dumb, I’m suggesting that I wish that I could take certain information and knowledge that I have retained and flush it down my brain stem. The reasoning for this starts out with some really great news:

Miss Sally is pregnant. That’s great news.

The not so great news is that this is #2 for us. Greg is #1. During the Age of Greg, much knowledge was gained about where a baby comes from, what hormones it disturbs for nine months, and how insanely purple an umbilical cord is. Other areas explored were the eat, shit, sleep cycles and the learning to not fall down and babble interpretation. All of this information was learned through brute reality and sleep deprivation. It was a tough time, but because I had no idea what was about to happen next, a blessedly dumb time. The Age of Greg is moving on. We are now entering the Age of Two Kids. Also know as the Doug’s Not Going Out For Another Six Years Era.

So to get back to the point, I’m not so dumb anymore. Now I know ahead of time what hormones get riled up. And because nature is such a bitch, they are going to be different ones than before. Now I know that I’m not going to get any sleep. It’s not like I can store up 45 naps to use at a later date. And any of the joy that was shared by the three of us before, now needs shared by four with a three year old who doesn’t share.

Please don’t get me wrong. I am incredibly happy. Miss Sally and I wanted to have two kids and that was always the Plan. The reality is that it is sometimes best to be oblivious to some of the realities of pregnancy and child birth. Now I know ahead of time about Braxton-Hick’s contractions and Sally’s unrelenting discomfort and stirring and that there’s more than just water when the water breaks.

So I wish I were dumb. Only because there is responsibility with knowledge. Now that I am not dumb, I can plan ahead for these possible issues. I can be the one that steps up and keeps Greg occupied while Miss Sally doesn’t sleep, but has to try. The fridge can be stocked with vanilla pudding and then re-stocked with chocolate because all of a sudden the sight of vanilla makes Miss Sally nauseous. The heating pad is staged. There is always filtered water. I’ll park the car as far as possible on the right side of the garage.

I guess in the end, me being dumb only helps me. Me not being dumb helps Miss Sally. And besides lifting heavy things, helping Miss Sally is about all I can do that has any merit.

I love me. But I love Miss Sally just a little bit more. (And believe me, that’s a lot.)

Smokin’

Back when I had the greatest job in the world, I spent eight months at the Museum of Natural History in Denver, Colorado. During that time I made friends with Stephanie, who was a volunteer at the museum. We became good friends and better drinking buddies.

Stephanie had a roommate whom I will refer to as The Witch. Well, she was a self proclaimed witch. She had the books and the hair and wore gothy clothes. I didn’t really think she was a witch. That was until Steph and I walked in on her sitting naked in a ring of candles. It might have been a pentagram, but she knocked some over running to the bathroom. (Oh yeah, that reminds me, she was really pale, too.)

The Witch had an ex-boyfriend. He was a drummer. She should have known better. Unlike other drummers, this guy had a job as an assistant manager at a grocery store. Also unlike other drummers, this guy had a car which he left unlocked while he was working as an assistant manager at a grocery store.

One night, The Witch wanted to get some revenge on the ex-boyfriend. I’m not sure who brought the smoke bombs or where they came from, but needless to say, they were there in the car with the three of us as we sat parked across the street from the grocery store. The Witch thought it would be funny if we tossed a smoke bomb in his car and then watched his reaction as he opened up the door.

Steph and I hunkered down in her car as The Witch made her way though the increasingly protective darkness. Like a total dude, the drummer ex had backed into his parking spot. Like a total ass, he parked right up next to the store in one of the better spots. The Witch made it to the car and wisely checked to see if the passenger side backdoor was unlocked. It was. She lit a smoke bomb. In one fluid motion she threw it into the car and slammed the door. Not-so-stealthily she ran back to the car and flopped in the backseat. We quietly laughed hysterically.

We peeked out the windows and waited to see roiling smoke through the windows of his car. We waited for the great gouts of smoke to erupt. We waited. Nothing. Debate ranged between whether the smoke bomb had not gone off or if one was not enough. The solution to both possibilities was to throw two additional smoke bombs into the car.

This time, The Witch walked right up to the car. We could see her silhouette with the store’s double entry doors lit on the other side of the car. She lit the two smoke bombs. She opened the door.

A great murky fog squeezed out from the top, bottom and side of the door. The first smoke bomb had gone off. Whether it was the slight tint to the windows or if we had not been paying enough attention while laughing, we missed that the car had filled with smoke.

With witch-like determination, she tossed the two other smoke bombs in the car, slammed the door and ran back. The first smoke bomb now had two new friends to hang out and smoke with.

I want to remember that we laughed even harder, but I think we were all stunned. If one smoke bomb created that much smoke… shit.

We waited for drummer ex to leave the store. Twenty minutes later, lights started to go off in the building and people started to come out the front doors. As an added bonus, the drummer ex was a kind enough assistant manager to ensure that all the workers got to leave at the same time, so there were five additional witnesses. The bastard made us wait an extra few minutes as he chit chatted with his five buddies. Probably about his stinking band. He then opened his car door.

As expected, smoke belched from the car. Unexpectedly, it just kept coming out. Even in the dark, you could see the smoke oozing out. The other dudes ran over to the car. Drummer ex kept saying, “Dude! Dude!” They opened all the doors. The co-workers insisted that his car was on fire. Drummer ex kept saying, “Dude!”

We drove off before they started looking for witnesses.

Later, after The Witch got back together with the drummer (duh,) we found out some other details. Drummer though that the smokage had been committed by an ex-worker. (We were safe.) The smoke bombs burnt a hole in his carpet, but did not start a fire. (We were not felons.) The car never lost the sulfur smell of the smoke. (We were avenged.)

Steph is now married and a semi-professional photographer. The Witch is into scrapbooking. I’m still trying to figure out where those smoke bombs came from.

Yield

I love yield signs.

The concept is simple: YIELD = merge with traffic, but make sure you give the right of way to oncoming traffic. In some situations, you might have to completely stop, but that would show everyone behind you how much of a pansy you are.

The yield sign has a different meaning depending on which side of the sign my ego is accelerating from.

Say for instance, I am the one with the yield sign. As I approach the sign, I accelerate to match the flow of traffic I'm about to intrude upon. There’s nothing as gratifying as passing someone on the inside of the merge lane. As I accelerate, I expect that if there is a car that is beside me, they will continue on their way and that I will slow down, slightly, to allow them in front of me. I will then slide in behind them like a good little boy. If there is a car right behind the first car, I expect them to understand that I am yielding, but to keep the flow of traffic going, they should maintain their speed to allow me to sneak in. If they do not allow me in, then the next few seconds are a bit hairy. Usually, as the merge lane ends, there are scraps of trash, tires, bits of steel and (if you live in Jersey) mattresses on the side of the road. As you drive over these items, they kick up, like a James Bond car secret weapon, and rain down upon the car behind/beside you. It causes them to change lanes or slow down so that you can merge. You win! You’ve got three flat tires, but damnit you won!

Now let’s say I’m the oncoming traffic and some idiot is trying to merge in MY lane. First off to the mergers, accelerate. Yield sign is red like a stop sign, but that does not mean slow down, so you should use the merge as a launching pad. If you are going as fast as the traffic you are merging with, you’ll have more MPH to negotiate with. As I approach the people merging, I classify them into two categories; Jerks and Grandmas. Jerks are OK. They speed up and cut you off and sometimes kick up a mattress off the side of the road. I can live with that. If I see a spoiler, neon or hear bass from ¼ mile away, I know that with a few hand gesture transactions, we’ll all make it through the yield OK. Grandmas will kill you. You don’t have to have silver hair to be a Grandma either. It’s the hesitating. The stopping. The talking on the cell phone and looking over the shoulder. It’s best to change lanes or just drive into the concrete barrier and be done with it. Grandmas are why everyone is late to work or dead.

Basically, what it boils down to is that yield signs are for everyone else. If I am merging with you, you should be kind enough to let me in. If you are merging with me, follow the law, slow down and get behind me. I would hate to see what would happen in an alternate universe where I would have to merge into traffic with myself.

Conversation

Me to Friend: Are you hooking up with whatshername?
Friend: No.
Me: You can tell me.
Friend: I’m not hooking up with whatshername.
Me: But if you were hooking up with her, you would tell me that you weren’t, right?
Friend: Probably
Me: So, are you hooking up with whatshername?
Friend: No.
Me: That’s all I needed to know.

Flickr Words

HOIMG_0998Y
jack of spadesUaN

That was fun... try it yourself HERE

Thanks, Dorn

How was it?

“Not much happened. The girls weren’t that hot. We just drank a lot. It was fun, but not crazy.”

And the award goes to....

Stu did not win a Grammy last night.

He was up for:
FIELD 24 - PACKAGE
Category 86 - Best Recording Package

In 2003, Stu had a residency at the Coleman Center in Alabama. He wrote and composed some music and had a number of local choirs and individuals sing the lyrics. It’s only a 24 minute album. It's called The Clouds. To me it’s Southern-folk-alternative-gospel. Shows you what I know about music.

It was nominated because of the packaging. A handmade, 7” x 7” folded, rigid composite with a die punched aluminum applique with cotton inset and handwritten liner notes on the interior. (Or a square piece of cardboard with a cotton ball glued on as Shorty called it.)

The packaging was pretty neat. There was no way he was going to win. He was up against Ani DiFranco and Aimee Mann (winner.) Stu originally pressed about 200 CDs and made 200 of the covers for the center, family and the locals. His album was picked up by Annova Records and he was asked to create 300 more… all by hand. Art becomes Labor.

Stu didn’t win. But he didn’t need to. He lives in the moment of the creation and moves on. Sounds like a goofy artistic cliché. He’s all about the journey. I’m all about the destination. Somehow, we seem to get along pretty good. He created the album. All I had to do was buy it.

Next album up for Stu: Shrimp Attack See you at the 49th annual Grammys.

Gun Range

On Thursday, Shorty and I went to a local shooting range. The day before, Shorty not only suggested we should go, he looked up pricing on the internet and he even called to make sure we could get in. Thursday comes around and he’s left his guns at home. He was not committed into going. I was committed. I suckered him into my car with Sirius radio and the West coast replay of Howard Stern. We drove to his place and got the guns. He left the ammo in the apartment and tossed the guns in the trunk. I was automatically assuming that we would get pulled over and I’d have to blurt out that there were guns in the trunk and then the inevitable cop with his foot on the back of your neck as you are eating asphalt. Oddly enough, on the way to the range, we passed by four of Columbus’ finest.

We drove to the range and parked. The place looked as it should; old building in need of paint although it had one last summer. Hand written signs about where not to park and that the proprietor had guns inside. Four cars were parked outside at 12:30pm on a Thursday. I guess you could call that busy. Shorty grabbed his guns and we walked inside. I let him go first.

The inside was very basic. You could say that it was decorated with a wallpaper of guns and gun related accessories. I especially remember the smell. A mix of cigarette smoke (banned nine months prior, but really, whose gonna tell a guy with a sidearm to put out his cigarette?) and what I found out later was gunpowder. It was a very distinct smell that started my heart racing.

Short started talking with one of the gentlemen behind the counter. (Most males behind counters are “guys” and “dudes”. The men behind this counter were gentlemen and sirs.) The two gentlemen looked like they were brothers; same stature, same glasses, same white beard, same white hair. The only difference was that one had less white hair than the other. Shorty wanted an expert to check out a revolver he inherited from his grandfather. He pulled out the lump of metal and unwrapped the red cloth around it. It had a black handle and black everything else. It also had a gun lock on it. The less white hair gentleman said, “Get that thing off of there.”

Shorty had left the trigger lock key at home. He said sir a few times and sorry a few more. He was able to ask him a question and the gentleman was able to open the cylinder and answer it. He did comment that the gun was very nice and in very good condition. Shorty beamed.

The second gun was pulled out in its case. The gentleman behind the counter had Shorty open the box so he could take a look at it. It looked like a BB gun I had as a kid. The gentleman nodded and we were handed eye protection and ear protection. Shorty purchased 100 rounds and a few targets.

“You’ll be in #8 down at the end”
“You got it.” Walk off boldly.
“#8! Go through the other door.”
“Yes, sir!” Skitter skitter skitter.

I don’t want to make this place out to be a hole in the wall, all though there were several thousand. This was definitely not a brushed stainless steel / marble with teak trim. The carpet was stained with copper and black residue. There were empty casings everywhere. The booth walls were marred and scored with dings. It is what it is. We set all our goods down on a bench next to #8.

There were two other guys shooting down in the #5 booth. They were finishing up and from the piles of shells around them, they had been there a while. As the one guy put away a gun, the other grabbed a broom and industrial dust pan and made a few compulsory sweeps along the floor, picking up about 20% of the casings surrounding their booth. Oh well, I clean the same way at home.

Shorty opened the 9mm gun case and pulled out two empty clips. He showed me how to load the clips with 10 bullets. The clips hadn’t been used much, so it was tough getting the last four bullets in. I couldn’t see doing that in the middle of a gun fight.

“Reload!”
“It hurts my fingers, Captain.”

Shorty attached the target and sent it flying forward out 25’.

We inspected the gun. Shorty showed me how to load the clip. Keep it pointed forward. Keep your finger off the trigger. Keep it pointed forward. Release the metal thingy. CLICK. Aim. Pull the trigger. Pull the trigger. Go ahead.

BAM.

I have never fired a hand gun. Now, I’ve played hundreds of video games with guns. I think I’m pretty good. This was no comparison. The gun felt foreign in my hand. The weight and the kick were body jarring. The sound was expected, but even muffled it shocked me. It seemed like there were 15 variables to align and meld to get the bullet to hit the target. As soon as you pulled the trigger, all 15 were scattered and you’d have to start over. Grip the gun. Not to tight. Hold it steady. Line up the sights. Relax. Not too much. Hold the gun straight. Keep it level. Bend your knees. Squeeze, don’t pull the trigger. Prepare for the recoil. Keep it aimed.

BAM. BAM. BAM.

My adrenaline was pumping. I was physically shaking. What a rush.

I squeezed the trigger again and I was out. It’s a very odd feeling when you squeeze and expect a shot. Kinda like when you are walking down stairs and are expecting one more, but hit solid floor instead. I swear I only fired four shots.

Eject the clip. Put the gun down. Shake. I’m such a pussy.

We brought the target forward. I hit all ten times. Five in the white, four in the black and one just barely in the red. The shots were all over the place. Shorty tried to be congratulatory. “Well, you at least zoned in on the center.” I didn’t have any idea which shot hit where and when. But hey, one in the middle. Mostly.

Well, to sum up, I’m hooked. We ended up buying 50 more rounds, firing off a total of 75 apiece. My aiming seemed to get worse as I gained confidence. Still, it was exciting, fun and over time I felt more comfortable with holding the gun. I’m hooked.

Shorty packed up the guns and threw way the empty bullet boxes as well as most of the used targets. We kept two. (I hung one on the wall at work. That kind of freaks co-workers out.) As he was putting away the guns, I grabbed the broom and industrial sized dustpan and started cleaning up some of the shell casings on the ground. When you shoot off a 9mm gun, the empty casings go flying in a most random fashion. I’d love to isolate the ting of them bouncing off the walls and floor, but you can’t hear it though the ear ringing BAM of the gun. I swept and discarded and swept.

As I swept up, Shorty went back up front to pay for our ½ hour. The gentleman with more white hair looked at our equipment sign out sheet and said, “Well, I see one set of ear protection, but you signed out for two. Unless you’ve got a second head, we might have a problem.” Shorty replied quickly , “Oh, my friend still has his. He’s cleaning up.”

“He’s what?”

They leaned forward to look through the lexan barrier at booth #8. I didn’t see them look at me, but Shorty said the gentleman was slightly amused if not amazed watching me sweep up.

“Well, I’ve got something for him when he comes out.”

I finished up. Finished up in an Augean stables impossible way. I could have been in there twelve hours. I mean shit, there were shell casings in the roof. I walked out and thought I was in trouble.

“What were you doing in there?”
“Um, sweeping up, sir?”
“You didn’t have to do that, son. Here, I like you.”

He handed me a gold token, good for ½ of shooting. “Thanks!”

Per usually, I had to say something wiseassish, “I’m not going to leave a mess in a place where everyone carries a gun.” The gentleman replied, “See, an armed society is a polite society.” We all laughed our manly laugh and left.

We plan on going back next week. This time with the trigger lock key.

The Jan B

I was in Ketchikan, Alaska back in the summer of 1992 to make millions of dollars in the salmon industry. I made about what I would have if I had stayed home in Lancaster and worked at the Baskin Robbins. Of course, then I wouldn't be writing this.

The cannery I worked at was kind enough to provide a barge that had living quarters on it. It was a biggish, whiteish, rustyish hunk of metal with what looked to be mobile homes duct-taped to it. It was, at some point it its life, when someone gave a shit, christened the “Jan B” registered out of San Francisco. For a mere one dollar per hour worked, we got to collapse at the end of the day in something that wasn’t a tent. In the years prior, cannery workers lived out of tents in an open field in what you might consider a small city. It was called, “Tent City.” Problem was that Ketchikan receives about 152” of rain a year and most of that seemed to focus itself over Tent City. The workers had very little access to facilities and it was a complete muddy mess. Two guys I met said that they preferred sleeping in the plant next to the Iron Chink* instead of slogging back to their tents.

(*The Iron Chink was a huge machine that somehow scaled, gutted, beheaded and betailed the salmon in a few spins of a giant metal drum. Hundreds at a time. And yes, it is a derogatory name. I'm not sure if it has another name.)


The Jan B was, with all good intentions, a floating motel. And a motel has got to have a manager. Our manager was a mix of ex-marine, racist, sexist, jerk, power hungry, asshole, suck up, and, oddly, neat freak. His name was Bruce. So of course we called him Barge Bruce. All Barge Bruce wanted was to take the responsibility trusted in him to manage the barge and somehow make it as if he was Mayor and Sheriff of the Jan B. He was known to just pop into rooms unannounced while people were in them, accused of popping into the them when no one was in them and basically running the place like a prisoner of war camp. The memos he would post were hilarious. A simple reminder about taking trash out of the rooms would fill an entire page, have eight to ten exclamation points and a smattering of misspelled words liberally sprinkled in. Barge Bruce sucked balls.

I lived in room #39. Our room had three guys. Of course there was me. Jeremy was an extremely cool guy out of San Francisco. He was like a land locked philosophical, surfer. The other guy was Steve. Steve was fucking crazy. Steve had recently returned to the United States after being detained in Thailand for three months where he had been busted with pot in his possession. It seems that the ship he was working on didn’t care that he hadn’t made it back on board and left port without him. No one on the Thailand side of the bars told anyone he was there. He just ate rice and sat in squalor for three months. Luckily (for him,) another American got busted for something and Steve was able to get word out that he was stuck behind bars. His post-squalor travels brought him to Ketchikan and room #39.

Steve brought with him a sack full of clothes and a case of Hepatitis B. One day Steve felt sick and didn’t look good. It’s just a cold he said. A few days later, his skin turned a sort of greenish yellow. I ate some bad fish last night he said. Then, his eyes turned yellow. Take me to the hospital he said. We didn’t know it was hepatitis. We went to the bookstore and found a medical book and looked it up. Yuck. Sitting in feces for three months can do that to you.

I should mention a side note here that carries into the main part of this recollection. We were slobs. At the end of the work day, I would take off my blue coveralls and toss them in a corner. The next morning, I would put them back on. The clothes I wore underneath the coveralls got thrown in that corner too. The pile would get pretty big and pretty stinky. I knew that I was sweating something fierce while in the cannery because in the morning when I would put on the coveralls, they would still be wet from the day before. I mean damp. And stinky. An odd stinky too. But hell, I was working in canning factory. I thought this all was normal. I mean, what else could it be beside my own sweat. Normal. Until… (I’m pausing to hold back the vomit.)

Until the night when I woke up to find Steve walking over to the corner where my dirty clothes were piled. He stood in the corner and pulled out his dick and PEED ALL OVER MY CLOTHES! He is peeing on my clothes! “Steve! Steve! STEVE!” I could see his face as he turned, still peeing. He was laughing! “Steve!!!” He finished up and went back into his bunk. I got up and stumbled over all the other crap in the room to his bunk. I shook Steve and woke him up. I explained the situation to him, “You peed on my clothes!”

“What are you talking about.”

“You just walked over to the corner and peed on my clothes!”

“No I didn’t”

Steve had been sleep-peeing. And, thinking back, he’d been doing it for about three weeks. He had no idea that he’d been relieving himself at night. I had been going to work wearing Steve’s hepatitis tainted pee. Shit. I got tested when I got home. I’m clean, but really…

So, we were slobs. I left my clothes everywhere (oh yeah, and piled in the corner.) There were beer cans and food containers and newspapers and magazines and books and tapes (tapes were used to store music back in the 80’s and 90’s.) I think Steve liked the room because it reminded him of his home away from home in Thailand.

One day, I was on the line in the cannery when my friend Taylor came up and got my attention. He took me aside and filled me in on a situation. It turns out Barge Bruce was going through the rooms and wandered into #39. I’m sure he had a hard time getting the door to open with the amount of crap piled against it. Barge Bruce was completely pissed. Taylor heard Barge Bruce yell at someone else that he was sick and tired of the trash and was going to get the plant manager over to take a good look at what he had to deal with everyday. Taylor ran over as soon as he heard this. I had Dan and Jim on the line to cover for me and I ran back to the barge. Boy, my coveralls were going to be sweaty tonight!

(Have you ever heard some old codger talk about how they walked to work uphill both ways? Bullshit? Well, we did. The barge had a ramp going to the shore. In the mornings, when the tide was low, you had to walk up an extremely steep incline to get to the shore. At some later part in the day when the tide was high, the ramp would be at a very slight angle up from the shore to the barge. Up hill both ways to work. I can’t wait to get older so I can tell that one every day.)

I ran from the cannery to the barge and up to #39. I shoved non trash under the beds. I put everyone’s clothes into whatever drawer or laundry bag was available. I filled the trash bag and an empty beer case with trash. Put the trash in a closet in the hallway. I even made the beds. If you would have looked under the sheets you would have seen magazines and books and tapes, but it’s the surface look that counts. I did this all in less than five minutes. (Which of course makes me think, why the hell didn’t we just keep it clean?)

As I walked back to the cannery, I passed by Barge Bruce and the plant manager. Barge Bruce was going on about how unbelievably messy this one room was and how these punk kids have no respect. He was so intent that didn’t even notice me. The plant manager and I made the briefest of eye contact. I went back to the line.

About ten minutes later, Barge Bruce and the plant manager walked into the cannery (The plant manager walked, Barge Bruce seemed to vibrate with hatred). Barge Bruce was pissed. Barge Bruce was steaming. Barge Bruce pointed at me and started to, I kid you not, stomp his foot. The plant manager had Barge Bruce go and cool off to the side. I am motioned to speak with the plant manager. He is not happy, but at the same time, he seems to have a slight upturn on his mouth that would hint at a subdued smile. He basically says that he knows that I must have found out about the inspection. He knows I must have cleaned it. If this happens again I am fired. Keep the room clean.

He then slapped me on the shoulder and, out of Barge Bruce’s line of sight, winked at me.

My only guess is that the plant manager had to listen to Barge Bruce complain every day. For once, it was good to see Barge Bruce completely insane with rage and though words were coming out of his mouth, speechless. Barge Bruce mostly avoided me after that. I was waiting for the confrontation, but it never happened. Good old Barge Bruce. I went back to the line.

At the end of the season, my camping and working friend Dan Berman took white tape and changed the name of the barge from the Jan B to the Dan B. Below is a photo of him, standing on the top ramp, arm held out and finger pointed to the sky. It was low tide and he would have had to walk up the ramp to get to the shore.

My boss quit...

My boss quit on Monday. It was a shock only because some thought he was going to get fired. We are now on day four of the rebuilding process and oddly, things are looking up for now.

I used to be a roofer back in college. We had a team of about 8 guys. I was the only kid. As with most construction jobs, the kid got picked on. It was almost a loving kind of abuse, probably because the guys knew I'd go back to school and be out of their lives once summer was over. But there was also one other guy on the team that got abuse... one of their own so to speak. Everyone hated that guy. He was either lazy or stinky or dumb or his wife cheated on him... all merely allegations, but these things were said behind his back, but just loud enough for him to hear. Either this guy would quit after a week or try and stick it out and become my buddy. I think they would seek refuge in the other guy who got picked on.

No man can take that much abuse and they would snap and start a fight or walk off the job. Either way they were gone.

For a few days, all the guys would sit around at lunch and talk about what an asshole the quitter was and how they were happy he was gone. Everyone was happy. But then after those few days were up, you would see everyone looking around for the new guy to start picking on. Sometimes it was easy when a new guy was hired to replace the last. Sometimes no one was immediately hired and the cannibalism set in. One of their own was chosen. The circle is complete.

I guess what I'm thinking is that we've got about a week to blame all the company's issues on the old boss. If things aren't fixed, where will all that hatred and blame go? I don't see us hiring anyone in the near future.

Well, to keep this from ending on a downer, let me tell you this: I went on a smaller job with two other seasoned roofers (Old Goat and Charles.) While we were working, I managed to put "Kick Me" signs fashioned from asphalt can stickers on both their backs. I went to one and pointed out the other's sign. I went to the other and did the same. What followed was a round or two of comical kicking, followed up by some aggressive kicking and then the inevitable old guys shoving back and forth on top a 25' roof. By the time I pointed out the signs on their backs, it was too late. They were pissed at each other and did not see the humor in my little joke.

The truck ride home was pretty quiet. My small talk did not create a truce. I was sure that one or both of the guys were going to quit once we got back to the shop.

The next morning at the shop, while changing into my work clothes, I found out the hard way that both my boots had a dollop roofing asphalt in them. I didn't notice the first one until after I had the second one on. Just enough to make me uncomfortable as hell, but not enough to keep me from working. Both guys said nothing. But I'd like to think they collaborated. Punk kid.