I
miss having a knife in my hand.
Since I quit the shop, I haven’t been
doing much with myself now that I’m a butcher-at-large.
Nothing really productive, at least.
Turns out, there aren’t many
opportunities out there for meat cutters who can only work nights and
weekends.
I got a promotion at my day job,
which makes up for the lost income.
And man, having weekends off is
really nice.
I get to sleep in . . . went to Best
of the Wurst . . .
saw
the US Women’s National Team play against New Zealand (from the front row!) . .
.
I’ve
gone on motorcycle rides and hikes . . . and road tripped to unlikely places
around the Midwest, taking pictures of weird stuff and drinking great beer
(LOTS of beer).
(Okay that one’s actually alcoholic root beer, but it’s 10% ABV. Ten percent!)
* * *
After
I leave on Valentine’s Day, Nicole walks into the back room to find Burt
crumpled over in tears.
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
“She’s done. She quit,” he sobs.
“What?!”
“She’s gone.”
It takes Nicole a moment to gather
herself, her thoughts and her words. And
then she explodes. “YOU! This is all! . . . You! And Tommy’s fuckery! . . . And bullshit! You drove her away . . . this is all your fault!”
“She said she didn’t wanna trim
tenderloin anymore,” Burt cries helplessly.
“I don’t care what she told you, this is because of you two
fuck ups! You think she wants to clean
up after you two every day?! This is
just great. What’re we gonna do without
her??”
* * *
