Ever since I've started walking to my job at 3:30 in the morning, I've been waiting to turn around and see someone following me. I KNEW it was going to happen! I mean, come on: Young, defenseless girl traveling alone on a dark abandoned road in the quiet of the night, I'm pretty much a glowing green target. Being the superstitious scaredy-cat I am, every noise makes me whirl around with fists flying. And of course, it's usually just a bunch of windswept leaves scurrying harmlessly along.
But not today.
Today I was just walking under a dying streetlamp when I heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps behind me. I stiffened with fear, then berated myself for my overactive imagination and kept walking, if only a little faster. But the footsteps didn't stop. The slapping sound was echoing in the otherwise silent street, and my heart started to race as I realized that the footsteps really were coming after me! Panicking, I spun around to face my attacker across the pavement.
It was a duck.
No, really. I'm serious. It was a duck. Wandering along the parking lot without a care in the world. Minding his own business. Then I go and scream in terror and ruin his morning. I'm a horrible person.
Anyway, he looked at me as if to say, "What? You got a problem, Lady?"
After blinking a few times to make sure I was awake, I laughed my scaredy-cat head off and went on my merry way to work.
OH. But work today was NOT merry!
Okay, so in case you didn't know, at work I am Chief Executive in charge of Relocation of Human Detritus.
Okay, yeah. I'm a garbage man. Woman. Whatever. I take out over 100 bags of garbage every morning. How's that for starting your day off right? It's actually usually not so bad. The trash cans are usually full of papers and tape, and the only food that I usually have to deal with are granola bars and fruit. (Oh, those professors and their fruit . . .) But today I had a wonderful surprise waiting for me in one of the lobby trashcans.
Apparently, on Friday somebody had a delightful bottle of chocolate milk. But they couldn't finish the whole thing, and they wanted to keep the bottle, so they just dumped the milk into the trash can - they didn't mean to miss the bag. That person left, and that night the building was locked down for the weekend because of General Conference. No one went in or out of that building for three days. Which means that the puddle of chocolate milk in the bottom of the trashcan sat around for three days all by it's lonesome, until it became something barely resembling milk at all. That's how I found it. Half-solidified, discolored, rank, vomit-inducing chocolate decay.
So I had to clean the trashcan. But the problem is that I'm short, and I have little T-Rex arms. And those lobby trashcans are just a little too deep for me to reach the bottom standing up. Therefore, in order to clean up the rancid milk I had to tip the trash can to a 60 degree angle and then, basically, climb inside. Anyone who walked passed would have seen a pair of stubby legs kicking furiously from a trash can that was emitting strange gagging sounds.
(*shudders*)
It was nasty. So all in all, not one of the best mornings I've ever had, but a fairly eventful one.
3 comments:
ahh yes the highlights of being a janitor. My personal favorite was the mix of the schools mashed potatoes and gravy with the chocolate milk in it with a little bit of rotting fruit. And because people suck they never tell you that there is this beautiful concoction is in the bottom of the garbage can and you dump it all over your hands. yep found memories doing that.
haaaaaahaha jessica I'm sorry about the yucko milk. I wish a duck was stalking me though!! that would be the coolest!!
I am glad it was just a duck. I am glad you like your job, despite the gross. I do't like that you travel in the dark. In my mind you're still 5 and walking to kindergarten.
See if you can recruit the duck to be your little guard duck. Then I'd feel better.
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