I hate my job.

“You look sweaty,” the truck driver said as she lifted the heavy package over her head. Surprised by the voice, the girl dropped the package. At seventy pounds, more than half her weight, it thudded on the floor of the truck dangerously close to her foot. Inhaling deeply for calm, she turned to the middle aged man and answered, “It’s hot in here,” as she steadied herself to lift the package again.

“You should learn to be cool.”

“This is heavy, do you plan on giving me a hand?”

“Oh, no, I have to go straighten out the truck.”

He scuttled off, his little legs crablike under his boxy frame, as she heaved the box into its place. Her hands throbbed with bruises yet to surface when she knelt down to pick up the packages, but she had to work fast enough to keep the boxes coming into the truck from piling up and crushing her. Finally some inscrutable event spurred her manager to release her in a suddenly magnanimous tone.

She drank her water as she left, the old timers eying her suspiciously, as if drinking water were a sign of weakness. “Baaaa, sheep,” she thought to herself, and reminded herself that she would never be in their position. The shuttle pulled up outside her building, filled with the usual suspects. First there was the young man with the long Mohawk, tied at the nape of his neck, then the quiet middle aged man with bulging eyes, then three teenagers who spoke in non sequiturs and compared leg hair.



She refrained from rolling her eyes until she hopped off the shuttle, and filed into the guard shack to pass through the metal detectors. She triggered the first alarm, and it beeped plaintively, not even earnestly. She dropped her keys and wallet into a bucket and passed through the through the second one, again triggering the alarm. The machines were conspiring against her. A large woman with a scar over her brow ridge stepped out with a wand, waving it over her figure ominously. First her arms, then her chest, then down to her hips, where her belt triggered the alarm.

“Oh, that’s my belt.”

“Take it off.”

“What? I’ve never had to do this before.”

“Are you ready to take off your belt yet?”

“Fine!”

Grabbing her belt, she loosened the prongs and dropped her pants around her ankles, stepping out and toward the dyke with the wand.

“Oh, and my bra! It’s an underwire,” and off came the shirt as well, thrown onto a pile with the pants.

“Mam, this is really unnecessary.”

“Oh no, It’s ok. You’re just doing your job.”

Now naked except for her work boots and dirty leg warmers, she walked back through the metal detector without triggering it. Grabbing her clothes, she walked out the door. Stunned and amused, the other guards looked at the big woman, red in the face and frustrated, who stepped back to her area by the wall.

“Bitch,” she muttered, just as the girl walked back through the door and through the metal detector, still naked.

“Forgot my keys,” she said with a smile, giving the woman a stare which she did not return