Friday, October 30, 2020

sleep schedule

 “My sleep schedule is so fucked off of visiting my parents for Saturday lunch at 4 in the afternoon,” he says.

“Do you want to try setting some alarms for earlier tomorrow?” she asks.

“Not sure. Like, if I don’t get enough sleep work will suck so I think it’s better if I just sleep all day. But I’m annoyed I keep waking up randomly, staying up a few hours, and then needing a nap before work. I end up groggy.”

“Yeah it’s been like four days,” she says.

“Really annoying, like I can’t do anything in the afternoon without messing up how I sleep for a week after.”

“You could try going to bed earlier, I guess.”

“I just roll around and check my phone and vape a lot. It never works,” he says.

“Yeah, I don’t know, babe.”

Friday, October 23, 2020

swipe

He carries his bucket and his Starbucks Triple Espresso with guarana and B vitamins in the same hand using a technique that involves balancing the bucket handle on the tips of three fingers, allowing his thumb and palm to grip the can of coffee. He climbs two flights of stairs and sets his bucket on the floor outside the bathroom the other guy is cleaning. He sits and he opens his coffee can.

The security guard comes through the door and waves to him and he waves back. The security guard puts his hands into his pockets.

“You guys haven’t done AC yet, right?” the security guard asks.

“No, we’ve been doing it last,” he says.

“Yeah I figured. I’ll be in the office so you can call in when you’re over there.”

“Oh. Our swipe card worked the last time,” he says.

“What? Really?”

“Yeah. We just randomly tried it and it worked. I figured they fixed it,” he says.

“They didn’t tell me anything,” the security guard says. “It hasn’t worked in a year.”

He laughs. “Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, we’ll call you if it doesn’t work. But it seems like it works now.”

“Crazy,” the security guard says and he shakes his head. “You know they don’t have anyone clean in our office?”

“Seriously?” he asks.

“Yeah. I sweep the place and take the trash out every once in a while. But yeah. Something goes wrong we’re the first people they call but they don’t even clean our office.”

“Nuts,” he says. “I mean, I know Joe is swamped. He’s so understaffed right now.”

The other guy steps out of the bathroom with his bucket in his hand and says, “Oh, hey,” and the security guard says, “Hey, guy,” to him.

Friday, October 16, 2020

hair

“I’m just taking a break. Blood sugar is low,” their dad says. He sits on the steps at the library and eats a bag of peanut M&Ms and drinks two cans of Coke.

“Do you want me to do the last two bathrooms?” he asks.

“They’re all done but they still need floors mopped,” their dad says.

“No problem. Let me do it,” he says and he goes to their dad’s cart for the mop bucket and he wrings the mop out once and then mops the women’s bathroom.

He discovers two long stringy black hairs on the floor after mopping and mutters, “Shit,” and then turns to see the other guy in the hallway. He says to the other guy, “Hey, I think we have a hair problem again.”

“Oh?”

“Just realized a few of these hairs while mopping the floor,” he says and he points to them.

“You know, you maybe can just wring the mop out more, make sure it’s plenty dry, and try that,” their dad says.

He wrings the mop out four times and then mops the floor again.

“Damn. That worked,” he says.

“Yeah, I try to keep the mop head as dry as possible so hairs I picked up in other bathrooms don’t get stuck in the mop.”

He nods and he dry mops both bathrooms thoroughly and checks them for hairs and doesn’t find any.

“I’m gonna check the other bathrooms,” he says.

“Floors should be dry in all of them by now,” their dad says.

He checks the floors in the other bathrooms and there aren’t any hairs.

Friday, October 9, 2020

sandwich

He buys coffee, a bottle of water, and a sandwich from the grocery store deli. He goes home and he tells her, “I got coffee, a bottle of water for work, and a sandwich.”

“Nice,” she says. “Will that be enough?”

“Sure, I think. I might get something else after work.”

He eats his sandwich. It has salami, honey ham, and turkey.

“Do you want some?” he asks her.

“Can I have a little? Like maybe break off part of it.”

“Sure,” he says and he hands her the whole thing.

She takes it and holds it and stares at it for a while.

“What does it have on it?” she asks.

“I’m not sure. Like salami or something called genoa or genocide or something.”

She separates the bread and looks at the meat and the bread and the cheese and separates the meat from the cheese and then the meats from the other meats.

“This is off colored,” she says.

“I think it’s supposed to be that way.”

“No.”

“I think so, yeah. It’s like salami. I think it always looks like that.”

“No, babe, this is bad,” she says and she tears a piece of the salami in half, setting the darker half on the table. She tears more of the meats, setting the darker variation of it on the table and looking at the remaining meat and the sandwich as a whole.

“Are you okay?” she asks, looking at him.

“Yeah, just frustrated.”

“What? Why?”

“I feel like you’re making fun of my sandwich,” he says.

“What? I’m not. I’m just trying to make sure you aren’t eating bad meats.”

“I would have eaten it,” he says.

“I know. But this is not good. This sandwich has old meat on it.”

“It’s fine,” he says.

Friday, October 2, 2020

terms

 He tells the other guy he’s almost out of bleach and the other guy says he can siphon some from his container so he has enough for the shift.

“It might be a good idea to start bringing reserve cartridges,” the other guy says.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

“Just like a second bottle.”

He laughs. “Reserve cartridges.”

“Yeah, you know,” the other guys says, “so we don’t have to do on-site resource transfers.”

He laughs again. “You’re good at that.”

“I remember a guy joking to me about how many of those terms they have in the military. Like an air assault really just means they took a helicopter.”

“Nice,” he says.

When he takes the trash out to the dumpster the bag leaks and drips across the carpet and tile floors of the library. He finds the other guy and tells him and the other guy says, “Oh, you need an emergency salvage operation? I got you.”

“Don’t forget your on-site resource carrier,” the other guy says. A bucket.

donald goines by calvin westra

 He wrote a book called Donald Goines by Calvin Westra. He made a simple website to help people buy it, by putting all the links to buy it o...