Never knew that behind our big box Menard’s home store is a huge working lumberyard. You enter through a gate “guarded” by an equally huge but fairly lethargic security man who checks your receipt to see that you have already paid for the boards, shingles, fenceposts and bags of rocks that you are there to pick up. The yard is home to a half dozen fast moving forklifts driven by manic youths who play dodge ’em with the pickup trucks and vans of the confused customers looking for “door 11”.
From the notebook: Workingman’s Lunch= forklift operator bipping around the lumberyard at Menards. Hot Saturday. Beside him in the forklift: giant bottle of yellow Gatorade, open bag of Cheetos (crunchy), open bag of sour gummy worms. Probably alternating swigs and handfuls, never slowing down.
A great detail for a story sometime– maybe for a shipyard in a space opera. Until then it’s fun to remember being young enough to eat like that without keeling over on the spot. My workingwoman’s lunch would have been grape Gatorade, nacho cheese Doritos and peanut M&Ms, but to each his or her own.
Those who are picturing me let loose in a lumberyard at the controls of a forklift are excused a mock expression of terror.
