Posted on 02/26/2011 1:38:34 PM PST by Squawk 8888
I’m not the wiener peeler, I’m the wiener peeler’s son, And I’m only peeling wieners, ‘Til the wiener peeler comes.
I apologize to pheasant pluckers’ sons everywhere for stealing their tongue-twister.
But who can resist when my Internet fairy, Irene, drops this job ad on my desk? “Get out your resume,” she purrs.
I pause in processing Moonlight Lady submissions, and take a boo.
“Full-time Wiener Peeler,” says the ad.
Wazzat? I ask. A red-hot stripper?
“No. As in weenie. It’s got you written all over it, ” says Irene, and she flutters off.
Well, I’m getting sick of grinding out daily columns like hamburger. So I read on.
“Opportunity. Excitement. Teamwork. Respect.
“At Maple Leaf Foods we are committed to attracting, rewarding and retaining talented people who are passionate about making a positive impact in their professional and personal lives every day.”
A noble mission. What better way to pursue it than as a bona fide full-time professional wiener peeler. The opening is at Maple Leafs’ hotdog plant in Hamilton.
Imagine the awe when you tell fellow partiers your occupation.
Picture the lineup of schools recruiting for career days.
The teachers may giggle, but the kids will scream for free samples.
You’re on Price Is Right and Drew Carey says, “What d’ya do for a living up in Canada, Mikey?”
I peel wieners, Drew.
“Good for you. Wiener peeler. Hmmm. reminds me, folks, get your pets spayed or neutered.”
Anyway, I check around and find yet another job opening at Maple Leaf. Wiener stuffer. Hit it ...
I’m not the wiener stuffer
I’m the wiener stuffer’s son
I’m only stuffing ...
(Ed. note: Stop that, you hotdogger, or we’ll make you pose for a picture like Gilles Duceppe in the silly hairnet.)
NO! Not that! I’ll do anything, boss.
The photo of Duceppe in a cheese factory was a body blow to the Bloc. He looked like a weenie. Un chien chaud. Un hotdog.
I wonder. How do wiener peelers and stuffers look? All dressed?
I call Linda Smith at Maple Leaf Foods and ask: What company wit came up with those job titles?
“They’re in the union contract,” she says. “They’re really a kind of food-processing operator.”
So machines do the actual stuffing and peeling. Thank God. I can’t imagine sitting there all day, fingers numb, going, “hundred thousand and one weenies, hundred thousand and two weenies, hundred thousand and ...”
The wiener stuffer fills the tubular collagen casings with hot dog sludge. Since you asked, the ooze typically comprises mechanically separated chicken, pork, beef, water, wheat gluten, salt, sodium phosphate, spice, dextrose, corn syrup solids, sodium erythorbate, garlic powder, onion powder, sodium nitrite and smoke.
If you need to ask what mechanically separated chicken is, don’t.
Or go eat a veggie burger.
Once the dogs have been divided and smoked and solidified, the wiener peeler removes the casings.
The stuffer and peeler look like hazmat officials or Apollo astronauts.
They wear blue rubber and plastic head to toe, with hairnet, hardhats and mask. Plus earmuffs. Yes. All those dogs barking.
The hirings, says Smith, are to gear up for summer, when 60% of wieners are sold.
What a great job, eh?
I assume you get to take home any bent, twisted or otherwise defective wieners.
And you’d be in the pantheon of careers with chicken sexer, pet food tester, bounty hunter, odor reader, fortune cookie writer, golf ball diver and newspaper hack.
Plus, you’re wrapped in a soft, warm union. The Brotherhood of Bun Fillers (BBF), or whatever it’s called.
I can picture the negotiations:
“We want a raise, a longer lunch, three weeks holiday, dental coverage and pension improvements.
“But hold the mustard.”
I’ll trade you.
Would you like some freezing drizzle snow sleat flooding?
;-)
By the by, FReepmail.
No thanks. I have enough trouble with my balance. I don’t need slippery things under my feet, as well. ;o]
Do your neighbors need it?
I could send it to them.
Some of my neighbors may not need it, but I probably wouldn’t be sad if they had it. ;o]
It should be getting warmer here, but it isn’t!
We’re supposed to have 75 by Saturday, but that’s still jacket weather for me. I don’t really warm up until it gets to 90.
OOps, my aim must be off.
Recalibrate and try again. Oh, wait, now it’s 38 ... must have been a delay ...
I need to get the shopping list done. Seey’all.
Shopping list, compiled via application of mallets, right?
Story seed time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wAcX-gJY38
“You can close your eyes, it’s over now.”
He desperately wished that were so.
Story seed time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KyhcuFwdpM
It was like an endless dream, and he couldn’t wake from it.
Got any 3’s?
And with that, all thought stampeded out of me head.
Last thought out hung up a sign stating, “Heading to the pub, be back in a bit, maybe.”
LOL!
That’s funny!
“Am I the only man on Earth whose mind wanders off on coffee breaks?!”
Everyone looked at him with a look that said, “YES” beyond any shadow of a doubt.
But there’s a woman here whose mind wanders off on coffee breaks and sometimes, it forgets to come back. *sigh*
That’s expected.
Comes from being the ones who give birth.
That, and if you have multiple children you run through all the kids names, all the pets names and then finally settle on, “YOOOOOOOOU!” making everyone scatter.
If the female of the species didn’t take mental coffee siestas now and then, mankind would become extinct.
The female of the species needs that mental ‘away time to do repair to the psyche.
In men, such wanderings lead to existential questions and other annoyances like, “Where am I and how did I end up holding this puffer fish?”
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