Not My Favorite Job - Ever

I was all of 16 n 1963, I spent my summer vacation in a small place known as Kerr (pronounced cur) Station. Population yahoo but my grandmother lived there and ran a country store a number of years after her husband, my grandfather passed away.

It was that summer, my uncle found a job working in Smithfield at a processing plant and about a week after I arrived, asked me if I would be interested in working there.

"Pays seven and hour, Billy. Taint hard. All ya gotta do is wash down the floors, scrub real good, then wash it down again. Takes about five hours to get it ready for when they open up the next day. I can get ya in if ya wanna."

I thought about it for all of twenty seconds before I said, "Sure, why not."

Three words that were the worst three words I ever said.

My uncle didn't tell me what kind of processing plant it was, the day after I was hired, I showed up to do the best job I could.

I walked into a large room with all sorts of rubber insulated wiring hanging from the ceiling. The place had to have been over 1500 feet of concrete, blood and ... guts.

The smell hit me like a mack truck would hit a Volkswagen head on.

I wore protective gear such as goggles and a breathing mask and wore a bright yellow raincoat to keep me from soaking my own clothes and rainboots.

But no mask in the world could prevent the stench surrounding me to just go away. No matter where I turned, there were portions of chicken guts everywhere I looked, even a few chicken heads.

I stuck it out and finished the job but when I was finished, I quit.

My uncle laughed. He told me I was the sixth person hired in two weeks to do that job.

It took the better part of two weeks to wash away the stench that seemed to never leave my body.

I swore that day never to take another job he told me about.

Oh, and I haven't eaten any chicken since then.