Knockin on Unfriendly Doors

I was sitting at my desk in the shack we call the office reading the paper this morning. The lads were sitting around the unlit Franklin on coffee break. Although the winter had not been bitter, it had seemed overly long. This week we had not needed the heat of the stove to warm our bones. The crew still arranged their chairs in a circle around the stove - out of habit, I guess.

Bill was worrying about catching Avian Flu. He was lecturing Lardass on personal hygiene. Talk about wasted words. Lardass just smiled and nodded. He was proud of his filth and his scent.

George was squinting at the head of a pin through a large magnifying glass, that made his nose monstrously large from where I was sitting.

Lefty was scanning the obituary page of yesterdays paper, probably looking for his own name.

As I said, I was reading the paper, wondering how come we did not get more illegal immigrants looking for work here at the dump. Bush says we need them to do the jobs Americans don't want to do. We used to have a Canadian immigrant, Rasheed, who worked here last year and was paid in Canadian Dollars. We had to let him go after he was mauled by his pet Bengal Tiger. A man with one arm isn't much use around the heavy equipment.

I was formulating a plan to save costs - fire the current crew, and get some guest workers in here at coolie wages - when someone knocked softly on the office door.

"Hey, what was that?" No one ever knocked on the door. We were surprised into silence.
Another knock.
"Come in," I yelled.

A nicely dressed white man with watery blue eyes entered carrying a brown briefcase and what looked like a bible. His companion was an attractive young Asian woman.
"Good Morning, eh, gentlemen." He greeted us as he scanned the room, eyes adjusting to the light. Evangelism had come to the dump.

"Hold on just a second mister." It was Bill, standing up and addressing the couple as they stood in front of the door. "You can't come in here!"
"Is there a problem?"
"Yes there is a problem," Bill shouted, pointing back toward the rest of us with his thumb "We are all in the Jehovah Witness Protection Program. You can't come in here."

After they left, Lardass summed up what the rest of us were thinking, "Brilliant!"