Tonight was a great night. And on the whole I'd say it's been a pretty good week. Which is amazing considering last week was one of the worst, and also acknowledging a certain incident today that made me scream obsenities while my co-worker was on the phone with my boss. I will elaborate.
It's just Ben and I at work in the old cleaners today and he brings a bag of pants back to me in the hole beneath the clothes racks where I have a tiny computer and do all the mark-ins. Nothing odd there. These pants are on a rush for tomorrow, so I empty out the bag and fondle the clothes hurriedly, as it is my job to do, checking pockets and safety-pinning tags and the like--checking for stains. My thumb grazes across something coarse. I look down. To my ABSOLUTE FUCKING HORROR there's FUCKING FECES on this man's pants. On the fucking OUTSIDE, CHUNKS, I'm telling you. About 5 sq. in. of this shit, dried but revolting none-the-less.
I'm normally a pretty calm person, don't get too bent out of shape, but I throw them to the ground and yell, "FUCK!" and punch a bagged group of laundered shirts which is the only punchable thing near me. It's human feces, for Christ's sake, but what's worse is being forced to believe in a man whose common decency is so nonexistant that he didn't even consider informing us about the biohazard he was leaving in our care--in our human hands.
Yeah, it's gotta be embarrassing--you shit yourself or sat in shit or had someone shit on you or slipped on shit and fell into a bucket full of shit or what-the-fuck-ever, but it's worse than fucking abominable to let people explore with their hands and discover it by surprise. If we had known, we would have gone about it differently without putting our hands on it, and frankly it's pretty much standard procedure--skidmarks, wear gloves, send through; chunks of fucking shit, tell 'em "sorry dude, you gotta take this home, scrape it off, and run that through the washer yo' DAMN self." It's apalling.
It's fine now, of course. I scrubbed my hands and Ben called the owner, who said he'd call ol' crap-ass in the morning and tell him to pick up his dirties, but I was livid, and that's rare. When customers came in, I was exceptionally pleasant to compensate for the boiling in my blood, but when they left, there was about a half hour where I'd sporadically punctuate the silence of that place with a screamed obsenity like I had Tourette's or something. Good times.
But yeah, other than my shitty (ha ha ha) day, it's been a good week. We saw Matt off to college in Toledo yesterday, which is wierd, 'cause I've seen him several times a week for some five years now, and I am gonna miss him. But, to be sure, he's gonna love being at college studying film, doing what he has a passion for. It was a really nice goodbye...very fond and a very fun night. And of course we're all gonna keep in touch.
And tonight Jon and I watched some Black Adder and then drove around for about three hours. If you were outside tonight you know it was the most perfect temperature...with the windows rolled down, the breeze felt excellent. We listened to good music at a high volume and talked about all kinds of shit and generally just had a great time. And to my delight there was some kind of distant storm going on. You know, the kind where the sky's completely black, but every once in a while there's that lightening that illuminates a section of the sky just enough for you to see the silhouette of the clouds. Really cool.
So yeah, it's been a pretty good week. Tomorrow we go to Mr. Harnack's to have a movie marathon in the theatre in his basement. I believe there will be some Texas Chainsaw Massacre and a number of other good horror films. He shows a lot of classics too, and it's really cool to see his film arsenal with canisters piled to the ceilings. Not to mention, it'll be cool to see Mr. Miller again, the kind of guy I think everyone hopes to be like when they're older, if they know what's good for them. Published author, horror movie fanatic, and just a really fun and youthful guy. I remember seeing him when I went to Lincoln, and it's funny how I never would have known he was anything other than your typical teacher. But Matt and Jon were in his film class, and I was always involved in the movies. Mr. Miller was incredibly supportive and always seemed so impressed with what we did. Matt and Jon really look up to him; he's kind of a mentor to them. But also, he's a friend to them, and it's nice to have someone like that in your life. I look forward to tomorrow. 1:00PM to 1:00AM. That's a whole lotta movies. We're gonna be drunk on film before the night's over and walking like our legs are wet spaghetti noodles.
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