I’m an avid recycler.

I am a passionate recycler, in fact this is where I was yesterday (it’s only a short drive from my place).

Here’s a closer look, the facility (I love calling it that, it’s really just a tin wall with holes, in front of a bunch of 50 gallon drums) is run by the local Aboriginal community.

So why am I posting pictures and writing about a recycling ‘facility’?  Well, I’ll tell ya. Today’s story first appeared in OUAB in July, but since Julie, and possibly Robin are the only ones that may have read it, it’s worth another run. I feel like a TV network in the non-ratings season. It may be a bit crappy, after all I hadn’t found my style yet (man if I knew then that all I needed was to be insulting, I never would have gone to the trouble of writing this).

Anyway I hope you enjoy "May Ahms Cart"….

When I lived in England I worked for a department store called Marks & Spencer. Not all dressed up nice and selling quality merchandise, but in a small warehouse loading trucks. Not loading quality merchandise but rather, shop fixture and fittings, toilet rolls and paper goods, stationary and anything else to do with the operation of the stores.

This was unskilled labour, and everyone except me was Irish. One day I was working with Paddy and Paddy (that wasn’t their real names but to Aussies all Irish are Paddy and all Scots are Jock, interestingly the Scots call everyone Jimmie). Old Paddy had lived in England for a long time and spoke quite clearly. Young Paddy was another matter; he had only been there for a couple of weeks and was near impossible to understand.

We had to load one of those (heavy) refrigerated deli display units onto a truck. This was one big mutha and it would be a tight squeeze getting it onto the loading dock. I was at the back pushing and young Paddy was at the front pulling and guiding it through the door. “Weet! Mairnscart!” he called called out to me.  Not being fluent in Gaelic, and seeing no sign of a Wheatman’s cart, I took this to be Irish for “Push harder!”. This was not the time to discuss the Irish language, so I just pushed harder. “Asset weet! May Airn Scart!” he repeated (this time a bit louder) and once again I complied. It was then that Old Paddy, who had been alerted by young Paddy’s increasing volume, came rushing over and shouted at me “He said wait! His hand’s caught!”. Which, I now saw, it was.

In fact all I could see was four fingers sticking out between the fridge and the door frame. Unfortunately we were laughing so much it took us another couple of minutes before we could free his hand. (It didn’t help that while we were pulling our guts out trying to get the unit off his fingers, I yelled “Pull man! Pull like you’re pulling an Arab off your sister!”). Until then I had never  seen an old man’s knees buckle and collapse in hysterics on to the ground. That’s one thing about the Irish, they not only tell a good joke; they appreciate one too. Oh yeah, no broken fingers, just bruising and swelling.

Hmmm, it’s a lot shorter than I thought it was.