What's new pussycat? Whoa-a-whoa-a-whoa-whoa

Arriving at the Oscar Mayer Slaughterhouse in Perry, the crew chief told us to sit tight while he went up to the office to check in.  We didn't really want to get out of the truck because of the smell, but since it was a hot summer day and the prick turned off the truck and took the keys with him, we didn't really have a choice.

Our distaste at the horrific smell did not go unnoticed by the array of manly man worker guys there.  It was almost like they had a job to do and that job was to stand around laughing at city folk who are so used to exhaust fumes, they think shit smells bad.  I was suddenly embarrassed by my clean clothes.  Newish work boots, jeans that had been recently washed.  Clean faded orange cotton T-Shirt, neatly torn down the front center from collar to roughly ¾ of the way down.  It looked how I imagine Tom Jones would look if he wore a T-Shirt.

We cut or tore our T-shirts because we were required to wear a shirt of some kind, but if there was nobody from the office around, we’d tuck our shirts in and wriggle out of the top of them through the enlarged neck hole, letting the shirt hang around our waists so we could soak up the sun for roughly 6 hours of the day, thus getting some superhero inducing levels of UV Radiation.  Sun screen?  What the hell is that?  Oh they used to sell stuff to put on if you were going out in the sun.  We never used it though.  And it was designed to promote tanning anyway - not block out the sun.  Crazy talk.  

Anyway, as much as I hated my boss, he let us go around essentially shirtless most of the day, so we could work on our “Savage Tans™”.  The only stipulation was that if we spotted Chuck's Big fat White Town Car hauling his big fat white ass to the work site, we had to cover up quicklike.  Dean hated Chuck as much as I hated Dean, so as the enemy of my farther up enemy, Dean was sort of a friend.  But I really hated him.  Have I mentioned that?  Some might say, "Cube.  Let it go."  And they'd be right.  But I would counter with "Fuck them, too."

When Chuck came to visit us, He usually had some rolled up poster looking pieces of paper with him.  He was wearing a hardhat, A crisp white dress shirt and tie, etc.  He’d step out into the heat and point for a while.  If he saw a crew man without a shirt on, there’d be hell to pay.

By the middle of summer, I was as dark as I was going to get.  More of a "Golden" than brown, but it was still the best tan I ever had.  Boomer and everyone else who worked outside had great tans.  At least from the waist up.  The ill effect of all of this was that the legs got absolutely no sun.  

Normally, my legs looked really really white.  But contrasted with my new deep tan and sunbleached hair, my legs now looked ridiculously pale.  We're talking “slight purple hue”.  In the off hours, Boomer and I hung out at Peony Park.  It was a small amusement park in Omaha with a swimming pool built to look like a beach.  A small, smelly, dirty beach next to greenish brownish water.  This was the great place to show off our tans.  We'd stand in the waist high water and yell to all the girls, "What's new pussycats?", which was  the 1980's equivalent of "How YOU doin'?'"

Unfortunately, my legs glowed even through the murky waters of Peony Park's pool, so nobody was fooled into thinking I had the "Savage Tan™" the "Tanning Oil" sellers touted.

There was another cool thing about Peony Park.  Well, gross actually.  Since it was designed to look like a tiny lake, the bottom of the pool was coated with sand.  Underneath the sand was a particularly rough concrete.  If you were swimming along and your foot scraped the sand, it would instantly get torn up on the concrete.  Due to the disgusting array of disease and muck in Peony Park's water, you could count on this injury not healing.  Ever.  I still check the top of my foot each day.  I tell myself, “Yeah, the festering looks less festery today.  It’s going to be a good day!”

But I’m kidding myself.  When they say some wounds never heal, they’re talking about wounds that happened in the Peony Park pool. 

"Don't worry boys," one friendly old stereotypical country boy encouraged, shaking me out of my flashback and back to the present smelly pigsty situation, "You'll get used to the smell in a while."

"Why would I not worry about that," I asked, "It can't be good for you to get used to."

"C'mon let me show you around while the enlightened ones decide what to do,"  Said our cowboy friend, referring to Our beloved Crew chief and his boss.  His sarcasm was not lost on us.

“An ally,” Boomer and I thought.  It was apparent he had the same disdain for those indoor assholes as we did. 

Detecting our lowering suspicion levels, shitkicker nodded his Iowa Hawkeyes Ball cap toward the big building full of bacon, "This way boys"

Well, it wasn’t quite bacon yet.  It was currently a big pavilion full of the worst smelling shit covered beasts I’d ever seen. 

I enjoy ham, bacon, etc. so if it seems like this next part is some sort of liberal tree-hugging rant about the cruelty of slaughterhouses, that's just not true.  I was sickened by what I saw.  Not because it was inhumane, so much as "Ewww, that's what we eat?"

Since I don't really have a grasp on what a "Healthy pig" looks like, I can't say that they weren't having just the time of their lives.  But I don't think they were.

"An' that there's the pen, boys," explained farmer Gus or whatever his name was, proudly waving an arm in the direction of the big huge square area where there were hundreds of pigs.  But they weren't all pink and bright and shiny, standing around squealing.  It looked more like the end of a great battle in "Braveheart,"  where the soldiers were played by pigs.  They were lying around eating and drinking. Slurping up whatever that brown/yellow liquid was that covered the mud/shit/slop floor of the pen.  There was the occasional grunt or cough from a pig here and there.  There was one pig, who I can only assume was a general or something.  He was up on his hind legs, solemnly placing playing cards on certain pigs as they lay motionless in the muck.

"Sight like 'at changes a man," Gus said, causing Boomer and me to try to shake the image away. 

“What’s that on the ground they’re eating,” Boomer asked.

“Surely you’ve seen it before,” Gus answered with a grin.

“I mean, I know what it looks like.  It looks like shit.”  Boomer said.

“Well sure it does.  But the marketing term for it is ‘Hot Dogs’” Gus said.

“Ew,” Boomer and I agreed.