Trade Fever

A frigid dawn gave way to an icy bright blue sky this morning - the second day of Spring. Tuesdays are always slow at the dump. The crew looked like big orange wraiths bundled in their thermals, hoods and parkas as they came through the door for coffee break. Seated at my desk in the cobb shack that I call my office, I had to hold the papers down against the wind that blew in through the door as the lads surged through the door.

I was looking through a folder of documents that had been faxes over from the Dump Manager over at the Newton Upper Falls Landfill. He was interested in doing a deal. He was looking for a Class A Front End Loader operator. All my guys are expert at the heavy equipment, well almost all. (Lefty had to go back for re-training after the unfortunate fork -lift incident over in the HAZMAT tank. That little mistake caused three hundred gallons of radioactive liquid Pu239 to contaminate the soil; now, no one can go into that area for another 50 thousand years.)

The NUFL dump manager had sent brief resumes and photos of some of his offered “trades.” Wendy looked to be in her mid thirties, red headed and buxom. Good credentials so far, I mused. She had one of those slightly unfocused eyes (like Reba McIntyre) that I find tantalizingly sexy. But she had only been in the dump business for a few months (“…since I got laid off as a pole dancer when they closed down the Purple Banana Club.”) Hmmn. Maybe I could use some extra skilled help in the office… But, No, this would never work out especially if George was going to stay on the team. Among his weaknesses, redheads were at the top of the list in bold uppercase letters. He would be sniffing around the office like a randy Labrador retriever. No, the only workable deal here would be to trade George for Wendy. But then I would lose his inestimable value. Part of his assignment is to calculate the estimated fill-rate of the neutrino dumpster. He had spent the last week counting junk quarks and other discarded subatomic particles. And entering the totals into His PDA. He is the only one on my staff who can do arithmetic. I needed that skillset.

The next trade candidate was Melvin. His photo looked like a police mug shot except he was grinning broadly, showing a slight jutting jaw. He looked like your typical joe six pack with a malocclusion. His resume stated a work objective as: “To be associated with a work group that shares a belief in Scientology, being nice and creating an hygienic workspace.”

Next.

Richard Wanker looked like an interesting candidate, One of his references was quoted “Dick is a real heavy hitter who can be outstanding in the right field.” Crap. I don’t need a baseball hit dog, I need people who can keep the 900 horsepower shredder-bailer from jamming-up during peak load cycles.

I tossed the folder in the trash. I might as well just stick with the dumpfucks I know.