Day 26: La Mariposa

Daniel called Brad gay today...but in spanish, so Brad wouldn't catch it. He said it to Jaime, and I caught it as I walked up. Basically the only word I heard as I walked up was "mariposa," which means butterfly; but when applied to a guy, means he's gay. We all laughed about it and Brad looked confused and just about freaked out. "Guys! What did he say?! Grant!" It was pretty funny.

I was kinda annoyed with Daniel today though. This morning Lawrence said to get a three man crew and get on wiz nutting. Daniel said okay, and then picked his crew. "Richard and Derek.........no.......Brad and Derek!" Brad high fived me and took off. I was like, "Dang it." It kinda bugged me, cause not only is Daniel keen to patronize me, but he's overwhemingly talkative and insists that his way is the only correct (and quickest) method to do anything. I try to be nice and just do what he says, and then be over-gracious about him being such a great mentor. It's worked alright so far, but it's taken a lot of self-control not to talk back to him. I'm afraid that in life confrontaion just leads to horrible consequences later on. I therefore try to remain polite, despite any horrible manners anyone I happen to associate with might have.

I ended up working with Felipe most all day long, punching holes. He worked on one of the Axxessor lifts (similar to the Genie lifts I have described in the past). I stood on the scaffolding, handing him the tools and peices he needed to punch the holes. The I-beams were too high up for the scaffolding to reach, so that's why he needed to use the Axxessor. About halfway through the day Alfredo joined us on another Axxessor, and we all worked on the hole-punching, which went faster with two on the lifts.

Lawrence informed us this morning that Alfredo and a few others got wasted last night and didn't want to come in to work today. They got home this morning at 1am and were still kinda drunk while at work this morning. You could smell the alcohol on Alfredo's breath, and I think I heard Gerard talking to him about it, but it was more joking than anything else; or so it seemed to me. It's sad to see that...people shouldn't do that to themselves. But there's little you can do if they don't want to stop.

Fernando almost killed me a few times today, while I was on the scaffold. One time I was standing up, not grasping any of the sidebars, but actually using both of my hands to lift the extremely heavy hole punch to hand to Felipe. Suddenly the scaffold started to move closer to Felipe (even though it was already close enough) and I almost lost my balance. Luckily Felipe yelled at him soon enough that I didn't fall completely over, and was able to catch myself. Another time, Alfredo was calling for some bolts, and I climbed up on the scaffold to grab them and then shimmied my way between the bars and the grids. I got between them and sat on the table taped to the corner of the scaffold. As soon as I turned around to toss the bolts to Alfredo, the scaffold started to move. Having only about a foot of clearance between the grids and the top of the table, I quickly sprung myself out of the death-trap--luckily the scaffold was moving in the direction I needed it to move so I could escape. It wouldn't have been so scary if Fernando would actually listen the first time I yell to him to stop--even the first three times. But he's practically deaf when it comes to taking orders from the scaffold crew. That can be dangerous, as is now obvious.

Another time, the air compressor that was strapped to the table, and too tall to fit underneath the grids. We suddenly were moving underneath the grids and I looked over to see the compressor being violently slid along the table, strapped down, and ready to do some major damage if I didn't stop it moving quick. I yelled three or four times to get Geneva and Fernando to stop, but finally Alfredo yelled and they stopped. Wonder why? It really got on my nerves. There were a bunch of close calls with me today, and it's because Fernando does not communicate. He doesn't ever listen closely to orders, and he never tells the guys on top when he's moving the scaffold. I could have been seriously injured today. Thank goodness I wasn't. Holy crap...

At lunch I heard the record for most f-words I've ever had the pleasure of listening to in one five-minute period. Some lady was talking about some guy who harassed her or something--I don't really want to go into detail--but she seriously used the f-word in the place of every possible adjective. Anywhere in her sentences an adjective should go, I heard "f***ing!" And it wasn't just any normal adjective space...she'd insert them anywhere she pleased. ...And it was all grammatically correct!

So today was kinda boring. I got 11 hours of sleep and was still dozing off during the first shift. During the second break I sang Taking Back Sunday songs and Brand New songs to keep myself awake. It worked pretty well and I wasn't tired after that. The only entertaining thing today really, was when Fernando was standing on the floor, minding his own business and Alfredo kept dropping peices of plaster (the plaster they use to coat the I-beams) on his head and he couldn't figure out what it was. Everytime Fernando almost killed me or something, Alfredo would look at me and roll his eyes, hinting his opinion that Fernando was a complete moron.

Hmm....wow.


Quote of the Day:

"Fruit-Salad-Guy is my hero and I think he's homeless...doesn't it look like he's homeless?"
-Skye