Round and Round

So, we were on the bus. For those that have not been forced to give back to the community in lieu of serving jail time, there are wheels on the bus. They go round and round. Round and round. I kinda get where Ratt got the idea for the song now.

The bus cruises down the freeway. We still have no idea where we are going as I stare out the barred windows trying to get my bearings in case there is some type of riot and I have to find my way home. It's me. It could happen. It's a ragtag bunch of dudes. There are dudes with tattoos of stars behind their ears, the dudes who can't speak a lick of English with what looks like their kids' backpacks because they are obviously too small and feature cartoon characters, and the club kids who look like they just got on the bus from gettin' down up in da club. A dead give away to these dudes is the crooked army cap.

We are so South of San Jose by the time the bus pulls off the freeway that we could be in Fresno. Ahhh, Fuck. It's Fresno. We're not really in Fresno, but the only landmark that I can pick up is a Golfland about a quarter of a mile before we turn into the yard of the Santa Clara Valley Water Authority. We file off the bus and start milling about waiting for direction.

There are a couple of folding tables set up end-to-end that are employed as backpack storage. Kid backpack storage in some cases. Just backpacks full of bag lunches and in one case a Cup O' Noodles (sounds Irish). Brilliant planning in that guy's case. Expecting a microwave or tea kettle, dude?

This dude in coveralls who is a spitting image of Scatman Crothers in The Shining rolls up to and addresses the crowd as the prison bus dashes out of the yard amidst more milling about by a couple of bulldozers. He lets this group of Noway Laureates know that they will be bagging sand for the rest of the day. Global warming. Drought. This sounded like make work work, but whatever, it's something to do to kill time.

The rules: teams of four will be on the hoppers dispensing sand into the bags. The winners behind them will tie the bags. The winners behind them will place them on palettes. Easy enough, right? Also, we will be issued safety glasses, gloves and respirators. Glasses and vests will be worn at all times even during breaks. There will be no use of outhouses outside of allotted break times.

I took 25% of the hopper crew and started filling bags and passing them behind me. It's actually a really good lat exercise that is not too unlike working with a Swiss ball. So, it was what it was and I really didn't mind it.

After about an hour I kind of caught one of the club kids staring at me every time I passed a bag back. Whatever. Maybe he knew me. I had noticed him on the bus because I didn't think he was properly dressed for work. Also, remember that you are never fully dressed without a smile. Pro tip.

So, there was a period of time that I was waiting for a sand refill in my hopper and dude goes, "So, how do you like it so far?"

"Dude, I fuckin' hate it. Are we supposed to like this?" and I went back to filling bags.

As the day went on dude kept making small conversation during any opportunity. The third conversation set my gaydar off. Well, that and the fact that dude was staring at my ass the whole fucking time. Well, whatever.

Lunch came and went with the rule that you could do whatever you want outside of going horizontal. No laying down.

After lunch I saw these dudes using their keys to slash the bags before passing to the palette guys so that the sand would spill out in the name of entertainment. This would make sense if you didn't have to fuckin' clean it up. This sums up the mentality of these people that were never going to graduate weekend work and who may not have wanted to. This was a peer group to some.

Day ends (sorta) and we clean up our stations and wait for the bus. We jump on the bus and get back to the freezing cold garage at three. We stand there for forty five minutes doing NOTHING. Like fucking nothing unless freezing can be considered a hobby.

The asshole cops line everyone up and do another roll call. I guess they occasionally lose people. They call my name and I walk across the garage to the other side and freeze some more while we wait for them to call everyone's name. Somewhere deep in the annals of public service this is considered a system. It explains a lot.

I get out and go home and sleep with visions of sand in my head. Piles and piles of sand. I imagine that the next day we are going to have to go take all the bags that we filled up and empty them out for the dudes to use the next weekend. Losing faith in the system as the whole thing is a huge fucking waste of time and benefits no one. Perhaps they should let me set up a new system for them, but I have a feeling this is a culture that is adverse to efficiency. It's called my own personal kryptonite.

SPOILER ALERT: I got CalTrans the next morning. More to come.