Long story short: in financial desperation, I sign on as a skillless labourer to one of those crooked temporary labour agencies. Day after day, I’m sent to jobs with undereducated young men of all ages who, other than their financial situations, are mostly normal, if a little out of their freaking minds. But don’t be fooled: a good crew of temps is one where everyone can read at a grade 5 level, and has only minor misdemeanors on his criminal record.
On my fourth day with the agency, the gruff assignment guy (and owner/operator of the agency) asks if I’m afraid of heights, and I lie. I’m assigned to a roofing company.
At the office, I’m teamed up with Mr. Swearsalot. (If I replace all his swears with fruit names, this article is almost printable.) Other than brief introductions, we haven’t said a word to each other. He starts talking on the way to the site.
“So, three people were shot by a relative of mine last weekend.” I look at Mr. Swearsalot, wondering what to say.
“Really?”
“Yep. He was really orangeing drunk,” replies Swearsalot.
I’m still not sure how to respond. “Really?”
We drive in silence for the next 15 minutes. My terror mounts.
At 6:00 a.m., I climb the ladder onto the tarpaper roof of a high school. Our task: sweep the underlying tarpaper and kick the pebbles from the tar so the roofers can lay new rolls of tarpaper.I show Mr. Swearsalot how, because he isn’t listening to the boss. The job is pretty orangeing easy, he says.
Trouble: Mr. Swearsalot isn’t kicking any of the gravel off. I’m singled out by the boss and told that I’m doing a pretty plummy job, and that I should redo everything Swearsalot and I have done.
I clean up after my slope-browed miscreant of a workmate, and we’re moved to an isolated section of the roof. To my terror, conversation erupts again when Mr Swearsalot asks, “What’s the oldest pomegranate you’ve ever oranged?
I look at him. He continues.
“When I was 19, I oranged a 33-year-old pomegranate until her kiwi was orangein’ swollen!”
“Right. I bet those 33-year olds know how to orange, eh?” I say, in sarcastic disbelief. I try to look at him like I think he’s an idiot. He fails to pick up.
“Yeah. She looked orangeing 25, but she oranged like a orangeing 33-year-old!”
“Great,” I say.
“So, how many orangeing kids do you have?”
“None.”
“Don’t you have an old lady?”
“Like a mom?” I think I knew what an old lady was, but I needed to make sure.
“No! Like a pomegranate you orange up the apple-hole!” he screams. I flinch internally, but try to put on a brave face. I also briefly consider making a joke about his mom’s apple-hole but reconsider. Instead, I make an attempt to swear too much.
“Yeah, I do. And we orange, but we don’t want any apple-eating oranges yet.” He smiles approvingly.
“Well, I gots three. I got my first little apple when my old lady wanted to leave me. I knocked her up so she couldn’t. ” Again, I give him the idiot look, and he fails to understand. “Now I have three little apples, but I dumped my pomegranate when she started orangin’ complainin’ too much.”
The afternoon continues, “climaxing” with the terrifyingly gross tale of when he went as hard as he could for his pomegranate’s apple-hole, tearing the skin surrounding his banana, and making a three-stitch gash in her mother-orangeing apple-hole. They end up at the orangeing hospital, and have to tell the orangeing screwdriver (tool names are to represent racist terms) doctor what happened. He stitches them up and tells them to use some apple-hole lube if they’re going to apple-hole-orange. Luckily, this shift ends.
We drive back to the agency, and Swearsalot asks if I’d like to get a beer with him. I tell him I have to “orangeing pick up my appley old lady, and you know how orangeing pomegranates can get when you’re late.” Again, he approves, and I leave the agency very quickly with my $54.40 (after deductions).
While an experience such as this would be enough to scare your average lazy guy away from temp agencies for the rest of his life, I’ll probably be back. As a student, there’s no better job than one you can show up to on any day you want, and take home cash at the end of. Don’t believe you’ll never be that desperate, either. I was.
