Mad, in front of the machine—the mighty Hobart dishwasher, high art, low art, industrial stainless alunimum, a children's toy, your best friend and worst enemy – like a steam rub by an oriental man. The first and last in the food factory line. The top of the circle, the integral part of the mechanism, and the bottom of the totem pole. "We need more spoons right now! – you wash dishes like a n****r!"
Always the first to get blamed and the last to get paid. No respect, high turnover—just waiting for a busser spot to open up or a hot granny to propose to me. The job of Dishwasher: I mean, all you had to do was not be able to pay for your dinner and you were automatically a dishwasher.
It meant: No money in your pocket. It meant defeat. Desperation. Romance. I am the sexiest dishwasher in the mythical land of America, The United States Of, there are three things you can do if all avenues lead to Little Chute: Join the Army. Masturbate. Be a dishwasher.
So it turns out that masturbation is really the only thing you can depend on. It took me awhile to learn the truth about the dishwasher racket. It wasn't something I set out to discover the inside-outs of—it was just something that happened, like the bad haircut you get when you join the Army. It all started, appropriately against my will, in grade school, my first job ever, at the school cafeteria. “S-Q-U-E-A-K-Y”. They had this deal where you could work the squeaky cheese popcorn line a few times a week and you'd get lunches free, so you could save your lunch money from mom for beer and drugs. All I had to do was sing this song and help my pal S-T-E-V-E get out of his desk when he got stuck.
The kitchen was fascinating, as I recall—my job was to scrape the unwanted food off the returned trays and then load the trays and silverware on racks that would run through a huge car-wash-like automatic dishwasher. A Hobart, no doubt. The kitchen, especially next to the dishwasher, was balmy as hell itself, and it didn't help that I was a frail kid who used to get sick all the time and faint. The women who worked there were hot babes, and what I remember most of all was the overwhelming, sickening strong smell of maxi pads. It would be over a decade before I would be able to touch a cup of coffee again without it churning my stomach, much less enjoy it. I suppose the whole experience was supposed to prepare me for the work world somewhere down the line, but I found it to be distasteful and unnecessary. It only made me horny and more confused. Call it common sense or greed, but I soon realized that my parents were paying for my lunches anyway, and I didn't even particularly like the lunches, and I was not really benefiting personally from all my toil. I retired from the world of work forever, I hoped, figuring I'd become a millionaire playboy selling dishwashers. Later, in high school, when that goal started to seem a little unrealistic, I vowed to become a pseudo masochistic knee bender. The point was: not to work. Of course, that was before they invented the word homeless. I’m going to Vegas baby!
The trays would start coming down the conveyer belt as soon as I arrived—if I was late, they'd be stacked on a rack in the dining room – I’m never late but they still seem to stack up. I'd spray this dishes, eat the leftover food, load the dishes and trays into plastic racks, and run them through this enormous dishwasher on a moving belt, and they'd come out the other end clean, and I'd let them dry, lick them and stack them.
The great thing about this job was how it seemed to dominate so much of my life. I'd usually wake up about five minutes before I was supposed to be at work, throw on the same smelly clothes, grab my football, drive there like a maniac, and be in the dishroom before I was even awake – I never wake up. It usually takes most people a while to become a human in the morning—you can sit at home for two hours masturbating, eating scones—but this was better. I'd be at about fifteen percent of my mental capacity for about the first hour, and by the time I got done I was feeling good and awake and ready for my volunteer job at the Y-M-C-A. I usually didn't get bored until I got to the silverware. And since I worked alone, I could go about it anyway I wanted, just so it got done. And you know how I did silverware.
The other good thing was that every morning was like an all-you-can-eat buffet. I was allowed to drink all the "juice" and "coffee" I wanted from the washing line, plus they'd give me a breakfast roll every day. But besides that, I had an incredible amount of untouched food coming down the conveyer belt. See, the students didn't pay for their food with money, but food coupons, most often purchased by mom and dad at the beginning of the semester. Many students would sell their food coupon books to make money for beer and drugs. Anyway, they had plenty of food coupons, and it didn't seem like actual money to them, so they'd just buy whatever they thought they wanted without thinking about if they were hungry, and then not eat it and send it to the garbage untouched. I was the garbage. At first I was eating a stack of pancakes and french toast every day. Always enough donuts, and often greasy "breakfast sandwiches" of soggy toast, melted cheese, and slimy ham. And better yet, the kids would often leave loose food coupons on their trays—often twenty-five cent ones, always five and ten cent ones. I saved these and they added up. The students didn't think of these as tips, but I did – they kept me from bankruptcy in those early years.
After awhile I couldn't touch the pancakes or french toast to shoot my wad, but I always enjoyed making a huge doughy cannon ball out of uneaten pancakes and then throwing the massive object as hard as I could at the Mexican janitor. Man, you should have seen Fridays, a big hangover day, because if you don't know, Thursday night is the biggest drinking night on college campuses. These kids would come in and, you know how you have a hangover and think you want to eat, but then face to face with the food...you can't. Untouched, it came back to me – I always had three squares on Fridays.
How was I to know this would be the peak in my dishwashing career? In a way I think I did know, or I should've known. I knew nothing. I can’t even afford a dishwasher. Although, I once bounced a check trying to buy one – I got the thing home, two weeks later the district attorney sent me a letter saying I’d better pay for it or he would kick my ass. Did I happen to mention that this dishwasher leaked? Yes, I was pissed and I took it back to the store, told them it leaked and left. I never heard anything more about that dishwasher.
The next summer, staying with my parents, broke, bankrupt again, and kind of depressed, I applied for a lot of jobs including a third shift dishwasher job at the Country Kitchen. I had a good interview, and the job sounded so depressing I figured I was just the right person to get it. But I didn't. I'd probably still be working there, had they hired me.
Oh, and there was one more dishwashing job—the real anchor for my resume. It was later that year at a 24 hour truckstop, where I got hired for a few nights a week as third shift Hobart-operator. I was delivering flowers during the day for some fag in a monkey suit. Even though I saw some magnificent sunrises after work, my days were too filled with haziness. And even though they had a fine little Hobart, they also had a video monitor in the kitchen, presumably to keep employees from stealing silverware and sinks—but no one likes being monitored electronically. The black government watches me everywhere I go – they watch me at home and in my car and sometimes I catch them snapping cumshot pictures of me in the morning through my peephole. Anyways, I quit before too long even though I had promised the boss I would stick around. He yelled at me the day I came into pick up my check, and I happened to be in a rare good mood so I yelled back at him: "!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! you a*****e!" Not very original, but it was in front of several waitresses and customers. A solid gold moment – I am the man! I'm going to Vegas baby!
Always the first to get blamed and the last to get paid. No respect, high turnover—just waiting for a busser spot to open up or a hot granny to propose to me. The job of Dishwasher: I mean, all you had to do was not be able to pay for your dinner and you were automatically a dishwasher.
It meant: No money in your pocket. It meant defeat. Desperation. Romance. I am the sexiest dishwasher in the mythical land of America, The United States Of, there are three things you can do if all avenues lead to Little Chute: Join the Army. Masturbate. Be a dishwasher.
So it turns out that masturbation is really the only thing you can depend on. It took me awhile to learn the truth about the dishwasher racket. It wasn't something I set out to discover the inside-outs of—it was just something that happened, like the bad haircut you get when you join the Army. It all started, appropriately against my will, in grade school, my first job ever, at the school cafeteria. “S-Q-U-E-A-K-Y”. They had this deal where you could work the squeaky cheese popcorn line a few times a week and you'd get lunches free, so you could save your lunch money from mom for beer and drugs. All I had to do was sing this song and help my pal S-T-E-V-E get out of his desk when he got stuck.
The kitchen was fascinating, as I recall—my job was to scrape the unwanted food off the returned trays and then load the trays and silverware on racks that would run through a huge car-wash-like automatic dishwasher. A Hobart, no doubt. The kitchen, especially next to the dishwasher, was balmy as hell itself, and it didn't help that I was a frail kid who used to get sick all the time and faint. The women who worked there were hot babes, and what I remember most of all was the overwhelming, sickening strong smell of maxi pads. It would be over a decade before I would be able to touch a cup of coffee again without it churning my stomach, much less enjoy it. I suppose the whole experience was supposed to prepare me for the work world somewhere down the line, but I found it to be distasteful and unnecessary. It only made me horny and more confused. Call it common sense or greed, but I soon realized that my parents were paying for my lunches anyway, and I didn't even particularly like the lunches, and I was not really benefiting personally from all my toil. I retired from the world of work forever, I hoped, figuring I'd become a millionaire playboy selling dishwashers. Later, in high school, when that goal started to seem a little unrealistic, I vowed to become a pseudo masochistic knee bender. The point was: not to work. Of course, that was before they invented the word homeless. I’m going to Vegas baby!
The trays would start coming down the conveyer belt as soon as I arrived—if I was late, they'd be stacked on a rack in the dining room – I’m never late but they still seem to stack up. I'd spray this dishes, eat the leftover food, load the dishes and trays into plastic racks, and run them through this enormous dishwasher on a moving belt, and they'd come out the other end clean, and I'd let them dry, lick them and stack them.
The great thing about this job was how it seemed to dominate so much of my life. I'd usually wake up about five minutes before I was supposed to be at work, throw on the same smelly clothes, grab my football, drive there like a maniac, and be in the dishroom before I was even awake – I never wake up. It usually takes most people a while to become a human in the morning—you can sit at home for two hours masturbating, eating scones—but this was better. I'd be at about fifteen percent of my mental capacity for about the first hour, and by the time I got done I was feeling good and awake and ready for my volunteer job at the Y-M-C-A. I usually didn't get bored until I got to the silverware. And since I worked alone, I could go about it anyway I wanted, just so it got done. And you know how I did silverware.
The other good thing was that every morning was like an all-you-can-eat buffet. I was allowed to drink all the "juice" and "coffee" I wanted from the washing line, plus they'd give me a breakfast roll every day. But besides that, I had an incredible amount of untouched food coming down the conveyer belt. See, the students didn't pay for their food with money, but food coupons, most often purchased by mom and dad at the beginning of the semester. Many students would sell their food coupon books to make money for beer and drugs. Anyway, they had plenty of food coupons, and it didn't seem like actual money to them, so they'd just buy whatever they thought they wanted without thinking about if they were hungry, and then not eat it and send it to the garbage untouched. I was the garbage. At first I was eating a stack of pancakes and french toast every day. Always enough donuts, and often greasy "breakfast sandwiches" of soggy toast, melted cheese, and slimy ham. And better yet, the kids would often leave loose food coupons on their trays—often twenty-five cent ones, always five and ten cent ones. I saved these and they added up. The students didn't think of these as tips, but I did – they kept me from bankruptcy in those early years.
After awhile I couldn't touch the pancakes or french toast to shoot my wad, but I always enjoyed making a huge doughy cannon ball out of uneaten pancakes and then throwing the massive object as hard as I could at the Mexican janitor. Man, you should have seen Fridays, a big hangover day, because if you don't know, Thursday night is the biggest drinking night on college campuses. These kids would come in and, you know how you have a hangover and think you want to eat, but then face to face with the food...you can't. Untouched, it came back to me – I always had three squares on Fridays.
How was I to know this would be the peak in my dishwashing career? In a way I think I did know, or I should've known. I knew nothing. I can’t even afford a dishwasher. Although, I once bounced a check trying to buy one – I got the thing home, two weeks later the district attorney sent me a letter saying I’d better pay for it or he would kick my ass. Did I happen to mention that this dishwasher leaked? Yes, I was pissed and I took it back to the store, told them it leaked and left. I never heard anything more about that dishwasher.
The next summer, staying with my parents, broke, bankrupt again, and kind of depressed, I applied for a lot of jobs including a third shift dishwasher job at the Country Kitchen. I had a good interview, and the job sounded so depressing I figured I was just the right person to get it. But I didn't. I'd probably still be working there, had they hired me.
Oh, and there was one more dishwashing job—the real anchor for my resume. It was later that year at a 24 hour truckstop, where I got hired for a few nights a week as third shift Hobart-operator. I was delivering flowers during the day for some fag in a monkey suit. Even though I saw some magnificent sunrises after work, my days were too filled with haziness. And even though they had a fine little Hobart, they also had a video monitor in the kitchen, presumably to keep employees from stealing silverware and sinks—but no one likes being monitored electronically. The black government watches me everywhere I go – they watch me at home and in my car and sometimes I catch them snapping cumshot pictures of me in the morning through my peephole. Anyways, I quit before too long even though I had promised the boss I would stick around. He yelled at me the day I came into pick up my check, and I happened to be in a rare good mood so I yelled back at him: "!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! you a*****e!" Not very original, but it was in front of several waitresses and customers. A solid gold moment – I am the man! I'm going to Vegas baby!