Down and Dirty
On Fridays, I go straight from trapping to work. Trapping involves walking through dense vegetation picking up metal boxes that smell strongly of urine. I am covered in mud, leaves, spiders, and possibly communicable diseases by the end.
Usually, I try to be very discrete. I sneak into the bathroom and use the handicap stall to change. I use my socks to mop up the sticks and dirt that falls from my body as I shed clothes. (I have found a key to the grungy-to-office transition is skirts. Because after waterlogged 50-lbs jeans, my legs need AIR.)
But last Firday I was so freaking happy. We’d seen otters! I found a trap with a yellow rat snake! I was also possibly the dirtiest I’ve been so far in this adventure.
And I thought about a co-worker who has mentioned more than once lately that I don’t seem happy. I’ve tried to explain that my passions lie a little on the rural side of a desk job, but he doesn’t seem to get it. So, I figured I’d run over and surprise him as-is to show him the depth of my depravity and a real true smile on my face.
He wasn’t there. But I had to pass a second co-worker’s office and I caught the look on his face. That look said I could not just run past him again without explanation.
I stopped in his doorway.
His jaw dropped open.
“Hi!”
“What happened?!”
“Nothing!”
“Were you hit by a truck?”
I tried to explain, but it was very obvious I was speaking Chinese. And no matter how big I smiled, he couldn’t understand happiness came in that sort of package.
Jessica in Progress. Getting hit by trucks since 2007.