WORDWORKS

 If you're a parent and want your child to develop a good work ethic, I will give you a piece of advice, don't start them working at 15 and half at the local McDonalds. I learned the best way to stick pickle slices on the freezer ceiling in the first twenty minutes, and by the end of the first day, my boss had asked me, "Do you wanna get sick? Because I've got some 'chronic bronchitis,' he said then whispered to me behind his hand, "it's what you think." I quit a year later after going to buy my supervisor a lighter with a naked lady on it, and went to work at the Safeway across the parking lot.  

They started me bagging groceries at Safeway. It was the perfect job, 80% of the job was helping old people put 20lbs of cat litter in the trunk of their Cadillacs.  Depending on the weather, I would spend the next half hour walking the perimeter of the shopping center, looking for shopping carts, flirting with girls at the Taco Time Drive-Thru, just Tomcatting around. This day, I was hanging out in front of the Hollywood Video counting how many cars side-swiped the video drop box that needed somebody in the passenger seat to use correctly. It was a pretty hot day I remember because the pepperoni stick I was eating was sweating and I was wearing my Safeway sanctioned summer gear, a  monogrammed polo and pleated blue dockers shorts. Anyway, I had just finished a pepperoni stick when a little kid of maybe ten or eleven rolled a girls Huffy bike up next to me with two plastic bags hanging from the handlebars. 

"Mister, do you have a box for me?" He said.

"Sure, what do you need it for?" 

"Well, Peaches just had babies, and my mom says she's going to put them asleep forever if we don't find new homes for them." This kid was as round as they come, like a little beach ball with blond curly hair.  He was wearing a juice stained Tasmanian Devil t-shirt that read 'What Part Of No Don't You Understand?!#?' and covered about two-thirds of his belly and neon tribal printed parachute pants. He was sweating profusely, his little blond afro dripping in his eyes, and kept snapping the elastic waste of his pants to air out. 

It was common practice for families to give away unwanted pets in front of the Safeway, although it wasn't encouraged. 'Sure I said, but where are they?' 'Right here,' he said handing me the two plastic bags hanging from his handle bars. 'It took me like an hour to ride here, so they all must've fell asleep.' I didn't have time to brace myself for what I saw next: Two plastic Safeway bags, soggy with condensation. One had five or six dead baby kittens, the other with four suffocated puppies. It must have been a hundred degrees out and the kid was sweating profusely his belly peeking out of the bottom of his tasmanian devil t-shirt. I threw up a little in my mouth. Luckily, my quick thinking prevailed.

Swallowing the vomit, I told the little kid, 'It's funny you should ask, I know the perfect home for them.'

'You do? '

'Sure do.'

'Ah, that'd be great! Now I can get home before Animaniacs.' Then he rode off.

I figured I would just throw them in the trash compactor in the back and be done with them, but Ron Verberg had other plans. Ron Verberg had worked at Safeway for ten years but was only 28. He was always hitting on all my younger coworkers. Ron still wore his letterman jacket, and was in a rocknroll band with the assistant manager at the Taco Time across the street. He told me the dirtiest jokes I've ever heard. I thought I would show him, because it would've made his day. 'Hey Ron, check this out.' I showed him what was in the bags. 'What're you doing with these?' I re-told the story to him, and how I was just going to throw them away. Without hesitation, he said he had a better idea. I followed Ron out to the back of the store where he took one of the bags from me. David and Goliath style, Ron started swinging the bag like a sling and after reaching maximum rotation, he flung the bag onto the roof of the Safeway. he did the same with the other bag. 'Why'd you do that?' I asked. He gave me a knowing look and said 'Just wait...just you wait.' 

I was confused, and spent the rest of the day just wondering what he had done. The kittens and puppies soon slipped my mind and I went back to work. About a week passed before I started noticing large groups of seagulls and crows hanging out around the store. Then it happened. I was loading an elderly woman's groceries into her car and had just closed the trunk on her Cadillac when I heard what I first thought was a hollow echo of the trunk closing. Then I heard it again. Only this time it was louder and sounded more like someone slapping sheet metal. I looked over just in time to see a piece of meat fall from the sky onto a windshield. To my horror, I recognized the fur on the meat...it was one of the kittens! As I was running back into the store, I heard someone cackling, and looked over to see Ron Verberg. He looked at me and said, ' You better get yourself a jacket man, it's raining cats and dogs out there.'

For the next week it rained cats and dogs, the parking lot a kitty/puppy apocalypse.