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Temps (2)
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2385
And so 2 weeks until I start back at the restaurant (the one of infamy, of so many derisive posts) - a 2 month contract to replace the nephew who has to return to Italy to renew his work permit. Temporary Work Permit, as he's a Temporary Foreign Worker.
2 Weeks of unbudgeted unemployment, a bum leg on the mend, but I've got $5.00 in my pocket and need work, I head to Temps.
There are no familiar faces behind the counter, the receptionists all new, I'm there by 7:00 AM, sign in, there's perhaps 50 other men there.
Eavesdropping - work is hard to come by, most of these guys are only getting half days unloading trucks, "swamping", they're pissed. The same men as always, or not the same, but in all groups there are patterns...One, perhaps the brightest looking of the lot, (he's shaved this week) is making tiny notes on a post it and storing under the table, tiny, minute handwriting. I should have brought a notebook. They're all watching the TV.
Time passes, few jobs are coming in, people wait, they've got nothing but time. Our tables are close to the TV, the news, the same as always, murder, assault, and grim news for the economy, followed up with a chaser on a surgeon who's built a "bionic eye", then the human interest. A magician does a trick, lowers a rope into a bag, the rope magically knots itself around a card the presenter picked earlier.
Cribbed Notes has a theory, the bag is too small, the cards weren't mixed up properly. He knows how he did it.
"But how did he get the rope to tie itself around the card?" I ask.
He's puzzled. He hadn't thought about that, then explains that he could figure it out if he could see inside the bag.
Another temp is telling anyone who will listen that he just needs to buy the best computer going, 8 GB Ram minimum, and he'll program an app and sell it for 99 cents, expects to make millions. There was this kid in the states, 14 years old, made a dumb game that has penguins off collecting eggs, he made $4 million dollars in 3 weeks, he can do better than some dumb game with penguins...
The crowd is thinning, people are giving up. It's time for me as well, 8:30, I give up, this is the first time I've been here and not gotten work, but from the people here I can guess that I'm close to last on the list, as I leave to drive home the brakes fail completely, a bit edgy, a few pumps and they're back, but I've been meaning to look at them and that's the candle under my ass...
Having Lost My Skeleton...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Dreams
- Hits: 2233
I'm living in a basement suite, some female roomates, but I have a suite of my own. Upstairs live the landlady and her husband.
It's evening, and I'm putting my skeleton back in my body, I'd set it out in the yard to bleach a bit and get some air, I've forgotten why exactly...
...and I've dressed myself in my legs and hips and return to insert the ribs and vertebrae only to discover their missing...
I quiz my roommates, the girls, they don't know what happened to it...I'm beginning to get a little panicked, I need my skeleton, upstairs, asking the landlady, finally her husband comes home and I'm asking him about it and he gruffly replies that he's thrown it out...I'm upset, I need it, for support and to make blood cells, and I'm demanding the girls in the basement look for it, threatening them that if I have to go to the hospital and get another one it'll probably be that of a serial killer or some such, and we all know how that works out...
They're curiously incompetent and unhelpful...
It's sunset, a beautiful evening in the back yard, the skeleton is gone from the trash, of course, who's going to leave a perfectly good skeleton for the trash? And I'm panicking, starting to lose my shape, I look in the mirror and my face is blotchy, red vivid blotches, and I have to get to the hospital right away or I'll be dead soon, and that's unacceptable, I need to make my farewells first, annoyed that I took it out and put it in the yard to air, annoyed at the landlord for throwing it away, and trying to get him to give me a ride to the hospital right away...
The Leg & The Locker
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2511
It's been a week and the leg is finally starting to mend. Or I've gotten smarter about it, and have started on the cautionary tylenol first thing in the morning. By Wednesday it had swollen so that it looked as if I had two knees, the pain, however, was subsiding, and I found with it replaced with a host of other, more trifling, complaints, sore shoulder, neck, burn marks on my temples from the tDCS, the other leg. The leg is walk-able, I'm able to flex it without any stabbing pains, just a generalized soreness, even lying down. It'll be my trick knee, and I'll use it to predict the weather when the kids come 'round, every cloud has a silver lining...
Meanwhile, have begun to empty the locker, so much rubbish...cameras, tripods, bean-pots, listing it off on Kijiji and selling it, I'm amazed always by what sells (and what doesn't). 20 items listed, 4 sold so far, another hundred or so to list, it becomes it's own full time job. If they don't sell on Kijiji move them onto eBay, a bigger market guarantees sales (although not price, though there are surprises here as well). Photograph, touch up, writing ads...it's almost more work than it's worth. Almost...
...but it's lightening my heart.
My Dad Tried to Kill Me with an Alligator
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Link of the day
- Hits: 1878
Harrison Scott Key has a knack for reminiscing, in this article about his father, brother and his childhood in rural Mississippi. I can't help feeling I've cheated my kids a bit on the adventures I've taken them on...
Link: My Dad Tried to Kill Me with an Alligator on Outside Online.com
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