An Oldie but a Goodie

Yet another relic from deep within my hard drive. For a few months between graduating from high school and going to college I worked at a temp agency (a different one than I work at now) doing day labor stuff, mostly working in factories. My first assignment was pushing shopping carts at the local Sam's Club. I bitch and moan quite a bit, but I think it makes for a nice effect.

Andy Hates Shopping Carts

In the weeks since graduation I have been looking for work, partly to earn money, partly to get my dad off of my back about my laziness. And, seeing as nobody will hire a teenager that's going to be leaving in seven weeks, I had to turn to a temp agency. I told them I was mostly interested in clerical work, but that I'd also be ok with "light labor." I don't know why I said this, perhaps it was out of sheer desperation. As such, I suckered myself into pushing shopping carts for a day at Sam's Club.

I don't think I've ever done anything quite so stupid.

I arrived at my designated time of 11 o'clock, directly in the heat of the day, mind you, with the asphalt of the concrete amplifying the heat. I received a little orange vest so I wouldn't get hit by cars, a walkie-talkie for contacting me if a customer need my assistance in lifting some huge and completely unnecessary purchase into their SUV, and a name tag. My fellow shopping cart wrangler was named Chris, a rather short and vocal young man, also a temp worker. Chris thanked God repeatedly at my arrival, he was "barely holding up and really needed the help." Oh boy, this is perhaps going to be worse than I thought.

I learned many interesting things about Chris and the nature of shopping carts while working. Chains of shopping carts are like caterpillars- nasty, uncooperative, minimum wage caterpillars. One person can reasonably handle a load of about ten or fifteen without breaking themselves, but to save time two or more people are used to handle longer chains. One person will push from the back while the other pulls on the front of the chain to steer the carts into the shopping cart receptacle area. This is, as you can imagine, mind-numbingly boring work, and inevitably leads to prolonged conversation between coworkers. Chris did most of the talking.

Chris is "Italian," although he does not pronounce this as you or I would, for Chris is also a "Virginian." Instead, Chris pronounces it "Eye-talian" and "Vuur-ginian." I quickly learned that Chris is also a rather compulsively violent person, and recently spent 90 days in jail for assault. He blames the Utah court system, because "Utahns- they think they can just talk down to you. They think they're better than everybody else." One quickly comes to recognize that everybody hates Chris- from the police officer who arrested him, to the judge who sentenced him, even down to his manager. Sam's Club is dressing their employees in promotional Real Salt Lake merchandise (although I don't know why anyone would want to endorse that dead-end team), and Chris took his shirt home to wash (as everything you wear while laboring in the hot sun inevitably gets soaked in sweat). His manager was not pleased, and berated poor Chris for not returning the shirt. Chris spent the next two hours expending his endless ill-will towards said manager. I wanted to strangle Chris before the day was out.

You also learn that very little of what Chris says is actually true. The more interesting of Chris' rather fantastic proclamations were:

• While living in Italy his dad trained him to be a hit man. Which, apparently, is a lot easier in Italy than it is in the United States, because should you get caught (which Chris reckons is about a one in sixteen chance) you can just buy your judge off.

• Chris was recently propositioned by "four fine-ass chicks in bikinis" on the bus to come spend the weekend with them at Bear Lake. If I was a fine-ass chick I would not be caught dead anywhere near the likes of Chris, much less actually talk to him.

• If he didn't need the work he would knock in his his manager's teeth in for yelling at him about the Real shirt. Given their respective musculatures, I would give Chris about 10 seconds of consciousness before getting laid out.

My shift ended at seven, and I was positively elated to leave. Exhausted, physically defeated, and fatigued to the point of dizziness, but elated none the less. Were it not for Children of Bodom I probably would have fallen asleep on the drive back. When I took my shoes off at home I discovered lovely little blisters on my feet. The one on my right shaped like an oval, the one on my left mysteriously shaped like a seven. The next time you see someone pushing a line of shopping carts at your local grocery store, give him a smile and a nod, they deserve it.