First

Posted to Work on 9 August 2007.

by Todd–Age 33–Omaha, NE

My first job was mowing lawns for a grade school, sweaty, outdoors work, one of those gateway summer jobs that build character by breaking spirit. Before reporting for my first day, my mother gave me five dollars for lunch. “You’ll pay me back with your first paycheck,” she told me, proud that I was about to become a productive member of society.

For my first task, my boss, Drew, a tiny man with a majestic mullet, asked me to sharpen the blade on a lawnmower. I didn’t remember anything from orientation about sharpening blades, but, not wanting to look stupid, I figured I’d figure it out. I gripped the blunt side with my right hand, and, with my left, ran a file along the sharp edge. It was a tough balancing act and, on the third pass, the pressure shot the blade out of my grip, flinging it into the back of my right hand.

There was, at first, remarkably little blood. When I showed the wound to Drew, he took me to the nurse’s office, but it was locked and, inexplicably, he didn’t have a key. We dressed my wound with brown paper towels, but they weren’t absorbent enough and blood, now gushing, flowed right through. “You better head over to Shopko,” a discount store across the street, “and get yourself some real band-aids.” Drew advised.

I now had to budget the five dollars my mother had given me for food and first-aid. The only bandages in my price range were child-sized with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on them, so I took a handful out and exchanged them with two “adult” bandages better suited for the wound. I paid for my hybrid box, but the second I stepped out of the store, a security guard, a haggard old man who wouldn’t listen to excuses, apprehended me for shoplifting. He called the police, and, after laughing at the pettiness of my petty theft—the store’s loss was listed at 67 cents—the officers gave me a ticket which, by the time I returned to work, was covered in blood.

I felt like an idiot explaining what had happened, but Drew must have thought it was funny because later that summer, when he found me asleep behind some hedges I was supposed to be trimming, he nudged me awake, and said “Back to work, Dillinger.”

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