I awoke to the sound of Bono singing about bloody Sundays on my ancient clock radio, an omen of impending doom if ever there was one. Quickly I jumped in the shower and got ready for the new day. By 6:05 I was on the parkway heading north to my new job. I had been there roughly two weeks, and by all accounts it was actually going pretty damn well. I, like most of the free world, really hate working. This job, for once, was somewhat tolerable. I lean away from saying I enjoy it, though, because no one really enjoys work unless they're a pro athlete or do porn.
As I cruised up the parkway in my little work truck, I noticed that traffic was extremely light. In fact, it was almost nonexistent. Again, another bad omen. Seeing this should have made me turn my ass around. But, like I said, it was a new job. No sick days as of yet. So I soldiered on.
I got to work earlier then usual. They had my work orders for the day ready and waiting to go. I was to go way up north Jersey to this monstrosity of a house. This house has three basements and is over 30,000 square feet -- it's like a mini mall sitting in the middle of the woods. And to tops things off, the owner of the house has seventeen Ferraris! Not one, not ten -- seventeen! They were sending me there to finish up all the low voltage work that needed to get done before they started installing the ceiling fans and fixtures. I had about nine thousand speakers to hang and a bunch of other bullshit that someone else should be doing. But, being the model employee that I was, I did as I was told.
Work was progressing nicely until the carpet guys arrived on the job. I started hearing all kinds of screaming coming from outside the house. Even though I was up on the fourth floor and these guys were outside, I heard the yelling over the music coming out of my Dewalt radio. The carpet guys started going crazy and screaming at everybody about having to get their carpet in and all that shit. I wasn't really sure what they were saying since it was in some foreign language.
The crazy carpet guys jacked the big crane/forklift thing to bring their carpet into the fourth floor of the house. In their infinite wisdom, they though that they would be able to stuff HUGE rolls of carpet through these windows without:
- Breaking the window
- Killing anyone beneath
- Dropping the carpet onto the muddy ground below
All was going as well as could be, I guess. Beneath the crane/forklift thing was a single, solitary port-a-john, but they had been lifting the carpet up above it all morning with no problem.
When the food truck pulled up, everybody stopped for lunch. I ran downstairs, grabbed some shitty food, and then found a nice, comfy spot in the house to take my lunch. I was looking out the window and thinking about how the homeowner must wipe his ass with $100 bills when I noticed a silver Ferrari pull up onto the job site. Immediately I knew it was the homeowner. I sat back in my little spot and waited for the fireworks to start -- the builders were way behind schedule so I figured I'd be front row for some good tongue-lashings.
The homeowner meandered around for a bit then walked over to the food truck and grabbed some type of almost-edible food. From my vantage point it looked like a cheesesteak, or maybe some type of sub. For the novice, a cheesesteak off the food truck would seem like a good choice; but the seasoned veteran knows better. Only get drinks and stuff in sealed containers. Never get anything that has to be prepared.
He sat down on a pile of bricks, next to his expensive Ferrari, and dug into his cheesesteak. I laughed to myself, knowing all too well what was to befall him from eating that garbage. He should have just thrown that right into the port-a-john and cut out the middleman.
He hammered down his cheesesteak and followed it up with a big Yoo-hoo. Another bad move. That Yoo-hoo probably came over on the Mayflower. My eyes stayed glued on him -- I knew some bad shit (no pun intended) was brewing in his guts. He just wasn't aware of it yet.
He walked about the job site, speaking to different people here and there. Within twenty minutes I saw him making a beeline for the port-o-john. May God have mercy on his soul -- I was in there earlier in the day and, to say the least, it was like stepping into Auschwitz. The toilet was overflowing with shit.
Just as he climbed into the chamber of death, work resumed on the job site. The crazy foreign carpet guys returned their assembly line of carpet hauling through the window of the house. The crane/forklift thing was about three feet away from the back of the port-o-john.
And then, for a minute, the world just stopped. It was as if Laurel and Hardy had written this next minute of time. The crane operator seemed to be fixated on something else on the job site. The crane began to roll backwards and down off the forks came the carpet. With a thunderous noise, the first of five huge rolls of carpet came crashing down to the earth.
The first roll smashed the top of the port-a-john and sent the masonry guys running for cover. The second roll hit just next to the port-a-john and made it fall over. The remaining three rolls fell on top of the now-downed port-a-john with tremendous force. It sounded like bombs going off. I knelt at the window from which I'd witnessed the entire calamity. Throughout all of this, I had totally forgotten that someone was even in that port-a-john!
The general contractor on the job went running over to the downed port-a-john and slowly opened the door. Surely the homeowner was dead -- or, worse, he had swallowed a turd. But from deep within the crushed port-a-john arose the homeowner, completely and utterly covered head to toe in shit, piss and whatever the fuck else is inside a port-a-john. His pants were still around his ankles and his cell phone was still tightly clenched in his shit-covered hand. He rose to his feet wearily and looked around. No one dared make a sound except the Mexican laborers, who quietly discussed the situation amongst themselves. I distinctly heard a few references to "medya" come out of their mouths.
The homeowner, realizing that is was fifteen degrees and his pants were down, quickly yanked up his shit-filled drawers. Personally, I would have rather sat there naked then have someone else's shit all over my nuts. But maybe that's just me. The GC ran to his truck and grabbed a towel so he could at least clean himself off.
The next thought in my mind: how was he going to get home? Surely he wasn't going to climb into his extremely expensive Ferrari in his shit-covered clothing. But I guess when you're rich, your dignity is worth more then your riches. He slowly and silently walked over to his Ferrari, shit dripping off him, and climbed in and drove away without uttering so much as a single solitary sound.
The following day I returned to the job site to find ten new port-o-johns. I guess Mr. Homeowner realized that two port-o-johns were not enough for a crew of over a hundred guys working on his house. But all of the port-o-johns were now neatly stacked well away from the house, on the opposite side of the property. If you had to shit, you had a ten or fifteen minute walk ahead of you.
I finished my part of the job without seeing the homeowner again. I'm guessing he's probably in therapy somewhere, discussing his feces issues with his severely overpriced therapist.