Not That it Matters

I was sitting at the Manager's desk in the cob house, catching up on paperwork this morning when Lardass came in, wet from the rain storm and mumbling to himself. He threw his dripping gloves down on the floor and stomped around rattling cups and the coffee pot.
"What's the problem now?" I finally looked up, hoping it would be one of those simple to solve life-work contradictions that His Lardness found so troubling. Naive me.

"Aw, some asshole left a cannister of antimatter in the plutonium take-and-leave section. For fuck's sake, anyone knows that you don't just leave antimatter lying around where some kid could find it and bring it to school. (Hello class, Here's my science project. Kaboom.)"

For once, he had good reason to be annoyed. Antimatter is about as stable as Maria Carey on crystal meth. A pound of the stuff was said to be as powerful as the kind of nuclear bombs you have nighmares about. But plutonium is almost impossible to get fissionable. Antimatter is as easy as a three dollar whore on prom night. Drop it or bump it the wrong way and you get a huge vacant crater where your dump and town used to be, preceded by a gigantic fireball that can be seen in Iowa. The loss of human life would be immeasurable.

"What did you do with it?" I was tapping my pencil impatiently, I had a board meeting in a half an hour and was trying to get my notes in order. Some one was always after my ass for this or that perceived malfeasence. I needed to assure them that I had a Plan, I know my priorities and I am in charge.

Lardass let out a snicker that sounded like the old woodie woodpecker cartoon. "What did I DO? you ask? Like, there is something you can DO about a cannister of antimatter? Hmmn. Let me see what it says in the procedure manual....funny, there is no fucking entry for antimatter in the procedure manual! I wonder why! Maybe because you need to contain it in a lead-lined magnetically balanced hemispheric dumpster? And we ain't got no fucking extra lead lined yada yada dumpsters..."

Lardass was such a dolt. I sometimes wonder why we keep him on the payroll. Then I remember. We don't get a lot of new blood in the dump business, at least not in terms of applicants. Young people just don't dream about working at the dump, these days.

"Wait a minute." I said consulting the asset board which hung on my wall.. I pointed to an icon that represented specialized dumpsters. The new arrival #3408 was located in the north forty near the big slag heap. "How about this one?" I pointed to it with my pencil.

"That thing got a hemi?" he asked.

"Get the fuck out of here and get that shit secured. I got a meeting to go to." He stomped out into the rain, smiling at his little joke.