At the end of my very last day as a teenage garbage man, I was emotionally composed, but my right workboot completely fell to pieces. I’d bought them both brand new four years earlier, embarrassed by how new and unused they’d looked, and eager to break them in so I wouldn’t look so completely inexperienced. That afternoon as I sat in the passenger seat of Carl’s Audi, my right boot looked sadly up at me, obviously disappointed that it had taken the last four years so much more seriously than I.
My toes quickly chilled as the air conditioning chilled the footwell, but it did little to cool the anger and resentment I felt from that boot. The left one was resigned to giving me the silent treatment, but the right one was clearly burning. Its Vibram sole had torn free from its leather upper, and its tongue was clenched in anger at the way I’d soiled its reputation.
They’d shown up each day simply to work. With little self-discipline or internal restraint, I had showed up each day only for my paycheck. It was fitting they should predict I wouldn’t be welcomed back to Swartswood, and they didn’t seem to want to return anyway. They were now the ones embarrassed of me, and just weren’t up for another season contributing to my stupidity.
Sometimes it’s hard to tell if something is too "wrong" to laugh at. When I first watched the Farrelly brothers films Kingpin and Something About Mary, I wasn’t sure it was okay to laugh, even though my sides hurt and I was crying from things I’d never seen before on film. While I was a teenage garbage man, I laughed just as hard all the time, but didn’t develop the sense that it might be "wrong" except in hindsight. I watched a Junior Ranger give himself a wicked chemical burn after he mistakenly used drain cleaner to clean a toilet seat. We watched one of our own torment a middle-aged crew leader until the crew leader threatened to beat him. We watched a full time maintenance worker hoard adult magazines picked out of the trash in a locked desk drawer, then violently swear at us each morning after we urinated on his collection.
Nothing was sacred, nothing was off limits, and no weakness was unexploited. My boots knew this, but were way ahead of me in maturity. They would never have endorsed willfully jumping out of a moving pickup truck and claiming the crew leader pushed me. They were ashamed of what was poured into the coffee pot, the glovebox, and the refreshment stand snow cone machine during our shifts, but these were our milestones toward ending the summer successfully entertained.
As Carl and I pulled out of the park for the last time, I realized it was pointless to keep those worn-out boots. They were beyond repair and obviously hated me, so I hit the automatic window button and tossed them out. Let someone else pick up for a change, I figured.
Carl was surprised when I asked him to pull over just seconds after rolling the window back up, but he pulled onto the sharp gravel shoulder and watched me walk fifty yards back in my dirty socks to retrieve those boots from the weeds. For the first time in four years, I was picking up something because it was the right thing to do, not because I had to. Maybe it was just a boot, but I think it smiled at me a little, knowing there might be hope for me after all.
My toes quickly chilled as the air conditioning chilled the footwell, but it did little to cool the anger and resentment I felt from that boot. The left one was resigned to giving me the silent treatment, but the right one was clearly burning. Its Vibram sole had torn free from its leather upper, and its tongue was clenched in anger at the way I’d soiled its reputation.
They’d shown up each day simply to work. With little self-discipline or internal restraint, I had showed up each day only for my paycheck. It was fitting they should predict I wouldn’t be welcomed back to Swartswood, and they didn’t seem to want to return anyway. They were now the ones embarrassed of me, and just weren’t up for another season contributing to my stupidity.
Sometimes it’s hard to tell if something is too "wrong" to laugh at. When I first watched the Farrelly brothers films Kingpin and Something About Mary, I wasn’t sure it was okay to laugh, even though my sides hurt and I was crying from things I’d never seen before on film. While I was a teenage garbage man, I laughed just as hard all the time, but didn’t develop the sense that it might be "wrong" except in hindsight. I watched a Junior Ranger give himself a wicked chemical burn after he mistakenly used drain cleaner to clean a toilet seat. We watched one of our own torment a middle-aged crew leader until the crew leader threatened to beat him. We watched a full time maintenance worker hoard adult magazines picked out of the trash in a locked desk drawer, then violently swear at us each morning after we urinated on his collection.
Nothing was sacred, nothing was off limits, and no weakness was unexploited. My boots knew this, but were way ahead of me in maturity. They would never have endorsed willfully jumping out of a moving pickup truck and claiming the crew leader pushed me. They were ashamed of what was poured into the coffee pot, the glovebox, and the refreshment stand snow cone machine during our shifts, but these were our milestones toward ending the summer successfully entertained.
As Carl and I pulled out of the park for the last time, I realized it was pointless to keep those worn-out boots. They were beyond repair and obviously hated me, so I hit the automatic window button and tossed them out. Let someone else pick up for a change, I figured.
Carl was surprised when I asked him to pull over just seconds after rolling the window back up, but he pulled onto the sharp gravel shoulder and watched me walk fifty yards back in my dirty socks to retrieve those boots from the weeds. For the first time in four years, I was picking up something because it was the right thing to do, not because I had to. Maybe it was just a boot, but I think it smiled at me a little, knowing there might be hope for me after all.
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