I loved being a trashman so much that I took a leave of absence from my police career and spent the next few decades working for the sanitation company.
As I explained earlier, the modern garbage trucks all have a large mechanical arm that picks up and empties the trash bins, and this arm can be operated from within the cab of the vehicle — one doesn’t even need to leave the driver seat. But after my first few weeks on the job, I made a formal request that I be allowed to use the old style of rear-loader truck, which requires one to park and climb outside and walk around to the back of the vehicle, take the lid off the silver trash can with one’s thick-gloved hands, and use one’s own human strength to lift and dump the can into the rear of the truck; then yank down a lever that activates a blade panel inside the refuse body which sweeps and compacts the trash to make room for the next load.
“You’re telling me that you want to use a waste-collection vehicle of the less-efficient type that we discontinued?” asked my boss at the garbage company, blinking in disbelief.
“Yes,” I said. “I desire the full experience of hefting each trash can myself and then pulling the lever to mash the garbage down.”
My boss blinked more and said: “All the guys on our team were extremely thankful when the company switched over to using the new side-loader trucks with the automated grab-lift; yet now YOU wanna go back to using the outdated model?”
“That is correct,” I said. “I find the mechanical arm to be too impersonal.”
My boss was more confused than angry about this; so he said: “Look, I guess I don’t care how you do it, as long as you get your route done on-time every day — and you’ve proven to be one of our more reliable guys, so far…”
“Thanks!” I smiled proudly.
“...HOWEVER,” my boss continued, “I’m not going to invest the company’s money in an older model of vehicle, just to satisfy your fetish. So, here’s the deal: If you wanna fork out your own cash to purchase a rear-loader truck, I won’t disallow you from using it.”
My countenance brightened: “Are you saying that I can drive an older truck, as long as I pay for the vehicle myself?”
“That is correct,” my boss nodded gravely.
“O! Thank you so much!” I gave my boss a firm, manly hug and also a brief peck on the cheek. Then I left his office to go garbage-truck shopping.
In the classified ads of our free local newspaper, under the heading “heavily used but well-built”, I found a very nice waste-collection vehicle that had a big hydraulic lever for a reasonable price. So, after taking it for a test drive, I wrote out a check and bought the machine. — Then I proceeded to fulfill my duties as a garbage collector with a much-improved spirit.
Being a trashman was perhaps my most rewarding career. I got to know all the people whose garbage bins I emptied every week, and they wrote me thank-you notes; and I was able to grow my hair out.
§
Then I decided to shift gears and do another career change: This time I opted to go to school for brain surgery. So I got my diploma and became a brain surgeon. My first patient’s name was Mary.
“You’re not, by any chance, related to the Magdalene or the Virgin?” I asked, while washing my hands in preparation for the procedure.
“No,” she said.
“Alright, well let me explain what’s going to happen during the operation,” I said, while pointing to a piece of paper on which was printed a line-drawing of the human head. “We plan on entering into this lobe over here and removing the tumor. Then you’ll be able to live a normal life again. How does that sound?”
“That sounds good; thanks!” said Mary, my patient.
So my first brain surgery went exactly according to plan. My nurses did a stellar job passing me whatever tools I asked for, when I needed them. So, after the procedure concluded, I wrote up a positive recommendation on behalf of my facility’s nursing division and sent it to the insurance company (our clinic is located in the U.S., where all medical services are throttled severely by middlemen); and the result of this formal request is that my nurses received a 3% increase in wages. That is almost unheard of, in the free-market system.
§
Having mastered brain surgery after treating innumerable patients, I switched careers yet again and became a lumberjack, because my skill-set was easily transferable.
So I chopped trees down for several years. Then I also acquired certification as an arborist and began to perform branch-trimming, alongside the same crew from the logging company that I had been working with.
Eventually I got scared because, one day, I climbed up very high, and the trunk began to tilt hard westward; so I scrambled down, and the tree ended up falling directly upon me. (My crew forgot to yell “Timber!”) But the injury wasn’t life-threatening — I just lost my left arm; and, as I’m right-hand dominant, this didn’t matter much: I almost didn’t bother to replace it, but the lumber company’s insurance stated that I was owed, in compensation, one black-gloved mechanical arm-hand combo; so I got that installed, and it works pretty well.
§
Next April, I met up with some of my old buddies from my trash-collecting days — we all attended our foreman’s wedding reception (this was his fourth wife). The moment they saw my replacement appendage, they marveled, and their ringleader (my dear ex-colleague Dustman Hinnom) quipped: “I thought that you were AGAINST mechanical arms.” — He was making a reference to the fact that I was known for buying my own rear-loader garbage truck and always emptying the trash bins manually. — So we all shared a laugh.
After the wedding, I became a specialist in Deep Space Aliens. Then I worked in a dangerous research lab, testing ripped hazmat suits.
Eventually I returned to being a policeman, tho. That is my favorite job of all, aside from fireman and astronaut. Thankfully, my former precinct still remembered me. I was old and white-haired, when I returned to the Force (I looked like God, to tell the truth), but I had maintained my cardiovascular system and my hand-eye coordination very well; despite my mechanized limb. And my body fat percentage (BFP) was extremely healthy for a man of my height.
So my first distress call, after having been away from my career in law enforcement for more than twenty-seven years, was an armed robbery at a liquor store. The clerk on duty at the time called me on the emergency hotline and said “Come quick,” so I did, and I saved the day.
My second distress call was a man who was trying to administer a medicinal shot to his American Saddlebred, but the animal was resisting. So I approached the horse slowly, so as not to startle it; then I smoothed its mane with my black-gloved hand while whispering sweet nothings into its ear. The stableman was thus able to perform the injection without the creature even noticing — it neither bucked nor shied, as it was preoccupied with the friendly attention that I was administering.
I’ll just tell you about the third distress call on my list, and then I gotta go meet some friends for coffee.
My next call was from the owner of a butcher shop. He was having a hard time slaughtering his hog. I drove to the destination as fast as I could; and, stepping into the premises from the rear entryway (this is how the butcher instructed me to approach: “Don’t use the main door — that’s for customers,” he cried; “I’m out in back with Betsy”), I encountered a disturbing sight:
The man was chasing a squealing pig around the killing floor with his bolo knife held high. — So I de-escalated this situation.
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