My first job was as a dishwasher at a truck stop right after I graduated from the eighth grade. I learned about it from my dad one day after I came home from fishing, and he told me that my sister, who worked there as a waitress, was driving me in for my first day. I had about 15 minutes to clean up and go. No chance to protest. No opportunity to stall. No time to be scared.

Anyway, washing dishes was at the bottom of the totem pole. There were the cooks. Then the waitresses. And finally…you. If you’ve ever had the same job, there’s no need to explain. On one memorable shift, the cooks were running low on salt. Next to fat, salt is most valuable to a trucker’s diet, so it was stored in 100lb bags over at the “station.” The station was a warehouse about 60 yards away from the restaurant itself at the other end of the gravel lot where the customers parked their rigs. I was ordered to go over and fetch one. Leaving behind a backlog of filthy dishware from the dinner rush, I ran over to the station and up a flight of stairs to stand before a pyramid of these imposing bags, each one weighing slightly more than myself. 

I grabbed a sack that looked lonely next to the pile and wrestled it over to the stairs I had just run up. Then, crabbing it down each step to the landing below, I squatted down, put it over my shoulder, and stood up with it. Sort of. It took a few attempts, but I managed and started to carry the thing back across the parking lot, leaving behind a trail of drunken footsteps in the dust. I kind of had to snake my way through the maze of parked trucks, which were lazily grumbling in Diesel because truckers never shut them down when they went in for chicken fried steaks, hamburgers, and coffee. Generally, one assumed that they were unoccupied, but not always, and sometimes a driver might give you a blast of air horn as you walked in front of his grille because he was a sadist who wanted to watch you jump out of your skin.

Fortunately, the bag didn’t break when it hit the ground. I got it up again and staggered over to the back door of the kitchen. One step inside and my foot slipped on the greasy floor. It went out from under me. I landed on my back. Oooof. Thank God my head didn’t crack because it plopped onto a dune of salt that had quickly spread everywhere. The cook who sent me over cussed and yelled.