The Transporter Couch

I’ve posted about this before and there’s no sense in belaboring the mechanics of working in a tortilla factory.  However, there is great, great sense in describing how good it has made me feel not just to go back to work but to work in that particular environment.

 First, I just think it’s good to work.  Even if you don’t have to, you must.  Or you get fat and lazy and watch All My Children.  One of the joys I have found in working at this tortilla factory is that the other people there are kind of *surprised* at how hard I work.  For the longest time, specifically times when I didn’t really work there, they just thought I was “the white guy who goes shopping with Hilda.”  Or, well, I suppose that’s what they thought.  But I was treated with a sort of polite deference that bordered on disdain.  Fair enough, for I was indeed the white guy who went shopping with Hilda.  But after working there, and working not tirelessly but always trying to be of assistance to anyone who needed assistance, I gained respect, and camaraderie ensued.  Hilda’s husband, Pedro, who for a long while was skeptical about my relationship to the business (and maybe to his wife), has embraced me as a friend.  Last night he and I and Hilda’s brother (one of serveral) actually had a lengthy philosophical question about religion and marriage. 

So, it’s a joyful thing to know that people like me.   And to know that I work to the satisfaction of others.  And if possible, that my work is, if not an inspiration, at least an example.  I mean, I worked at the counter, took out trash, poured salsas, cooked (sometimes), cleaned, took phone calls, MADE phone calls, added up deposits.  Short of roasting the peppers for the chiles rellenos, I did a little bit of everything.  But most of all, and best of all, I worked the counter and with my honest, engaging smile and my incomprehensibly pretty eyes, I could sell sand to an Arab. 

 Also, I brought fresh fruit every day.  Grapes for sure.  Two or three bags of them, sometimes a mixture.  And pineapple, and strawberries.  And whatever else looked good.  Melons.  Watermelon.  Cantaloupe, honeydew…  At first this was regarded with its own brand of …. again, skepticism.  What?  We nosh on chips and salsa all day long.  We have burritos at will.  Tortillas abound!  OK, I said, but look…. next time you want to snag a chip, have a handful of grapes.  The grapes are a HUGE attraction now.  The melons, well someone has to cut all that up.  But once it’s cut up, people EAT it.  I’ve initiated a trend!  All the fat people at Hilda’s are about a month away from serious good health.  And I came in yesterday and they had taken the watermelon and not cut it up to eat but rather had made this sort of punch out of it!  Yum!  Strawberries are a huge attraction, too, but they go fast, so the grapes are the mainstay.  One day we ate a ton of pineapple and there again, no one wanted to cut it up but once it was done it just disappeared.  Maybe they think it’s a luxury to eat fruit.  I couldn’t say.  I don’t think so.  I think it’s the best thing you can do.

 Not that I don’t eat real food, but having lost a lot of weight, I intend to keep it at bay.  I just hope that Hilda will continue my tradition.  Or maybe I’ll get lonely and start coming to prepare fruit salads for the employees every day!

B

A thousand apologies for my absence over the past three weeks.  Several things happened to interrupt my … flow.  As it were.

For starters, and I made reference to this, I was being of assistance at the tortilla factory.  Then we quite assuredly LOST the counter girl because she got drunk and beat up her husband and had to go to jail.  So suddenly I was the new counter girl.  Or … well … boy.  But anyway, from 6 AM ’til 2 PM I would sell tortillas and Mexican food.  I have a vested interest in this business so I had to do it.  And on some level I enjoyed it.  But I was delighted when I learned last Friday that I was being replaced.  Yay!!!

Second, Hilda took the cover off her pool and after long days of working in a tortilla factory I just loved to dive into it and then take a nap in the sun.  I have the most beautiful tan on the planet, ladies and gentlemen.  And I highly recommend a product called Banana Boat Aftersun (or something like that).  It comes in a cream or a gel.  I prefer the gel.  But as much sun as I have gotten lately, not once have I felt the heat of burn.  It’s basically Aloe Vera and Lanolin but I’m sure there’s some mysterious chemical in there, too.  Ancient Chinese Secret!

After sunning and napping, I would find myself languid and it was past the time when I would likely make a post, so I kept saying to myself, “tomorrow.”  Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.  Tomorrow always came but the posts didn’t.

Moving right along, I have one cat of my own but my sister’s two cats were “visiting” and one of them was horsing around (not catting around) with my own, and they were chasing each other and knocked a glass of diet coke into the keyboard of my laptop, which is to say, into the hard drive.  It sparked and smelled funny and quit working, kinda like gramma in her golden years.  I’d been pondering buying a new computer anyway but I didn’t really relish having the decision tossed onto my plate, especially not when I was so busy and tired.  So THEN, me being prone to inertia, I just got all pissy and said, “Fuck it.”  And for three weeks I didn’t post, didn’t check email, etc.

The cats are gone.  I have a new computer, and new help at the counter.  I can resume my life.  Except I’m about to depart on a ten day trip to West Virginia so there will be another dry spell.   However, I have absolutely nothing to do today and I have a lot of things on my mind and I will begin to share them, albeit piecemeal.