House-sitting, New Job - WritingForums.com - Writing Forums, Writing Challenges, Critiques and Help for Writers

theusualmadman · 09-01-2008, 06:18 AM

I just started a new job as a surveyor on Ft. MacClellan, the decommissioned Army base next door to Anniston, Alabama. Basically I tromp around in the woods using lasers to sync up AutoCAD diagrams with physical coordinates. I hold a stick with a mirror on it, or hammer stakes into the ground. This grid is so another contractor can come and look for unexploded ordinance for future land development. This can be anything from a dud rifle bullet to a magazine full of M16 rounds to a live artillery shell or White Phosphorus ("Willie P"), which can eat right through an engine block from hood to pavement. Before I can stick a marker nail into the ground, someone has to run a metal detector over the point so I don't stick a nail into a live shell and blow myself up. Catfish calls it his "screamin' yellow stick".

Quite a step up from selling Bud Light to gangbangers at a ghetto gas station for 7 bucks an hour...I guess. The commute is closer and the insurance is better, anyway. At least I get some sun and our workweeks are 4 ten-hour days, so I get three-day weekends--plenty of time to write.

So yeah, for the past few months my girlfriend and I've been housesitting for my girlfriend's grandparents while they're out of town. When our power had to be cut off, we didn't care, since we weren't living in our little ghetto shack at the time. Unfortunately, we forgot there was a little food in the fridge and when we came back a week or so ago (after a hot and humid summer) the side-by-side was filled with maggots and gnats.

It was disgusting. When you opened the door, a cloud of gnats engulfed you. The butter shelf was encrusted with something that looked like peanut butter (and turned out to be just as viscous). There were sandwich baggies filled with what looked like guacamole. The leftover loaf of bread looked like a plastic sack filled with used pancakes. The shelves in the freezer literally contained handfuls of maggots. The icemaker was choked with them.

The first time I opened the fridge, I was by myself, acting out of morbid curiosity. I went home and told my girl I'd managed to open a portal to Hell in our dark kitchen. I almost convinced myself that I'd heard something in there speak.

After a week of scrubbing and bleaching, we got most of them out, but now the fridge doesn't work. I'm guessing They got into the compressor or something. D'oh.

Gramma, why do you have to come back from Idaho?

theusualmadman · 09-01-2008, 06:21 AM

To add, Catfish showed me the plant Sassafras, which, according to him, they make root beer out of. It sure does smell nice! I heartily recommend planting it around your house or in your window planter. You can also make Sassafras Tea, which he says makes 'is bones quit achin'.

Malone · 09-01-2008, 01:03 PM

Sounds like a great job. Being outside without having to do manual labor.
The fridge thing is disgusting. I was about to throw up in my mouth reading it.

theusualmadman · 09-01-2008, 02:16 PM

Oh, believe me--there's plenty of manual labor. I have to cut down trees with a bush-axe. If there is anything between the laser and the mirror, it has to go.

Malone · 09-01-2008, 10:33 PM

I know this sounds trashy, but I have a friend who lives on about a thousand acres of land, and some small creek runs through it, and for some reason, the state sent a crew of surveyors out to do some kind of thing with the creek, and my stupid friend went and stole all their equipment when they were on their lunch break (this is a grown man I'm talking about, not a kid).
He called me and wanted me to drive him to a pawn shop a couple towns over so he could sell the shit and buy cocaine. I never took him, and he ended up leaving all the shit in my truck. I think I still have the little mirror box/viewer thing.