I've worked many different jobs in my lifetime. I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn, a king....Wait a minute, that's Frank Sinatra. Oops! I've actually been most of those things although I have no idea what a pauper is. I assume it's something to do with being rich. My first job was as a dishwasher at an Italian restaurant and I eventually moved up to be a food prep. I still have horrible memories of cleaning and cutting calamari. Eww! Did you know when you buy a glass of Coke at a restaurant it only costs the restaurant about 10 cents? Liquids are the money maker in restaurants! I digress (I love saying that)

I also worked the graveyard shift at a gas station which was not 100% completely, absolutely, totally scary at all. I would get maybe 10 customers my whole shift. It was cool though. I would just smoke blunts and play my guitar all night long. Even though I was broke as a joke I would get bored and scratch lottery tickets all night as well. I would just scratch them until I hit a big one to be able to pay for all the ones I had previously scratched. Some nights I never would hit a big one and I would have to play stupid when my boss came in and counted the till. I only did it a few times though. Can't push your luck.

I also installed insulation in new homes and I hated that job. I would start at 4 am and go home every day itchy as hell. I had to immediately take a cold shower as soon as I got home to wash off the fiberglass. You have to take a cold shower because warm water will cause your pores to open up and the fiberglass could get in your skin and that is no fun at all.

I also worked for an electronic company that would get old computer parts. I would sit at a table that was hooked up to a pedal that would massively increase the heat on the table. I would heat up the circuit boards until the solder melted and would then take off the microchips that were worth refurbishing.

I also was a salesman for a metal company and sold, aluminum, stainless steel, cold-rolled steel, and some other metals. This job is where I learned just how corrupt China is, but that's a story for another time. My main and most rewarding job was being a piano technician. Tuning, repairing, and cleaning pianos. I'll tell you more about that job at another time too.

So what in the heck am I telling you all of this for? So you can get to know me, of course...geez. There is also another reason though. There is another job I had that I want to tell you about; Prostitution....wait, scratch that. I want to tell you about when I worked for a payphone company. For the younger readers, a payphone is a phone you pay to use. Got it? Cool. When you put change in a payphone it goes into a little metal box at the bottom of the phone. Every so often a worker would take out the box and replace it with an empty one. The collection of coin boxes would be brought back to me and my fellow employees and we would "count" the change. We had big machines we'd dump the change into and it would count it. Wed bag it up and on to the next one. I'm explaining more than I need to about what I did there and it has nothing to do with the overall point of this post. So why am I wasting your time with fluff? That's a good question. I just tend to ramble.

So let's get to the crux of the issue. Every day I would pick up a few dudes and give them a ride to work and back home. We would always go out to lunch together and we became pretty tight with each other. One day we were on our way home. Of course, I was driving. It was my old school 79' Monte Carlo. The first vehicle I ever bought and it was $700. It was a piece of shit, but it was all mine.

So, we are driving down a long road and my buddy, we'll call him Flaco, because that's actually what we called him. Flaco means skinny in Spanish and he was about 400 pounds. HA! just kidding. He was a skinny ass mofo. Anyway, Flaco reaches into his pants and pulls out a mini fire extinguisher. You weren't sure where I was going with that at first, huh? He stole the extinguisher from our work which was just peachy. We all are like, "what the hell are you gonna do with that?" and Flaco says "I'm gonna extinguish someone." So we all start laughing because we think he's kidding. He was not. I tell him no. We all tell him, no, but the thing with Flaco is he was not the type of guy that's used to being told no. He was a straight-up gansta and even had 'Azteca' tattooed on the back of his neck. He was not to be messed with. For some reason, crazy-ass dudes always seemed to get along with me. I was a pretty funny dude and it saved my butt many times. Plus, I'm just a cool ass guy. Who wouldn't like me? My mom always said the same thing and dammit if she wasn't correct.

I realize it's gonna happen. We all realize it's gonna happen. and guess what? It happened. We're driving down the road and Flaco points at some unfortunate soul who's riding his bike. The guy is on the same side of the street as us heading in the same direction. As we pass the guy Flaco puts the fire extinguisher out the window and just unloads on the guy completely covering him with a white cloud of disrespect. I was not supportive of the idea, but I'd be lying if I said my immature self didn't laugh. Ugh. I still feel bad about that. I promise you though, if you knew Flaco you would understand there was nothing we could do.

The guy was obviously pissed off. He threw his hands in the air and started shaking all the white clouds of disrespect off his body. We continued to drive down the street without thinking twice. We got a couple of miles down the road and Flaco says to pull into the parking lot of a liquor store so he could get some beer and smokes. We all go inside and start shopping and we were not in there for more than five minutes when guess who comes walking through the door? Santa Clause. I mean, the bike rider. The dude that we doused down walks through the door still covered from head to toe in a white haze of fuzzy disrespect. And he. is. pissed. But here's the thing; I know the guy. Not only do I know the guy, but he is the older brother of one of my best friends. You can't imagine the feeling of embarrassment and disappointment that came over me when I realized it was him. I could not believe it was someone I actually knew. ugh.

So he, Sam, walks in and his fists are clenched and shit was about to go down. I immediately say "oh my gosh, Sam! Dude! I'm sooooo sorry. I swear I did not realize it was you. It was not personal bro, I swear. We were just being dicks. I'm so sorry bro". Luckily he was listening to me and I was able to keep him from snapping. It's also possible he saw my friends and knew it was not worth it. Plus Flaco saw me talking to him and obviously could tell it was the guy we showered with white love. Flaco walks up to Sam and looks directly into his eyes and says "we got a problem here". Before Sam could say anything I walk between them and say "no, no, no. It's okay, he's my friend" As much as we deserved for Sam to knock us on our butts I'm glad he didn't challenge Flaco because Flaco would have absolutely demolished Sam and I knew it.

I was able to keep things cool and promised up and down that I would make it up to Sam. He seemed to believe me, but I'm not sure because he really didn't say much. The look on his face said it all. I was sure that the next time I saw Sam he was gonna kick my butt. And he probably would have been able to because I wasn't much of a fighter. The one thing that really kept me safe in my youth was the number of crazy gangster dudes I knew. Growing up in Hayward CA was not the toughest place in the world, but it was certainly no walk in the park. I can probably name about ten different gangs just in my area of the neighborhood. I said it before, but I'll say it again; being able to make people laugh is an ace up the sleeve that kept me in good graces most of my youth.

The next time I saw Sam was at a house party and I was sure he was gonna be pissed, but to my surprise, he was not. He actually laughed it off and was totally cool about it. I don't know if it was because he knew I had a lot of people that would be willing to get vengeance for me if need be or if it was because he was drunk as hell. Both were true. I am so thankful that he was cool about it and nothing worse happened from the situation. I got a little drunk and a lot high and we had a great time. I know we did because I can't remember a thing we did that night. : )

So that's my fire extinguisher story. And after all these years, even though I said it many times before, I would like to again say I am sorry, Sam. It was a dick move and I still feel bad about it. It did give me a funny story to tell. Soooo, there's that.

maybe in the future, I'll get the nerve to tell you some stories much worse than this one. Of course, nothing ever is or was my fault. I was always a complete saint.

Thanks for reading. See ya at the next one!

Celery Cyborg