Working Up A Sweat

Time to update you on the rollicking hijinx of your favorite homo day laborer!

Yesterday I got up early and headed down to Hard Labor Ready.

Not early enough apprently. The place was just about deserted when I got there; the assignments had come in and the laborers went out. I was antsy because I had exactly six dollars to my name. But happily, a call came in. But unhappily, it was someone wanting help with yard work. My least favorite.

I was partnered with a guy named Randy, and for a change we went in his Jeep Liberty instead of my Jeep Liberty.

The Hard Labor Ready turned out to be a single woman, in her forties, wearing comfortable clothes, who owned two dogs, who owned power tools, and who had her strawberry blond hair cut short and parted on the side. I'm not sayin' I'm just sayin'. But the possibility that I was working a member of the tribe sure made the yard work more tolerable. And, as is often the case, I jumped into the work with gusto. Ms. Yardwork had just moved from Montana. She had bought the home planning to fix it up--herself--and resell it, an effort that had payed off for her in Montana and before that in Maine and before that in Oregon. (I knew about Maine and Oregon being Poles of the Lesbian World, but I wasn't aware of Montana.) Thus far, she had ripped up the decades old carpet inside, and cleared trees and brush from around the house. At one point, I was cutting up oak saplings to three foot lengths, bundling them, and binding them with twine. I smile to myself, thinking that bundles of sticks were referred to as "faggots." I decided to keep these thoughts to myself.

The downside of working for a person rather than a company is that a company has usually already budgeted you for an eight hour day, so if you get everything done in less time, they still put eight hours down on your job sheet. Homeowners tend to be keenly aware that they're paying for your services by the hour and time it down to the minute. And such was the case with Yardwork Woman. She had Randy and I drop our tools at the four hour mark exactly. And so four hours was just what I got paid for. (Which works out to me getting twenty-six bucks.)

This morning, I left the house at 6:15, when it was still dark. I was helping out Installer Guy, whom I met through a Hard Labor Ready assignment but who gave me the opportunity to work for him directly. The job was way down in South Jersey. I was closer to Atlantic City than I was from home.

And it got weird.

It's for a company that deals in rare minerals. Very rare minerals apparently. And so most of their facilities are a metal free zone. Really! Because magnesium or whatever goes for $3000 an ounce, they take every precaution to make sure that no one is taking out any. So after we were cleared through the first security gate, we emptied our pockets into lockers before we headed through the second security gate. I was pretty scrupulous, but scrupulosity was encouraged.

The work was reconfiguring cubicles in one of the labs. The whole place was built from cinderblock. The windows we passed gave views only to foundry looking places filled with men wearing haz mat suits. None of them looked out on the sunshine. And speaking of wardrobe options, the folks that worked there all wore these identical gray uniforms. At first I thought they were dickies, but I noticed they were much better cut. And they seemed starched. And they were accessorized by cinching thick black belts and black boots. (The hems of the pants were tucked into the black boots.) The entire effect--passing all these youngish men in the hall dressed in these militaristic yet proletarian uniforms reminded me (a lot) of Fritz Lang's Metropolis. We were working in one of the laboratories (lah-BORE-ah-tor-ees). Behind glass partitions, easter egg colored liquids bubbled in flasks and beakers. So cool! To one side were cubicles, and re-arranging them was our mission.

The work went fairly well, and after a few hours, we were finished. I helped Installer Guy pack up his tools, loaded them all onto a cart, and we headed on our way.

Which meant, of course, not leaving the building before it was assured that we had no metal on us whatsoever. Installer Guy went first. He took off his shoes, held out his arms, and submitted to one of those airport-security style go-overs with what seemed to be a verrry sensitive metal detector. (Each of the rivets on his jeans gave a signal and was accounted for. The security guy frowned deeply every time he hit another rivet.)

Oh hell.

I realized that I had emptied my pockets, but I was still wearing the big honking stainless steel cock ring that I always wear everywhere I go and which I haven't taken off in months.

Hoping that Installer Guy and security guy would be would be intent on what they were doing, I turned my back, unbuttoned my fly, dug out my three piece set, and wrenched off the cockring.

Don't try that at home.

Ever.

Ever!

I chucked it into the little bin with my wallet and the little key to the locker into which I had emptied my pockets.

Security guy was done with Installer Guy and was ready to turn his magnetic attention to me. First off, he put my plastic bin.

"Uh oh," he commented.

The bin came out of the metal detector, he picked up my cockring and held it up, like Hercule Poirot would treat a murder weapon.

"What the hell is this?" he asked.

"It's jewelry," I answered.

He was dumbfounded. "Jewelry? What kind of jewelry is this? How do you wear it?"

I steeled myself: "Umm... The genitals."

His eyes widened, probably from two flashes of recognition following in quick succession: first, just what I was talking about, and second, that he was holding it in his hand.

He recovered well.

I wondered if he'd hit some alarm button and all the youngish men in grey uniforms and black boots would come storming in to carry me off to the isolation chamber. Or the Re-education Camp. Or whatever. But it was over, and somehow I had passed.

After that, the once over with the metal detector was a cakewalk, although I think that security guy coould have found a chunk of Rhodium in my pocket the size of a Snickers bar and let it go. I sure breathed a sigh of relief.

Luckily, they didn't carefully examine every tool in Installer Guy's toolbags, but Installer Guy told me he wasn't always so lucky.

All told, going through security took over an hour.

But finally we were on our own.

On the way home, I was fairly jovial. Installer Guy would put a check in the mail to me, and tomorrow, Friday, I get my first paycheck from Ho(t)me(n) Depot.

Somewhere off to the West, tonight is the first night of Inferno. The men have unpacked, had the first dinner, and the dungeons are open. But knowing that I have money coming in dulls the sting of that.