Monster Truck

I do whatever comes my way in order to pay the rent. I mean, I don't sexually service white-haired widows, rob convenience stores, artificially inseminate turkeys or anything like that. Those are liesure activities. I usually install or resurface hardwood floors. But I'll mow your stupid lawn or rearrange your goddam furniture if that's what your trip is. Just give me some money and I'll quit complaining. Or at least you won't have to hear me. Somebody else might, but that's just cos they haven't paid me. Maybe I should just bug the snot outta people and charge them a daily rate to make me shut up and go away? Hmm.... That's the entrepeneurial spirit!

Well, until I get my new "I'll shut the fuck up and go away if you pay me to do it" business off the ground, I'll probably continue sanding and installing floors. And for the near foreseeable future, I'll mostly be doing that for a company called AAA Hardwood Flooring. "Company" is actually a flattering word for AAA Hardwood Flooring. The only time one should think of AAA as a legitimate flooring company is when one reads the ad in the yellow pages. At that point, one is making the innocent assumption that, if it's listed in the Yellow Pages, then it must be true. Don't believe everything you read.

Once I pull up in the work van, you have to be naive, delusional, or totally fuckin stupid to continue with your once-lofty, imagined impression of the company that AAA is. The van is a white, 1992 Ford Econoline, though "white" is probably the wrong adjective to describe the color of the AAA van. That poor old truck probably hasn't been washed since it came off the assembly line. Recently, the van developed an ungodly exhaust leak that made smoke billow out through the floor boards while I was driving. The guy I work with and I don't exactly fit the visual profile of model citizens in the first place, and all of a sudden we look like Cheech & Chong, cruisin around in an Up In Smoke van. I considered wearing a respirator, but I'm not wearing a fuckin respirator until I get to the job site. The boss finally sprung to get the exhaust leak fixed. It didn't work. We sealed up the floorboards so that the exhaust has no choice but to spill out through the hood. We no longer have to breathe it (for the most part), but now I'm driving around in the fog half the time.

The van runs badly enough that we often leave it at the job site until we're done, driving another vehicle back in forth in the meantime. Upon my arrival, I've gotten into the habit of rummaging through the van to find a disposable slab of cardboard to place under the crankcase so that I don't leave a giant oil stain on somebody's immaculate driveway. Last Sunday, I parked the rusted-out beast in front of a customer's house so that it'd be there in the morning when I was ready to get started. The house was nice, located in an upper-middle classed neighborhood. I felt like a vandal as I stepped out of the van to leave it on the street for the next 5 days. I looked around guiltily as I got into my friend's car who had followed me there. "Let's get the fuck outta here before anybody says anything," I told her.

We took off, hoping that nobody had gotten her license plate number.