As the week wore on Jim grew comfortable. His initial carelessness returned.
He rambled in the woods, feasted on his uncle’s ample supply of venison, and drank much whiskey.
Thursday came and Thursday went and there were no consequences.
His Yankee pallor disappeared. He was bronzed and game fed. The wiry in him gave way to brawn. It was a solid frame that strode out the wood and into Reed that Tuesday.
As Jim exited the post office clutching a bank statement that confirmed his uncle’s promise the massive frame of Dutch rounded the corner.
The giant paused and gave Jim a steady look over.
And then in his slow pithy way said, “I see ya been lookin’ a’ter yerself.”
Jim shrugged.
“Have ye been lookin’ after da property?”
“Ya bet. Ain’t nothin much to do beside. Place is as spick and span as it was. I’ve moved nothing. It’s all as blessedly neurotic as Hant himself.”
“That ain’t the whole of care.”
“Huh?”
“Ye’ve only dun a quarter.”
“What you want me to start a vegetable garden too?”
“Nah., I mean yea ain’t wise.”
“What? I mean yeah, I thought about joining the mob. But they beat that Connor kid to death…kept wakin’ him up with coke…and kept on beatin. Least that’s what my brother told me. So, yean. I decided not to get wise.”
Dutch shook his head slowly.
“I mean ye look like a fool.”
“Well, I don’t put on airs. And I don’t know much, nor do I care to. I’m a friggin Buddhist ya see. I take the middle way. Worked so far.”
“Won’t here.”
“Huh?”
“Ya didn’t honor the ways.”
“Screw the ways. Frank Sinatra said that I think.”
“Why did’n ya put out the Seng?”
“Cause it’s better as a garnish.”
Suddenly a sharp pain erupted from Jim’s right ear.
“Your better open these fool!” Old Lizzy cried.
“Fuck.” Jim said as he recovered from the shock and surprise.
“I’m getting’ kinda tired of ya. If you weren’t a woman I’da decked ya.”
“I ain’t no woman. I’m a Viking. And if yer hankering for a fight I’ll lick ya right here.”
“Crazy old bat…”
“Ye know what else is old? The ways is old. And ye’d better learn to respect your elders.”
“Wasn’t it your generation that said never trust anybody over thirty?”
“Look fool if you want to keep getting that pay, you’d best follow the way. I rhymed it…I even rhymed it for ya. We’ll know…we’ll know, and your uncle will know, and your inheritance will be as empty as ye.”
“See…there we go. Capitalism…this I understand.”
“Good.” Lizzy said. “Cause if ye don’t at least make a show of heedin than something far deeper, far older, than these hollows will make ye understand.”
“Gotcha auntie.” Jim winked. “I understand more than I let on. Which is why I need to jet, or I won’t beat the sunset. I even rhymed it for ya.”
“Smarts don’t do much good here, fool.” She said as her and Dutch turned as one to go.
“Crazy ass hicks.” Jim said striding down the long meandering trail home.
Though Hant’s circumspection had proved to be a help round morning. It became a hindrance as noon began to roll on into evening.
Jim wanted one thing.
Fire.
To establish a hearth was to establish a heartbeat. The instinct for flame was as primordial as the fear of that which lurked beyond its perimeter.
He needed fuel. There were trees a plenty but where was the chainsaw? Where was the axe. Why were there no split logs? Why were there no splinters. Why were there no stumps?
He’d run through the grounds. He’d run through the house. He was exhausted.
As he slumped down at the kitchen table his eye fell on an irregularity in the wall.
It was a door.
A door so similar to the wall in which its wooden handle sat that he’d have missed it had his subconscious not called his pupils to sentry.
Nearly leaping from the chair, he traversed the space to the mysterious threshold.
As hinges creaked and the aperture swung inward, he beheld stairs leading down into inky blackness.
“The basement! Thank fuck.”
He fumbled for a switch. There was none.
So, he procured the lantern from the porch.
The stairs led deeper than he expected. To a depth that was nearly as tall as the cabin itself.
‘God I can’t imagine digging this out with just a shovel.’
But that must have been the way Hant did it. What did they helicopter in a tractor?
Jim recalled the iron in his uncle’s grip. Iron that had remained even on the sick bed. He felt a surge of waxing respect.
His surprise at the dimensions of the place dissipated.
There were fluorescent lights above him. Or at least there seemed to be.
He raised his lantern. Yes. There were those long tubes hanging seven or so feet above.
Jim smacked himself.
He trotted back up the stairs. And sure, enough the switch he was looking for was in the kitchen. It was almost as adeptly disguised as the door itself.
‘What is the fuckin point of a camo door?’ Jim cursed internally. ‘And a camo switch…’
But his annoyance turned to joy. For in the large rectangular cellar beside a set of stairs on the opposite corner was at least a month’s supply of logs.
The cellar seemed to serve as a sort of hybrid toolshed and storage space. Naturally, everything was fastidiously arranged.
There was also a worktable. On which many oak branches were carved into fantastic patterns and implements.
‘No wonder Lizzy is cranky. Old Hant must be one lousy lay if he pours this much energy into craftin knik knacks.’
Jim laughed out loud and began the happy work of conveying the logs to the fireplace.
Where they had come from, he did not know. He’d searched several miles of the nearby forest and found no stump.
Maybe they’d been ATV’d or horsed in from Reed.
These thoughts while interesting were merely background.
He’d looked up the chimney and found it clear. Clear enough to sully with the happy tickling tongue of flame and the warm breath of smoke.
O yes.
All the doors had been fastened. The windows shuttered. The .38 test fired and fully loaded.
Soon these assurances would be joined by warmth.
There were plenty of kerosene vessels about.
So it was that a flick of a half-finished cigarette started the heartbeat of Jim Cleary’s new home.
Though he was still a touch distressed by the clammy grip of isolation he’d begun to wriggle free.
The soft strange song of the Whippoorwill and Owl was a soothing lullaby. The warm crackle of the fireplace and the warmer glide of whiskey were a blanket that lulled him back to deep strange dreams.
“You’d better get used to opening them ears.” An all too familiar voice chirped.
Jim started violently.
He ashed his jeans with spent tobacco and cursed aloud as hot coffee singed his hand.
Clad in a dusty grey-green dress with her torso wrapped in flannel Lizzy Jennings was more scarecrow than grandame as she stood chuckling in the meadow.
“Pain’s the best teacher.”
“Pain in the ass.”
“I told ya to watch that foul tongue round me. You best believe that I will cut it off.”
Jim believed her.
The sound of birdsong, the hum of the insect kingdom, and the scent of wildflowers were the perfect ambient noise. They were the perfect cover. No wonder she’d been able to sneak up on him.
“So, auntie why ya come pokin’ round here like a robber? And how did ya make all fifteen miles without an engine to tell me you were arriving?”
At this she let out a low whistle. After some moments an old brown packhorse trotted leisurely out the wood, across the wild grass thickets, and right up to the scarecrow. The scarecrow then produced two brown sugar cubes as an offering to the long and eager tongue.
“That explains why I didn’t hear a motor.”
“So ya called me auntie. Now I can tell ya read some of that… which you must. But I know that you have not read it all. Or even more than da faintest dip of a toe.”
“O yea. And how?”
“Ye wouldn’t be sittin so comfortable.”
“O?”
“Yea…O…hell-O…that’s why I came round. You seem slow to understanding. Irreverent, lazy, BOY.”
“A bit too old to be a boy…but irreverent…lazy…? Sounds about right. Slow? Maybe with math but then again do I look Asian?”
“You look like a fool.”
“I see why you and Hant got along so well…”
“Look!” She cut him off. “I don’t call ye a fool lightly. I am not teasing. It is a condition. A disease. You’re sick Jim. And we have to cure it.”
“A wise man once said: You can’t fix stupid.”
“I didn’t say you were stupid. I said you are a fool. Most fools are not stupid. In fact, the greatest fools are often pretty clever.”
“Ain’t clever neither. So, I think I’m pretty safely in that sweet spot in the middle there.”
“No. You are a fool.”
Jim rolled his eyes. “Fine.”
“No. No it ain’t…FIINE…,” she sarcastically drew out the ‘fine.’
“I’ve lived in Boston for twenty-five years. Left home at fourteen. That’s eleven winters worth of foolhardy. I’d say I am doing wicked FIIIINE.”
She started at the colloquialism.
“Yes…that’s the problem…that…is what makes ye a fool. You’re wicked. It makes ya thick to the old ways.”
“Never really cared for the old ways. Or any kind of ways for that matter.”
“Well, that bluster might impress folk who’d eat each other if the electrics went out but round here that kinda thinkin is suicidal.”
“The good die young.”
“It ain’t death ye have to be afeard of.”
“O great more religion…”
Lizzy shook her head. “No, this ain’t religion. This isn’t ritual. There ain’t no need for it in God’s presence nor in those spaces he has made desolate.”
“Still sounds like religion talk to me.”
“Well, maybe talk ain’t what ya need. Maybe what you need is to see…or better to feel. Then you’re gonna read. O you’re gonna read real careful.” She chuckled again as she mounted the leisurely grazer that had been bemusedly listening to the intergenerational exchange.
“Cryptic frikkin hillbilly psychobabble…if I want this much cheesy mysticism I’ll listen to Zeppelin.”
Fortunately, the coffee was still warm. He’d only spilled enough from the thick tin mug to sting his hand a touch. He resumed the reverie which had been so rudely interrupted.
Another Pall Mall bristled to life with the kiss of a Zippo. Through the pretty white cancerous cloud he saw the distant line of trees across the wild flowering meadow. They were not just trees but a wood. A thick wood by the looks of it. From his slightly elevated position on the top most porch step he saw mountains. Did the wood end only there? How far?
‘Just where in the fuck am I really?’ He mused.
Even though he found this particular morning particularly pleasing he could not help but regret a more careful assessment of the map. The lack of foresight in bringing a map or compass was even more lamentable.
He stood up and strode across the wildly varying ground as grasses grazed his jeans. All around him were trees. The meadow, though vast in comparison to the cabin, was but a brighter drop in a sea of green.
And while the town of Reed was fifteen miles away. That relative proximity added little balm to the gradual registering of the utter strangeness of all that had so quickly and recently transpired.
Jim looked at the manila envelope on the coffee table. In large, neat, red letters done up calligraphy style the envelope carried a message, “Read Now. Read Careful. Read again.”
He undid the flat diverging fastening pin. And instantly regretted it. There were at least a hundred typewritten pages.
The first line read.
“I know you are a fool.”
‘Yep, that’s Hants voice. Gee thanks ya crusty old hick. At least I don’t have to have some witchdoctor type up my letters.’
“You’d best heed Lizzy. She’s your aunt.”
Jim laughed aloud. “So he isn’t gay after all.”
The next few pages read like a chapter out of Leviticus. They were all stern commands spoken like a Hebrew prophet about the cleansing of this and the placing of that.
‘I’d make up weird shit too if I had nothing to do besides play with my prick and get drunk.’ He mused.
The Sunday School lesson was putting him to sleep and he deposited the pages back in the envelope.
“Maybe if I get bored…but right now…I’m gonna get blitzed.”
He walked over to the mantel. Saw a mostly full Johnnie Walker Red and poured it into an ornate crystal tumbler featuring a thistle.
“Musta done more than sell ginseng and mine…this shit costs more than my apartment.”
Jim plomped unceremoniously onto the mahogany leather couch and stared into the unlit fireplace. He was too lazy to light it. And there was no reason to. He was accustomed to broken heaters and Boston winters. Besides there was something hypnotic about the stillness.
It was so different than the roar of engines and the howl of sirens. Jim found it far more intoxicating than the whiskey that warmed his bones. Soon he sank into deep strange dreams.
Dreams that he could not recall when the brilliant mountain sun filled the cottage with waking. At first he panicked because he was late for his shift at Dempsey’s. Then as his bleary eyes slowly grew accustomed to the light he panicked even harder.
The envelope that he had left on the coffee table was lying neatly. Balanced ever so carefully so as not to fall off the armrest on the opposite side of the couch.
He started to his feet and cursed as the empty fifth clattered beneath them. He lost his balance and fell back onto his makeshift sleeping quarters.
“Guess Dorkothy’s not in Boston anymore.” He remarked chuckling at his own incompetence. Half from actual mirth and half to shield his wits from mulling too deeply on the implications of the letters new position.
“Shit, I musta drunk too fast.”
He figured that he must of got bored and played balance the bullshit while shitfaced.
“Yep…that’s that prehangover warning headache.” He said aloud as he ran to the kitchen and guzzled three tall glasses of well water from the faucet.
‘Thank Christ the guy has OCD.’ Jim mused as he happily discovered how easy it was to find the essentials. Eggs, frying pans, butter everything was in its place. He made himself a large omlete. Ate. Drank more water.
It was already past noon and pleasantly warm as he pissed in the outhouse.
“I could get used to this.” He spoke aloud again to no one in particular as he slowly recalled the right method from that one time he’d had to use a percolator.
He plopped on the front porch with a tin cup full of rich dark coffee and lit a cigarette.
Jim had never seen stars that bright before. In a sky as clean and clear as the angles of his uncle’s cabin. They hung silent. They hung cold.
“It’s chilly up here.” He remarked.
“That’s the damp settin in.”
“Well then I’d best be settin in. I see a chimney. And…” Jim said extracting the maglight he’d lifted off a distracted cop.
“Hey.” Dutch said with such resonance that he didn’t have to shout. “…Don’t be shinin that at the trees.”
“Uh….what the fuck Dutch?”
Dutch showed the first sign of discomfort that Jim had thus far witnessed. The aftereffects of the ATV headlights revealed a rolling of the eyes up and to the left. The giant seemed to be considering something.
“I hunt round these parts. In fact I got a bow on me right now. I don’t want ye to scare off my game.”
“Is it hunting season?”
“It’s always huntin’ season round Reed.”
“…well alrighty then…” Jim said. “Can I at least finally have a fucking smoke?”
“Don’t ‘fend me none.”
“Any reason that we were in such a rush? Couldn’t we have stayed at a hotel so that my Southie ass didn’t have to immediately get Lyme disease pokin round the dark?”
“Well, ye might think it silly but round here we have certain beliefs.”
“Ya don’t say…” Jim sneered recalling the ginseng.
“Hant’s house cannot stand without Hant’s blood.”
Jim took a step back.
“I ain’t into that bloodletting Wicca shit. Had this one girlfriend…”
“T’ain’t what I meant.”
“Good,” Jim said allowing the hammer of his .38 to come to rest more audibly than it had been cocked.
“I ain’t afeard of yer pea shooter. Nor should ye be afeard of me.”
“I’m a city boy. I ain’t afeard of anything cause I’m afeard of everything. People are more dangerous than bears.”
“Well, then maybe you’ll last longer than I thought ye would.”
“Last…?”
“Don’t ye mind that. I didn’t mean to insult ya. It’s just that most folk. Even country folk…they can’t dwell here too long. There’s not enough of the wild in these people. And so the wild here overwhelms them.”
“Ain’t nothin wilder than a Cleary.”
Dutch started. “That’s not Hant’s surname….” He looked really worked up.
“Well, yeah. He’s from my mom’s side. Cronin.”
Dutch seemed relieved. “As long as ya got the blood.”
“Um..look…could you really need to work on your bedside manner.”
“Huh?”
“Could ya please fukin stop sayin blood.”
“What’s wrong with blood. You got blood I got blood everything’s got blood.”
“I’m just worried that with all this blood talk there might be some things that won’t have no more by the end of the night.”
“Are ya yellow?”
“No, just street-smart.”
“Well, there ain’t no streets round here. And I need to be goin. I’ll help ya carry in your belongings’ then I gotta go.”
“Fine by me,” Jim said hoping that the blood-obsessed rustic got goin’ for good.
Jim was a light traveler. A case of whiskey, a hamper of clothes, a toothbrush, Hustler, and a carton of smokes were the sum of his belongings. So it wasn’t long before they’d stowed those belongings in the compulsively neat cabin.
Something didn’t feel right about the precision of the furniture. The way it was spaced. It didn’t seem to be done for entirely utilitarian reasons.
“This is some crazy Feng Shui shit right here…” Jim said trying to move a sharply cornered diamond shaped table away from the wall.
“Don’t do that.”
“Is that your favorite sayin?”
“I mean…ye can try. To do it…but it ain’t gonna do.”
He was right.
The table was affixed to the floor.
“O, what in the fuck…!” Jim exclaimed. “I need a god damned drink.”
Dutch chuckled. “Plenty o that here. Ye probably won’t even get to the stuff ya brought.” He said pointing to the large amply stocked mantelpiece.
“Well…I knew old Hant was a drunk.” Jim said wryly. “But I didn’t know he was gay.”
“He ain’t.”
“Then why is every lamp a god damned Tiffany?”
“Beliefs.”
“Uh huh.”
“Look boy. There’s ways round here. And ye had best learn them. If not out of respect, then so as to get your pay.”
“Now you’re speaking a language I can understand.”
“Gud.” Said the giant as he turned to leave. “I was told that ye can read. Yer uncle had Doc type up the caring of this place. So, make sure that ye do.” He opened the door.
“O…and boy…you will hear things. It’s best to not let them bother you. And they won’t bother you. So long as ye follow the rules. Best take heed o old Lizzy. Do not forget to leave the root. On the stump. Towards the side that grows the moss. Ye do not want it to be missed.”
And with that the cabin resounded with a slammed door.
“What in the actual fuck…” Jim said as he listened to the disappearing roar of the ATV.
Appalachia spreads itself in grey and green a few hundred miles inland of the Atlantic. Its mountains, caves, lakes, and fields are a delight. It is a garden. It is a temple.
It is where Jim found himself that summer.
His uncle who went by the name of Hant had got a blood clot in the lung. His modest dwelling on the opposite side of a miniscule Kentucky township was always immaculate. And it was in his untrained hand that Jim had received the instruction to keep it that way.
Jim Cleary was a bit of a layabout. Not even committed enough to be a drunk. And though he knew next to nothing about country living the small stipend and the opportunity to daydream made him keen on fulfilling his relatives desire.
If this wasn’t enough to seal his fate. Then the nagging of his equally indigent roommates certainly drove the last nail into the coffin of his urban malaise.
“Where da hell ya goin again Jim?” Tony inquired in his brusque Boston brogue.
“Kentucky.”
“And what the hell for?”
“Family shit…changea pace..ya dig?”
“Hell no, I don’t dig how’s me ‘n Harry gonna keep up with the rent.”
“I already told ya I’d be sendin my share.”
“I dunno Jim you’re always late with that shit.”
“Yea…cause that rat fuck boss o mine thinks it’s cute to take my tips cause of a coupla late deliveries.”
“That old song ain’t gonna help here…So lateness is a habit…how the hell am I supposed to trust ya? We still have four months till the lease is up.”
“Cause my Uncle squirreled away a fortune getting black lung and sellin ginseng. And he’s gonna share so long as I keep the house his dad built from turning back into woods.”
“Hmm…I don’ know man….”
“You’re just gonna have to deal cause there’s no way ya can keep me here anyway.”
“Whatever man….do what ya want…but if we don’t get that rent…I’m gonna tell old Barragan ya flew the coop. And you know his IRA ass is crazy enough to find ya in whatever kind of deliverance style backwoods hollow ya hidin in . YA DIG?”
“Yea, man what the fuck ever.” Cleary said exiting the door.
“Fuck you Jim.” Tony said with a grin.
“Fuck you too Tony.”
And with a double bird salute, Jim Cleary set of for Logan International.
He was unaccustomed to the luxury of flight. He distrusted the cleanliness of first class. Nor did he like the look of the silent burly tour guide that his uncle had sent along.
The guy had a beard that would make Euripides jealous. Went by the name of Dutch and had a pensive air like a wild dog that had found its way into the city.
Made it damned hard to flirt with the stewardess.
After a half hour, Jim gave up on making small talk. A guy that talked less than Hant was a lost cause. He didn’t know why he’d even bothered.
It wasn’t gonna be too long of a flight so Jim just sank into the mind-numbing arms of an inflight movie.
It wasn’t long before Rob Schneider forced his brain to shut down.
It was switched back on by the deep thundering simplicity of. “Wehere, let’s go.”
And indeed everybody was busily extracting luggage and making their exit in that leisurely, orderly, upper middle-class way.
‘Yuppie schmucks.’ Jim couldn’t help but chuckle at the collection of khakis and polos mixing with folk who should also be wearing khakis and polos but were trying their hardest to appear like a Bluegrass revival.
A battered pickup pulled up to them outside the parking lot. It was driven by a spry old bat with icy blue eyes that went by the name of Lizzy Jennings. Said she was a Viking and that Jim had better watch his manners.
“Don’t got any.”
“Well learn ya sum. Hant told me ya were a thick one.”
Jim ignored the insult and wen to light a cigarette. Only to have it smacked out of his hand.
“Don’t ya bring dat filth in my car.”
“Jesus Christ! I just got off the flight lady…”
The steely angular framed gaze never changed as a wiry freckled arm shot forward and twisted his ear hard.
“Don’t ya be blaspheming in here neither!”
“Ahh…god damn you old bitch…”
This only made her tug harder.
She stopped just shy of tearing his ear off.
“Fuck I shoulda stayed in Boston.” He muttered under his breath.
The drive from Louisville to Reed was five long hours.
Five long hours with two rustic sentinels whose eerie silence was only matched by the eerier economy of motion in their smooth efficient movements.
‘At least it’s pretty.’ Jim mused as he gazed down into the sleepy verdant valleys that flitted beneath the fluctuating elevation.
It was dusk by the time they arrived at the half dozen or so buildings that comprised the township of Reed, Kentucky. He guessed the thing with the spire was a church, the square thing was a post office, the colonial thing was the town hall, and everything else was shops.
‘Where the hell are the houses?’ He mused.
“Ya ever been on a horse ‘fore?” Asked the sun-dried Valkerie.
‘O fuck…’
The old bat laughed in an innocent girlish sort of way that threw Jim off even more than the prospect of riding a horse.
What was even more disturbing was the perfect, gleaming white, set of teeth that laugh revealed.
‘This crazy crone has better choppers than me…’
“I’m pullin’ at yer leg. I know a fool like you ain’t got no useful habits. You gonna wish you had a horse tho. Cause that four wheeler is a sight more likely to flip than my Sadie.”
Cleary heard a roar from the building that Dutch had disappeared to.
“Don’ be lookin so down. It’s only fifteen miles afore a warm bed and some whiskey.”
“FIFTEEN!”
She laughed that weird coquettish laugh again that was so at odds with her appearance and behavior.
He didn’t have too much time to puzzle over it though cause his carriage was already by his side.
Jim reluctantly took a seat behind Dutch wrapping his fingers tight around the luggage mount.
He was surprised by the rough feel of an old rope round his kneck.
He looked down to see a sack swinging down to his solar plexus.
“Now lemme tell ye bout Thursdays.” Lizzy Jennings said.
“Aha..”
“That’s ginseng in that pouch there.”
“Ok…”
“Today is Thursday and I put some out on the stump. Dutch will show you the stump. Startin next Thursday you’re gonna have to put some seng down afore dusk.”
“Umm…ok.”
“I suggest ya follow what I tell ye. Cause ye don’ wanna learn it from another.”
“What…?”
“Just put the root down on the stump. Or else there’s gonna be trouble. ALRIGHT BOY?” She stated with vehemence.
“Put the ginseng on the stump…on Thursday…before dusk…I get it.”
She smiled oddly and whistled.
Jim barely had time to get a fresh hold on the luggage rack before he and the giant roared into the inky mountain.
(Warning – Much Cussing and Kvetching Ahead with Bawdy Jokes Thrown In like Filthy Garnish)
Today we are going to ask the deep questions. The philosophical questions. Questions regarding the truly esoteric and rarefied.
Questions like: Do you want the same company that delivers dildos to deliver your grandma’s betablockers?
I work at UPS. And while I have not myself encountered a box full of marital aids I have friends who have.
Far from the Hub. Where I like to be. Thanks for the hat tho!
I know that UPS delivers medicine. If you want your aspirin and statins delivered to your door instead of going to the pharmacy that’s fine. Some people are old, some people are lazy, some don’t have the time. I get it.
But generally folk who are super sick… need someone to help them take their meds. I know this. I take care of meds for my grandfather. I’m not gonna claim to be some kind of fastidious ‘type A guy,’ but it would seem that DEPENDING ON UPS TO DELIVER MEDICINE TO PRVENT DEATH; and letting the supply dwindle so low before the refill is a FUCKING BAD IDEA. And generally not practiced by those who haven’t been lobotomized.
Which is why I was surprised today by the driver of one of the trucks I was loading. When she informed me that they have “critical packages,” that they delvier hearts. FUCKING HEARTS! Are you shitting me?
Pictured: A Critical Package
For those of you not in the know about UPS. All your precious buttplugs, novelty blenders, and Nazi parephenalia get jammed onto 18 wheelers. By jammed I mean stuffed to the brim like a teenagers closet. To such a degree that they often tumble out upon opening the doors.
Your commemorative gimp suit then gets sent up a belt to the sleep deprived hands of highly caffeinated blue collar kids and poor boomers who need insurance. These are then sorted by color coding onto various belts.
THEN THEY END UP AT THE SLIDE!
So your heart, your epilepsy medicine, and Preppers Pete’s generator get’s to ride down a slide like one big happy family! Ain’t it great?
But the fun doesn’t end there! Because the slide sometimes gets fuckin’ JAMMED. So grandpa’s new vital organ may well make intimate contact with a bottle of corrosive DON’T FUCKING TOUCH THAT.
Sure the stuff is bottled and packaged with slightly more care than the tax forms and switchblades that occasionally spill out all over the place. But call me a softy…I’d rather NOT HAVE MY HEART CRUSHED.
..With stray calligraphy pens! You give LOGISTICS a bad name…
Now she may have been reffering to pacemakers, or robotic hearts, or just being dramatic but in any case…the case rests at...the same company that delivers Monster truck tires and nipple clamps shouldn’t be in the business of organ trafficking or even beta blocker delivery.
People who wake up at three in the morning to lug auto parts and ammo around aren’t FUCKING PHARMACISTS. And no matter how well trained, well rested, and diligent mistakes happen in non air conditioned buildings when you’re loading 600 -1000 packages per employee.
So…let’s talk about training. I have been at UPS since December 2017 and I have never heard the term “critical package” my supervisor for the day had…but only because a driver had told him while he was a “driver helper.”
Does that sound like adequate training. Like there’s a strong company culture of communication?
Well how about the fact that one of the managers. Not a supervisor but a fucking manager made me sign a form promising to load packages WRONG.
The drivers you see like the small packages behind the big ones so they don’t fall off the shelf. Which is what I was taught to do when I got there and… what I got in trouble for…. And what I went back to doing at the drivers request…with no further comment from the manager, because he didn’t happen to catch me stacked out on a bad day, and get the chance to don his micromanaging hat. I’m sure this had something to do with Six Sigma.
Pictured: Six Sigma Masurbation
Yes, every hub is different. But despite my bitching from what I’ve heard our hub is actually one of the nicer ones. That is if you can stand the Carolina heat.
I mention the lack of communication to highlight again how fucking dumb it is that apparently pharmacies, the FDA, etc is ok with fuckin UPS delivering CRITICAL medicine.
I can sort of see a vague economic one. Like there’s not gonna be a sustainable business model of specifically delivering medication but…there’s still the whole thing of….”YOUR MEDICINE IS BEIN HANDLED IN THE SAME PILE OF SHIT AS CLOROX, CRICKETS, AND BIKES. Being handled by multiple exhausted employees who barely have time to piss in the wee hours of the morn! (pun intended)
So this was a particularly bad day to try to guilt trip me by mentioning:
Umm..yea…do impossible things better…for less money than me..k…?
“Ummm…yea…make the truck neater because I deliver medicine – there’s a package out of order – yea out of the approximatley 1000 packages you just loaded there’s one in the wrong spot – and my cousin or somebody died because they didn’t get their epilepsy medicine when they were five.”
Lady, if the truck is loaded 90% correctly that’s already pretty good. Are you 100% on the ball on your route? Cause the drivers here just got berated for almost wrecking. And I loaded this shit at least 97% correctly.
I always try for 100% and hey…telling somebody that has had very little sleep ,and been working with no break for the past four hours that “THEY BETTER BE CAREFUL OR SOMEBODY COULD DIE…” isn’t good for morale.
“No pressure..you know…I don’t want you to make a mistake…it’s just that you’re now suddenly a neurosurgeon and if you fuck up just a bit SOMEBODY WILL FUCKIGN DIE!”
Yea…that’s real helpful.
I don’t like being guilt tripped. I don’t like the insinuation that I’m careless when for the past four sweaty ass hours I’ve been tightening, organizing, and rearranging so everythign is as neat and accessible as possible given the time constraints.
So, I don’t want to hear wails of protest about how you’re on the truck before you’re getting paid.
Lady…I currently make 13 dollars an hour whereas you likely make 22 – 28. Your little prep work is gonna pay you dividends. The prep work I do in the morning for which there’s barely any time is rewarded by FUCK ALL.
I wake up at 3 am….and load for four to five hours in a building that’s been stewing all day and all night in the southern sun. All while being given contradictory directions and having my attention diverted by forms, calls for help, and hardware.
Now…I don’t dislike the person I am currently writing about. She’s the best smellin’ driver in the hub. But…her attitude is indicative…is a crystallized indicator of the attitude of a lot of drivers. That attitude being our job is hard so yours isn’t.
The gals do smell better but…this is Not UPS reality. O well here’s a pretty girl. So stay tuned. Marketing? I am Don Draper.
Look guys…just like if you didn’t deliver the packages we wouldn’t have a job…you wouldn’t have a job if we didn’t load packages.
Do you get annoyed about dispatch riding your ass? Well our Sups and managers ride ours… so it would be nice for that not to also be outsourced to another employee. An employee who is paid exhorbitantly more.
No, I’m not saying “I don’t get paid enough so I load how the fuck I want” – what’s being contested is the assertion that: it’s not fair that I don’t get paid to come in early to make the truck look how I like it to look which is often different than how the (often shifting) loadchart looks.
It is fairconsidering the fact that I too show up early to make my day (and by extension YOURS DUMBASS) easier.. and make fuck all to show for it besides good health insurance. Especially since you’re making an uppermiddleclass income with no qualifications besides a drivers liscecne, a HS Dipoma, and maybe some dumbass MBA.
Mostly Decent and often Magnificently Moustachioed Individuals
Again most drivers even the ones I bitch about are decent people but that doesn’t detract from the vague cliqueishness that is readily apparent. Your job is grueling …so is mine…O YOU WORK LONGER. YOU ALSO FUCKING GET PAID MORE.
And…you’re not waking up at 3 AM to go to work….I can’t stress that shit enough. Hey UPS…. The constantly changing start time is not good for focus, productivity, or cancer rates. Do some actual research on sleep and apply what you learned to your policies instead of just handing out “healthy living” info sheets to sign.
As I said, and I say again, most drivers are decent folk. But they’re also a bit up their own ass.
I am in a peculiar socio-economic situation. I own things. The things I own are my business, so I live a somewhat yuppie-esque lifestyle. As such I go to the gym where I witness lots of people with their heads up their ass. Some of them are UPS drivers.
As I was benching a few months back I heard a couple babbling about loaders falling asleep to the owner of the gym. This basically turned into a Boomerific circle jerk of kids these days, and it’s a good job, and harrumph.
Hey…the reason some of them are sleepy especially the new ones is because they wake up at 3 am assholes..
This experience, along with not sleeping enough due to a busy schedule, and the god damned water heater/plumbing deciding to start a rockconcert right (as I was going to bed) did not make it a good day to be a cunty driver.
Of course there won’t really be consequences besides a snarky blogpost and me refusing to load that set of trucks. Which isn’t mine…I loaded them because…I’m nice…and someone else was out today. How bout ya have a blue vest load ’em eh…?
Maybe the consequence will be I’m fired. Fuck it. Even though this is the best job for my schedule despite the circadian fuckery, even though I like manual labor, even though I know that it has neurocognitive benefits I don’t care.
I don’t care because if I get fired over this post then it has nothing to do with my ability to perform my duties. And everything to do with appearance, and politics, and dog shit. I doubt this will be the outcome.
So why mention it?
You’re virtue signaling!
Because this gives me an opportunity to virtue signal and say free speech is more important than getting a tiny crumb off a huge corporate pie.
Why are you so like OMG overreacting…it’s just people were like teasing you and like….
Yeah…first off I’ve give the context, second off how the hell is “teasing” going to help my load quality when I’ve been initially nice, and even made a joke at my own expense, and informed you I’m tired, how is guilt tripping – teasing, and why is it tied to a larger case of head-up-ass syndrome?
It leads me to the question. Is the driver (at the very least this particular type of driver) helping JUST ME or are they helping themselves? I can’t exactly stay 100% focused after a four fifteen start time as I make smalltalk, communicate about bulk stops, avoid tripping, and navigate around you…so I think the answer is the drivers are helping themselves. They are helping themselves to make a whole hell of a lot of money. And a part of their pie involves MY LABOR.
Isn’t a bit more tact called for with exhausted coworkers?
Look God knows, I’m not always perfect about not getting annoyed, or snarky, or teasy, or preachy but I do generally try not to assume that people make small mistakes due to sloppy laziness or lack of care. Because you don’t know a persons background or their current situation.
And when a person figths your guilt tripping about – medicine and dead relatives who missed a crucial dose; by informing you that hey I’m tired, the truck is as neat as any on this belt, I’ve had no sleep, and I’m taking care of a relative who has had a stroke, my only living relative (that’s not estranged).
Yeah, you responding with “O…It’s all about you.” Doesn’t seem like teasing after FOUR HOURS OF LABOR IN A NONAIRCONDITIONED BUILDING.
What it seems like is the typical ‘Im so put upon’ attitude of drivers which while justifiable becomes unjustifiable by offloading it on the loaders. (Who are at the end of their shift. Taking a ton of hardware up the ass.)
‘O but I was just blowin off steam and you need XYZ and it was teasing.’
I do, most of the time, I do . This was the third time out of more than a year that I’ve voiced annoyance in any form about a driver.
The first one was when a guy freaked out over me moving a trash bin off the 4000 shelf so I could load packages. The trash was not supposed to be on the shelf.
The second one was when a driver decided to treat me like I was a waiter and his filet mignon was late. Spazzing out about HIS hardware as I was addressing another drivers far more pressing issue RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM. (The bin guy later found me and apologized to me. So yes UPS drivers are mostly good even the ones that piss me off sometimes.)
Besides these incidents I’ve never said anything to anyone about drivers. And there are plenty of cunty incidents or teasy incidents (which can be misinterpreted) in a year and some of UPS.
I hope somebody finds this interesting, or funny, or informative. But I also don’t really give a fuck because I still haven’t slept due to plumbing, finance, and other responsibiliteis. That and if I cared what the audience thought all the time I’d use fucking cookie cutters.
Also what do you expect? A write who doesn’t write? That’s what day time TV is for…
I don’t like being guilt tripped. I don’t like the insinuation that I’m careless when for the past four sweaty ass hours I’ve been tightening, organizing, and rearranging so everythign is as neat and accessible as possible given the time constraints.
The Fractal Journal 