Basically I’m really poor and I don’t have a job. I mean I guess that ten percent of the rest of America doesn’t either but how am I supposed to spend my money poorly if I don’t have any money to spend? I used to mow my professor’s lawn but I don’t think I did a very good job because when I asked if I could mow her lawn again this summer she told me that a twelve year old took the position. And then I got fired from Barnes and Noble and my old manager runs and hides from me every time I go there now.
So I decided to go on Craigslist and see what the deal was and I absentmindedly applied for a roofing job. The funny part is that they hired me. When I talked to my boss during the interview he said that it would be the hardest thing that I’ve ever done in my life and that 90% of people quit on their first day. And I was all, “Maybe you don’t know me but I am Brad Romance. I have the worst breath of anyone I know. I watch action movies. AND I can blow fire. I am a man. I can do anything.”
For some reason he hires me and I show up for work the next day at six in the morning without getting any sleep because I was SO EXCITED! Little did I know that when you roof a house, you have to carry heavy things and you are not in an air conditioned environment and people don’t serve you lemonade. I worked my freaking butt off.
This is how you roof a house:
1. Carry all the heavy things out to the front lawn of the house and surround the house with tarps.
2. Rip all the shingles off the house with a pitchfork while standing on a makeshift six inch wide platform that you hope stays connected to the roof you are currently tearing apart.
3. Pull the tarps with all the shingles to the dumpster and throw them in.
4. Get covered in dirt and scratched everywhere.
5. Carry fifty pound bundles of shingles to the roof, on a ladder, and hope that you don’t fall off.
6. Cry.
I looked like this halfway through the day-
Notice the tears.
As it turns out we were roofing the minister’s house that day. For some reason the minister watched us roof his house for over three hours. Now I can’t speak for the minister but he either has a strange fascination with roofing houses or a strange fascination with the shirtless men roofing them. His wife did not seem to share his interest.
When I got home I looked like I had just barely survived the attack on Hogwarts. I was bleeding freely from both my knees and I pretty sure that one of my toenails is going to fall off any day now. The problem was that I had to go back for a second day because I was not going to be a statistic. I refused to be a part of the 90% that quit on the first day! Fortunately for me, SOMETHING AMAZING HAPPENED the next day!
When I showed up to work, everyone was fairly surprised that the skinny kid who couldn’t do anything was back but I pushed through and I went to roof my second house! The most terrible thing about the second day was that there was no hose to refill my water bottle and there was no public restroom nearby. I asked what we were supposed to do and I discovered that the rest of the roofers just pee into their empty water bottles in the equipment trailers. The good thing was that I was so dehydrated that I just didn’t have to pee for a whole thirteen hours! I felt like this-
By the end of the day we had finished early so my boss told me and this other guy (we’ll call him Roger) to clean out the trailers and make them look all organized. Now THAT was something I could do. So Roger and I are moving saws and such out of the trailer and we start to small talk and he asks if I have a girlfriend. (I don’t think that many of these men are very intuitive.) And I said, “No, I’m gay.” And he pauses for a second and goes, “Oh well since you were so open with me, I’m a little bi-curious myself.” I am a little surprised at how this conversation is going in the trailer of a roofing company filled with construction tools. “Oh that’s cool.” I pick up something, walk out of the trailer, walk back in and lean up against the shelves and GUESS WHAT HE SAYS! “Well, this is probably a little forward but wanna hook up tonight?” I was floored. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! I haven’t been hit on all summer and it happens when I have been stabbed, scratched, and burned? When I am drenched in sweat, sorer than I have ever been, bleeding and chafing everywhere?! At a roofing company?!! You want to see if I want to “hook up” when I feel and look like this-
To top it all off I was leaning against a bottle of pee.
I quit after the day was over. But! I made it! I made it two days when most people only make it in one! So take that world! What can we learn from this? I may be able to blow fire but I am still broker than a joker.
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