Cleaning With Trash

I recently decided to take on an additional job as a custodian/maintenance man. (Sure, I may not promote or practice cleaning at home, but I will sure as hell do it for some cash!)

At this new job, I’m considered a “floater”, meaning that I go to different buildings every night to do different things; whether it’s cleanings doors, scrubbing walls, collecting trash or dusting horizontal surfaces.

There are 10 buildings in the complex and each building is home to several offices (for lawyers, radio stations, PR consultants, etc.). There are cleaners designated to certain areas in these buildings. If someone calls off, I go to their assigned building and essentially do their job for the evening. Therefore, I get to do something different every night.

For the last few evenings, I’ve been assigned to Building 1 – mostly scrubbing stairwells and walls. Sure, theses tasks were a pain, but so was sharing the Building with Chud, another cleaner.

Chud is in his early fifties and looks very tired. He has a good tan, but it may actually be dirt. He lives with his dad in a neighborhood down the street, across from Sammy’s Salon and up the road from Tim’s Tavern. He likes Coors and thinks the Cocker Spaniel is one of the meanest breeds of dog.

He comes into my work area every chance he gets to ask me questions like:

“Hey, you worked here before, right?
“You drink Coors?”
“You an animal lover?”
“What bar do you go to?”
“You’re Marcus, right?
“Doesn’t your wife work here?”
“Were you sick?”
“Yeah! You’re Marcus!”
“You an animal lover?”

One night, Chud was kind enough to tell me that I look like a particular midget from studio wrestling. It must be my delicious sausage fingers.

Later on, he interrupted one of our intellectual conversations to tell me that I looked like some guy from a TV show.

“Do you mean MASH?” I asked him.
“I don’t know. Maybe. It’s been a while.”
“Are you talking about Radar?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he admits. “You think you look like him?”
“No,” I assure him. “Radar wears glasses. I don’t.”

Another day, Chud tells me that he doesn’t get along with our supervisor.

“I fuckin’ chased him into the parking lot. Tommy had to hold me back,” he said.
“Jeez,” I said. “When was this?”
“About three months ago. I can get pretty angry.”

I tried to relate to him.

“I used to be angry a lot too,” I said. He looked at me for a second, a grin appeared on his face. He lowered his voice and said: “You’re still fuckin’ nuts, aren’t you?”

Chud also think I’m in my forties and suggested that I hurry up and have kids while I can.
I tried to explain to him that guys can have kids at any age and that it’s the woman who needs to be younger than 40. He just laughed and said, “Aw man! I can’t believe you just said that!”

The Penguin Next Door

On a recent evening, while the city stared at televisions broadcasting the Penguins game, I sat around my house enjoying the eerie quiet in the neighborhood. (Who am I kidding – it’s always quiet around here!)

Just when I thought everyone was preoccupied, my doorbell rang. What the hell?!

I opened the front door to find two little boys. The kid who rang the doorbell had painted his face black and gold for the occasion while his friend (or brother) sat inside of a red wagon.

“Is Marc here?” the kid asked.
“No,” I said. “Marc doesn’t live here.”
“Where is he?” the kid pressed on.
“I don’t know. I have no idea. I don’t know Marc,” I finally said. “Sorry.”

I watched the boys leave in disappointment – the painted kid dragging the wagon containing the other kid. It was cute in a Norman Rockwell kind of way.

I later learned that the boys were looking for Marc Fleury, the Penguins’ goalie. It turns out he’s a neighbor in the hood! Hell, even if I saw him, I wouldn’t recognize him. I could have gone swimming with him in the pool – who really knows?!

Time to get autographs!