My Carrie-sister and I got summer internship jobs at the manufacturing plant our dad worked at where they build machines used for fusing rubber pipeline together. Carrie was basically a glorified receptionist, and I was the lucky girl to be stationed under John Mink, who had a specific job for my partner, Viktor (a 17 year old Russian, who spoke very broken english) and I. We were to go out into the plant, armed with a notepad and digital camera, and watch the mechanics build the machines. We were then to re-write the instruction books on how to do this task, complete with illustrations. Great. Needless to say, Viktor and I spent alot of time trying to figure out how to accomplish this. We decided that since my grasp of the English language was better, I would be in charge of note-taking and Viktor would take the pictures. After a few weeks, we realized that this was going to take a much longer time than even we thought at first. And it didn't help that John Mink was beginning to worry. Not that he had given us much too difficult a task, but that I was too stupid for the job. You see, John loved Viktor. I mean REALLY loved him. He thought Viktor was the best thing to ever happen to the company. And he thought I was a blooming idiot. One day, he pulled me aside, and informed me that if I wanted, he could teach me how to use the camera. I politely informed him that I already knew how to use it. He said that since he always saw Viktor with it, he thought I must not know how. I tried to help him understand why this was, but he must have stopped listening. A few days later, he tried to teach me how to use the camera. And a few weeks after that he tried again. And a few more times after that. Thanks, John. Really. Thanks.
We now come to Bart Bartlett, or Brett Bretterson as Carrie and I called him. He was the plant manager, whose office was across the aisle from our cubicles. He hated us. He was constantly getting mad at us for being too loud on our lunch breaks, and talking in the hallways. We just decided that maybe he didn't like girls, as we were 2 of 4 that worked in the entire plant. Our suspicions were confirmed, when he asked John Mink to talk to me about "being too pretty" and distracting the workers. Apparently, I was so cute in my steel-toed boots, no makeup, and safety goggles, none of the men in the plant could do anything when I was around, and I should stop it. Brett Bretterson was also the most hilarious person to eavesdrop on. Since his office was so close, Carrie and I could always hear him on the phone cussing out his kid's little league coach, or pondering the quandary: "But what do you do with the dead body in the back of the truck?!?" There are so many more stories I could tell about him (like "32+8=40," "that's feasible," and "you are all asking: You fool, it can't be done!"), but none are as amusing as what's coming next: Bobby.
Bobby was a 40-something mechanic, who had a bit of a crush on me. He always asked me how my weekend was. Always. Every time he saw me. On a wednesday afternoon, he might walk up to me, and in all seriousness say "Hey. How was your weekend?" I never could figure it out. If nothing else, Bobby was definitely generous. At least once a day, usually more, Bobby would go to the vending machine and buy me a package of Peanut MMs. He had never seen me buy them, and never heard me talk about how much I liked them, he just thought it up. Brilliant! At first, I just thought whatever, free candy. But after a few weeks of this, I started giving it away. And after a month, Carrie and my other friends stopped wanting it as well, so I started throwing it away. I still had 2 more months of this. To this day, Peanut MMs still make me want to yak. Finally, the last day of our internship had arrived, and as I was packing up my stuff to leave, my office phone rang. It was Bobby. He wanted to know if I wanted to go out to dinner sometime. Ooooooh dinner! What are we going to have, Peanut MMs? No thanks. Not to mention the fact that Bobby was old enough to be my father. Yuck.
The only thing I liked about that summer was working with Carrie, my dad, Derek, and Sheridan. We had some good times in that break room, watching the price is right and eating love-cookies. Ah, memories.
