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My jobs.

An Alert Life in the Corn reader responded to my last post in horror. "Did you really have to rub ointment onto the bedsores of an elderly woman?", she asked. My response is, uh, yeah. After all, everything I post in my 'blog is the unadulterated Truth!

OK, even *I* couldn't write that without laughing so hard that migrating geese began to commit suicide in Gary's flame-fest like thirty-pound feathery moths. But I swear to you: that's true, and Baby Jesus in his hay-scented manger, I wish it weren't. I've had a lot of... interesting... jobs in my short time on this ball of dust and tears. Feast.

1) Home Healthcare Aide for Ms. S******.

Ms. S was a ninety-two year old woman who, by stubborn request, lived alone in a tiny shack with her incontinent bitch of a dog, Sandy, and a seventy-five year old cat whom I never saw. Once a day, a Meals on Wheels delivery was made to her for lunch, and every other weekend, her son drove down from near New York City in his cigar-reeking Midlife-Crisis-mobile, which I think was a Jag. In the interim, there was me: a highschool freshman, riding more than a mile and a half on my shag-me-now Huffy bike, preparing her dinner and feeding her vile beasts. Ms. S's body was shot: she'd broken her hip and was entirely bedridden save when she had to relieve herself, but her mind was uncannily sharp. When it came time for her to do something in her chamber pot, I would go and hide in her bathroom and try not to listen to the grunts from the other room, dreaming of going to Greece. Ms. S was sharp, but good Lord, she was weird, and for ME to say that, she was certifiable. One day, she told me that there was a fish in her refrigerator and that she wanted that for dinner. When I opened the fridge, the "fish" that confronted me was not only a smoked fish, but was not a species of fish I had ever seen, and believe me when I tell you that I've seen a LOT of fish. The creature's clouded eye gazed at me accusingly. I brought the fish to her and she regarded it for a moment before motioning to the middle part of the beast with her gnarled claw. "I want to eat that middle part. Can you flake up the meat and make me some fish salad?" I've never suppressed my gag reflex so deftly before or since. As I sawed through the beast's spine with a butter knife and got out the jar of Evil Satan-Goo (mayo), I went to a happy place where there were unicorns to ride and Snicker Bars grew on bushes. Ms. S was full-blooded German and made no effort to hide the fact that she resented the villification of her people by History Channel documentaries. "If we knew the Jews would whine this much about the Holocaust and make us look this bad, we would have made sure to finish the job." That night, her "fish" salad had a very carefully expectorated phlem globber mixed into it; she had no tastebuds left and no sense of smell, and ate it with gusto. [Kidding! Maybe!] But the worst was her dog, Sandy. Sandy was the longhaired product of some bastardized mix, and since she pissed on herself with clockwork regularity and never got groomed, she smelled like a hobo's undercarriage. Sandy and I loathed each other intensely, so much so that objects placed between us would burst into smoky flame. The best was when I'd let her out and she'd pretend to poop, and then would lay cable on the kitchen floor while I was watching her do it, just beyond Ms. S's view. But I would have cleaned up Sandy's messes for a eon's worth of time to not have to rub foul ointment into Ms. S's bone-revealing bedsores and hose down the fungal growth she'd acquired from being too stubborn to lay on a bed; no, she sat and slept all damn day in a leather Barcalounger. Fortunately, her son confiscated it and got her a Craftmatic bed so that she could roll over, but not before I wanted to take my own life. She cried a little when I left to move to Maine, and as I left her home for the last time, I made double sure to give Sandy the finger.

2) House-Slave: Holiday Inn, Odlin Road, Bangor, Maine.

Nothing is quite as soul-crushing as spending your weekends and summers tediously cleaning up humanity's nast in un-airconditioned hallways and dank linen closets. My job consisted of me picking up the skin-flake laden filthy linens from the carts of the cleaning staff and transporting and sorting it in the laundry room; filling the closets with the "fresh" linens once laundered, and maintaining the outer appearance of the hallways and windows. Some of my "fondest" memories are of accidentally hearing some flight attendant screaming like she was being torn apart by wolverines as she was being pleasured by a fine Banguh townie; finding a toilet that'd been clogged by no less than seven condoms in a "bridal suite"; killing a spider that was as large as a teacup saucer with a tiny "complimentary" canister of hairspray in a closet while I screamed like a girl, and watching dumb British flight attendants rushing outside during a horrible thunderstorm to see the hail, only to return bruised, wet and cursing. Duh.

3) Galley-Bitch, The Bear's Den, Memorial Union, UMaine

At UMaine, my first job was working the sub-sandwich line and the grill; eventually, I was able to graduate (I still get chills at the honor!) to Pizza Hut. As Marleina can attest, when I came home, I reeked of onions and death and wanted to mix myself a Drano cocktail. The nastiest part came when they put me on sub-line and some gigantic football player would come to ask for a sandwich. This is an actual transaction I had with a football player, who, for anonymity's sake, I will call "Neckisaswideashistorso", or Mr. "N" for short.

Me: What can I get for you today?
Mr.N: [picking nits out of his ha'r]
Me: Sir? What {makes "question" handmotion} can {hand motion} I {motions to self} get {mimes making sandwich} you {motions to him}?
Mr. N: Me wanna triple meat ham "Italian" sammich.

[As an aside, in Maine, sub sandwiches are called "Italians", but you don't pronounce it the regular way; no, it's "Eye-tal-ee-yan." I got nothin'. ]

Me: Would you like a spread?
Mr. N: [distracted by a vagina walking by]
Me: [talking like Helen Keller] Mayo, mustard or hummus?
Mr. N: Mayo. Me like mayo.

I begin to make the sandwich, and he's watching intently like I am going to gingerly rub my male member on it when he's not looking. He begins to grunt something.

Mr.N: No, more mayo! When I bite it I want it to come out the sides of the sammich!
Me: {projectile vomiting}

That's when they decided to put me on grill duty; there, I could hand my customers packets of the vile ooze and they'd apply it themselves, with any luck on another continent. I firmly believe that every person on this earth should have to work in the food service industry at least once; then, on those days when you think that you've had it with your nice desk job, you can recall with relief that you aren't spreading hummus and tuna salad and slapping a slice of provalone on a raisin bagel for an international student who didn't know what any of those things were. Your job might be stressful, but at least it doesn't make you take your 15 minute break to chunk every day. Bulemia is SO '87.

4) Campus Walking Companion, UMaine

This was the easiest job that I have ever had, or will ever have again. Essentially, when people called our "command station" in the basement of the Cutler Death Center and wanted to walk somewhere at night, two uniformed workers would take giant flashlights and take them from point A to B. I worked there for three years and I think I walked ten people. Nobody called. This is because, uh, IT'S EFFING MAINE. We don't have crime. So, I got paid $8 an hour to watch cable TV and do my homework. Kickass.

5) Departmental Assistant to UMaine Anthropology Staff

For two years, I worked as a Work Merit lackey for two professors, Cynthia Mahmood and Paul "Jim" Roscoe. For Cindy, I swore my way though scanning, formatting and binding a book for her, for which I was rewarded with my name being printed in her book (A Sea of Orange: Writings on the Sikhs and India) ; with Jim, I was rewarded with having him send me an email that had, as the subject line, "Christ on a cracker, Dom! What have you done?"

6) Peer Study Abroad Advisor, UMaine

Essentially, I (as a recent study abroad returnee then) was supposed to advise students as to what they could do, and where, and when. In many ways, it really opened my eyes to American culture. 99% of the people who came to my office said that they wanted to go to a country that was "warm and English-speaking." When one woman came to my office and said that she was going to Morocco no matter how I tried to dissuade her, I burst into ragged tears and thanked her for validating my will to go on. Mostly, though, the students I met wanted as few challenges as they could possibly have. When I told them that I once rode in the flatbed of a truck next to a horny he-goat over roads on the edge of an Aegean cliff with a man with one lazy eye and one cataracted one, they went ashy and looked at the brochures for Australia. Fools. That goat and I still write.

7) GE Mortgage Insurance, Raleigh, NC

I had great coworkers whom I love dearly, but I can sum up this job with ten words.

People. Screamed. On. The. Phone. At. Me. All. Damn. Day.

One gentleman once called me a "sadistic Nazi motherf*cker." Fa la la la la! Thank God for that hip flask. And the houdoun doll. And rock cocaine.

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

And then, my current avatar as graduate assistant at the Office of International Services. I have a squirt bottle for unruly internationals. I have a taser. I have an altar to the unseen Clown God. Either my coworkers find them amusing or else they hide their fear well. It's been almost two years working in that office, and while many things have changed, it's there that I feel most alive and myself while on this campus. And, thankfully, I haven't had to hose down anyone yet.

With the bottle.

I remain, as ever,

Dom