Blue Team

Inventory is over.

Billy and I were partnered up, with me as the "writer" and him as the "counter." Imagine that.

Billy recounts each item repeatedly and will empty out a box of, say, three top take-offs, onto the ground to make sure of the number. I might look inside from a distance and mutter "three, Billy" and he'll say, "Goo Goo, please."

Fact is, in a world where mistakes are almost inevitable, given the lack of real organization, the multiple part numbers and bin locations, the different manufacturers for the same item, Billy's error rate might be close to zero. I've caught him once, in all my time, making a blunder. I suspect I make as many mistakes in a week as he does in months, and I am careful. But there's still and odd "w cloud" -- a vague sense of propulsion that will make you look and know you're supposed to count out twelve seven inch dampers and you still count out six. If asked, you'd swear you'd counted out twelve, but there they are in the box. Six.

And it's not a simple lack of focus. We had to recheck some counts later in the afternoon and we're assigned parts covered by a senior worker and one of the owners in the company, and nearly every item was miscounted. There must be some sort of w mind that needs to be cultivated in most people, like pec strength or quick mental math.

Billy talks to the parts as though they were naughty animals. While going through the Hart and Cooley return air grills, he saw something fishy. "Hold on, Goo Goo. Hey you, get out of there!" And he violently wrenched out the same size grill, made by Total Air. "I caught you. Couldn't get past old Bubbs."

"That's good warehousing," I told Billy.

"Mmm. Sweet as melon," he told me.

*

My mother lives near the w, and I often stop by but try to avoid conversation. This makes me feel like a turd, but the conversations are depressing. I mean, literally, depressing. In that I leave and for hours feel darkened. She's been unemployed for over a year, and any given conversation concerns the house falling apart, the government falling apart, or the fact that some potential employer didn't call her back. She seems to exagerrate their villainy, insisting me that the managers are telling her, "We're not going to hire someone like you."

When I say, "Mom, did they really say that?" she'll say, "I don't understand why you think it's easy to get a job! I'm trying everything!"

*

When I get home, the first thing I do, usually, is to take a shit, and my mother will often follow me to the door and start talking to me. I have to tell her, "Hey Mom, anyway we can talk later? I'm busy now."

She'll stop and then continue to stand outside the door, talking to the cats. I often turn on the cold water just to make white noise.

*

I took a nap after inventory. I needed some rest -- I'm going up to Haverhill for a UFC party tonight (for the record, my money is on Lesnar). At one point during my nap, she knocked and asked me, "Is today Monday or Sunday?"

"Saturday," I replied.

"Oh," she said, and I heard her walk away, back out to the family room where Fox TV waited, the only light in an otherwise unlit room.